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Peter Meekin joined Trident Capital as a Managing Director in 1999. He has more than 20 years of experience in software, information services, and technology consulting. Prior to joining Trident Capital, Meekin was Vice President of Venture Development at Enterprise Associates, LLC, the venture capital division of IMS Health. He has also held senior technology and management positions with Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, Lotus Development Corporation and IBM.
Current board-level service includes: Director-Arxan Technologies, Inc., Circles, Inc., Cymfony, Inc., Sygate Technologies, Thor Technologies, Inc. Past directorships: Berkeley Enterprise Partners, Inc., Customer Analytics, Inc., ELetter, Inc., ESS Software, Inc., MainControl, Inc.
A pioneer in healthcare pharmacy technology, Ron Taylor founded Pyxis Corp. in 1987 as one of the industry's first companies to specialize in integrated software and hardware technology solutions for hospitals and long-term care facilities. He took the venture capital financed company public in 1992 and set a new standard for the safe delivery of drugs and supplies nationwide. Taylor served as Pyxis Chairman and Chief Executive Officer until the firm was purchased by Cardinal Health, Inc. (NYSE: CAH) in 1996 for a record $1 billion.
After the sale and transition of Pyxis to Cardinal Health, Taylor spent several years as General Partner at Enterprise Partners Venture Capital. He is currently an independent investor and serves as Board Director for three publicly traded companies, Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE:WPI), ResMed Corporation (NYSE: RMD) and WestCoast Hospitality Corp. (NYSE: WEH). Taylor also serves as Foundation Chair at the University of California, San Deigo and remains Chairman of The Board for three privately held companies, Asteres Inc., 3E Company and EMNS Corporation.
Layton Crouch has been a successful venture executive in the healthcare industry for over 35 years. Crouch serves on the board of PVG companies: AD PathLabs and LifeMasters Supported Self Care and is responsible for PVG's investments in Long Term Care Group, CHD Meridian and Vasca.
Significant previous management and investment experience includes an eight-year term as President and CEO of UniHealth Ventures. There he led the start-up development of CareAmerica Health Plans (which grew to $500 million in revenue prior to sale), the development and profitable sale of Medcomm Management, and the successful merger of CliniShare and National In-Home Health, which included dialysis, homecare and pharmacy services.
Crouch also directed the acquisition of the assets of six medical groups and IPAs representing over 2,000 physicians and combined revenues of $150 million, which formed a physician management services company. Additional companies developed/directed by Mr. Crouch include activities in managed healthcare IT and managed care TPA/contracting. Prior to UniHealth Ventures, Mr. Crouch served in numerous executive positions in hospitals, including serving as a hospital CEO and regional CEO.
Donald Jones is a Managing Director of Draper Triangle Ventures. He is a nationally recognized entrepreneur and investor with over 30 years of experience in growing early stage companies. Jones was the founder and CEO of four highly successful technology companies — International Cybernetics Corporation, Control Systems Research, Technology Recognition Corporation and IndustryNet.
Jones is a director of numerous portfolio companies and has also served on the boards of several publicly held companies. He endowed the Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University. Jones is an electrical engineering/computer science graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and is an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Graduate School of Industrial Administration.
Sean McDonald is the founder and past president of McKesson Automated Healthcare, a venture-backed company, sold to McKesson in 1996 for $65 million. He developed a centralized automated drug distribution system for hospital pharmacies. McDonald is now the president of Precision Therapeutics, a company that provides comprehensive, personalized, cancer management information to the medical and biopharmaceutical communities.
He received a BS in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania (1982) and an MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Florida (1985). McDonald received a Smithsonian Institution award for heroic achievement in information technology. He is Chairman of the Pittsburgh Technology Council and has served on the boards of several companies.
Henry Thorne is an innovator who enjoys great thoughts and trying to turn them into reality. A graduate of the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University in the early 80s, Thorne worked at General Motors for five years engineering robotic systems including the largest and most reliable robotic arc welding assembly line ever created producing five miles of linear arc weld per day for the frames of most GM cars. He founded Cycle Time Corporation in 1990 where he created the first graphic user interface for industrial robots. That technology is now used on over 5,000 robots within Big Three Automotive. While at Cycle Time, he also engineered the first fully automated tool center point calibration system which is licensed exclusively to the largest robot company in the world, ABB Robotics Inc.
In 1995, Thorne turned his attention to mobile robots and created the first personal robot — CYE — which was sold by Probotics Inc. and then later by The Educational Robot Company. He founded Aethon in 2001 to commercialize a larger and more capable mobile robot, TUG, which is used to autonomously deliver supplies of all kinds to hospital departments. In 2005, Thorne co-founded Thorley Industries to innovate and drive business in existing consumer markets where the continued decline in the cost of electronics enables the delivery of new benefits at standard price points. The first Thorley Industries creation is 4Moms (www.4momsonline.com), a juvenile product company with a line of revolutionary infant bathing products.
David Ward founded Salix Ventures with Chris Grant in 1997 and works in the Nashville, TN office. Prior to Salix, Ward was instrumental in the start-up and growth of two companies. As Vice President of Development at MedCath (Nasdaq: MDTH), a cardiovascular services provider, he was instrumental in conceiving, planning and executing the company's strategy for developing specialty heart hospitals, the first independent, freestanding specialized facilities in the United States dedicated to cardiovascular care.
Ward commenced his career at Bain Capital and was part of a team that conceived, developed, and implemented the business plan for MediVision. As Director of Development and then Vice President of Operations, he acquired, developed and later managed, numerous eye surgery centers and their affiliated practices.
After MediVision was acquired by Medical Care International, Ward served as Medical Care's Vice President of Managed Care. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University in 1979 with an AB in economics and received his JD and MBA from Stanford University in 1983.
Aldo Zini has been at the forefront of the technology revolution in hospital patient safety for more than 15 years, instrumental in driving change into a marketplace attached to the status quo. He continues that leadership as President and CEO of Aethon, a robotic engineering company that has developed an innovative automation platform to improve supply chain logistics. Aethon's current focus is healthcare, where its core product TUG is being used to automate the delivery of goods (meds, supplies, meals, equipment, etc.) in hospitals.
Zini's successes began long before taking the helm at Aethon. His contributions to technology driven companies have led to acquisitions worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars.
From 1991-96, he was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Automated Healthcare, which developed the first robotic medication dispensing system for hospitals (ROBOT-Rx) and was acquired by McKessonHBOC in 1996 for $67 million. He joined the founder during the early stage startup of this company and played a key role in VC funding, company and product development, product launch, sales and marketing.
From 1996-99, Zini assumed corporate responsibilities with McKessonHBOC as Senior Vice President of Marketing, where his Institutional Division's annual sales grew from $1 billion to $5 billion. Zini played a key role in building this company into one of the largest success stories in Pittsburgh. Automated Healthcare (now McKesson Automation Group) has generated more revenue and employed more people than any other technology company in the region over the last 15 years.
Before joining and investing in Aethon, he was Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing for TechRX, the largest provider of software solutions to the pharmacy industry, which was sold to NDC Corporation for over $200 million.
In 2002, Zini invested in the start-up of Aethon — founded by robot entrepreneur Henry Thorne — and joined the company to lead its sales and marketing efforts. Soon after Aethon’s first institutional funding, Zini became the company’s President and CEO.
Zini owns several patents in medication dispensing technology, and is credited with the development of key methodologies in quantifying the value proposition for several technology platforms deployed in hundreds of hospitals across the country.
Zini received a BS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and graduated with high honors from Carnegie-Mellon (1987), where he received a Master’s in Public Management (Health Systems IT).