Our Team
Founders
Grant Williard
President, Co-Founder
Grant is co-founder, President and manages the general business of JouleBug. Prior to JouleBug, Grant founded and bootstrapped a software company whose technology was acquired by Adobe Systems. Under his leadership, the company was consistently innovative and profitable for over 22 years. While he and a few other team members transitioned with the acquired technology to Adobe, Grant successfully led the remaining “original” company (I-Cubed/Navisware) through a leveraged buyout, transforming it to a broad-based employee owned company. After leaving Adobe, Grant began educating himself in the Behavioral, Energy and Climate Change Space, specifically the critical challenges that the world faces around our energy-use behaviors. Combining mobile, knowledge and social interaction, Grant believes JouleBug’s skilled and talented team can change the personal energy consumption game.
Joe Elliott
Lead Engineer, Co-Founder
As co-founder and our Lead Engineer, Joe keeps the JouleBug trains running and on time. He’s earned a mechanical engineering degree from NCSU and a master’s in sustainable energy engineering from KTH in Stockholm, Sweden, but Joe is a lifelong learner. He’s responsible for our technology and sustainability metrics. Joe loves climbing, anything outdoors and cooking local food.
John Williard
Lead Designer, Co-Founder
John is co-founder and Lead Designer at JouleBug. He earned his degrees in design and architecture at NCSU and finds them a great launchpad for his work with JouleBug. John leads the design and customer facing aspects of JouleBug and continually works to raise the bar on our user’s experience with the app. It seems he’s always working but still finds time to backpack, enjoy good food, beer, and baseball.
Board
Jim Baum
Board of Directors
Jim serves on our Board and was previously President and CEO at Netezza, which he took public and then led through the $1.7 billion acquisition by IBM. With an engineering background, Jim began his career with Parametric Technology Corporation before leaving to help build Endeca. Jim has more than twenty years of experience beginning with product management and spanning to CEO. Jim’s long history and expertise in data analytics is invaluable as JouleBug addresses the data analytics from players’ energy behavior activity.
Ken Schwenke
Board of Directors
A successful entrepreneur, Ken founded and led the Off-Campus Dining Network, LLC, which he sold to Sodexho, a $13B world leader in food and facilities management, in late 2006. Having completed the transition with Sodexho, Ken founded Gravitas LLC, an Executive and Board search firm and continues as its Managing Partner. In addition to teaching at the university level, Ken served as a Captain in the US Marine Corps and has held several executive positions with top tier companies such as PepsiCo, Honeywell, and Aramark. As an experienced leader, Ken’s understanding and experiences are instrumental resources for JouleBug.
James Wicker
Board of Directors
James is an entrepreneurial software engineer who co-founded the Navisware technology that was acquired by Adobe in 2005. After four years as a Lead Computer Scientist at Adobe—as the youngest senior scientist Adobe had ever seen–he moved on to co-found and lead the initial development at JouleBug. Currently Senior Software Engineer with Twitter, James works to create amazing products that have lasting, social value. As a member of our Board James serves as a technical resource to JouleBug.