Richard E. Fisher, CEO:

In 1995, Rick co-founded Bargain Network, Inc. (BNI), which grew into one of the nation’s most respected direct-to-consumer marketing organizations. He oversaw BNI’s in-house media agency, which was responsible for the design and successful deployment of more than $120 million in print, television and online advertising. During his tenure there, BNI generated more than 100 million inbound sales inquiries and grew annual sales to more than $40 million. The success of BNI’s marketing team was viewed as a significant asset in the $60m sale of BNI to Vertrue(VTRU). In 2003, Rick joined Specialty Merchandise Corporation, a well-established direct marketing organization. As Senior Vice President, Member Acquisition, Rick led a reinvention of the firm’s direct-to-consumer marketing model, helping migrate SMC’s sales efforts from outbound to inbound marketing, as well as significantly increasing SMC’s presence online and in short form TV advertising. In 2005, Rick founded Permilia, Inc. which has developed into a leading provider of direct to consumer marketing and engineering services

Rob Manser, COO:

In 1998 Rob co-founded Service Objects, which provided web engineering services and data validation tools. He was responsible for client services, project architecture and management. He engineered and built early search engine technology for the real-estate market and was responsible for the design and launch of Bargain.com with a focus on customer acquisition and retention. In 2003 Rob successfully launched a new company, Discount Direct, with Eric Robson. Discount Direct was built to provide members with access to coupons, discounts and sub-retail pricing on a number of consumer durables.

Rob then supported Rick Fisher in the re-invention of SMC's direct to consumer marketing efforts. He helped rebuild the call center to take inbound customer inquiries and implemented real time reporting systems for both online and offline that helped drive record acquisition. In 2005 Rob started Permilia with Rick Fisher and Eric Robson with the goal to bring a different service level and perspective the DR agency business. Rob’s passions include Literature, Beach Volleyball, Surfing and Kayaking

Phil Requist, CIO:

Phil received his B.A. in Business Economics and Political Science from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he immersed himself in systems technology. In the early 1990’s, Phil served as an independent programming consultant, which led to his position as senior database administrator at Specialized, Inc., an information technology provider to the mortgage services industry.

Phil then joined Bargain Network (BNI) in 1996 as both senior database administrator and lead programmer, with overall responsibility for the design and programming of the company's increasingly sophisticated information systems. In 2000, Phil was promoted to Senior Vice President, Information Technology and in 2003 was named Chief Information Officer. During this time of enormous growth at BNI, Phil managed the evolution of the company’s databases, systems applications and reporting modules. He orchestrated the integration of these elements into a proprietary enterprise system that ranked among the finest in the direct marketing industry. The extraordinary value and utility of BNI’s information systems was a significant factor in the company’s 2005 acquisition for $60 million

Eric Robson, Enterprise Web Infrastructure Architect:

Eric received his B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, while focusing heavily on working with team members to find economically feasible solutions to engineering problems. He then received his Masters in Computational Neuroscience from the University of Texas Graduate School of Biological Sciences in Houston, writing software to mathematically model complex electrochemical interactions. Eric then moved to Santa Barbara for the great weather and applied his programming experience to the web world, developing a suite of Data On-Time Services (DOTS) for Service Objects, Inc. DOTS is now a leading product in the real-time data validation space. He also wrote and maintained two generations of the Bargain.com website for Bargain Network (BNI). The BNI website aggregated housing listings from dozens of sources in real - time and was a critical component of BNI's product offering