The Omni Group

Ken Case — Founder, Chief Executive Officer

Ken Case is Chairman and CEO of the Omni Group, which he founded with Tim Wood and Wil Shipley. Ken is a computer geek at heart, and continues to contribute directly to all of Omni’s products as an interface designer and software engineer, most recently working on the iPad editions of OmniGraffle, OmniFocus and OmniOutliner. Before founding Omni in 1992, Ken worked as an application programmer for NeXT, a systems programmer for the University of Washington, and a systems administrator for both the Center for Process Analytical Chemistry and Statistical Sciences, Inc.

During his early career he developed software for over eighteen operating systems, but since finding the NeXT / Mac / iOS platform he’s been happy to focus on the platform which he feels makes our team the most productive. He’s contributed free source code to the net throughout his career, and has used both emacs and vi daily for over twenty-five years (avoiding flame wars with either camp). Ken lives in Seattle with his wife of nineteen years, his two daughters (ages eleven and nine), and their cat (the spawn of Omni’s office cat).

Molly Reed — Chief Operating Officer

Molly has a keen eye for detail and desire to optimize, which is good because she handles our finances, marketing, operations and user experience; she deals in what we call The Real World.

For example she tries to prevent us from burning down the building during an attempt to combine the sports of Polo and Peep Jousting. If someone tries to break into the building at 3AM, she gets a call. Molly also makes sure we have insurance, in case we do attempt such an awesome a terrible idea as Peep Polo and hurt ourselves in the process.

She is happiest when she is buried deep in the function catalogue of a spreadsheet. Molly received her MBA from the University of Washington.

Molly is a native Pacific Northwesterner that is actively offended by socks with sandals.

Grayson West — Marketing Manager

Grayson hails from the south coast of Oregon. A competitive cyclist since the age of 14, Grayson dropped out of college after one year and pursued a career as a professional cyclist. That dream culminated in two years of amateur racing in Belgium, France and Holland. After falling short of his dream of a professional cycling glory, due to a broken femur while racing in France, Grayson went back to America to discover what he wanted to do with his life.

After healing near the beaches of San Clemente California, Grayson decided to surf his days away along the Pacific Coast of North and Central America. But after soon discovering that playing the ocean did not pay the bills, he found himself back at college studying the arts. He attended Savannah College of Art and Design and Northern Arizona University, where he received his B.F.A. in visual communication.

At Omni, Grayson does graphic design for marketing materials including retail packaging, promotional materials, website graphics, advertising, and more.

Derek Reiff

In college, Derek did something with computers and journalism and running. Now, of course, he’s in Seattle. (Because why not?) Having lost both his wallet and favorite sweatshirt on two separate cross-country drives, we’re not letting him leave the 206 for the time being.

His recent projects include trying to persuade others to go halves on a sailboat buying sailboats, drinking lattes, and brewing drinkable beer. 

Aaron Bendickson — System Administrator

Aaron came to Omni by way of Tacoma Washington, Missoula Montana, Boston Massachusetts, and eventually Tacoma again. He and his family recently moved to Seattle in order to reduce his commute to a reasonable level. Like most sys-admin types he lacks any inclination towards graphic design and though he can effortlessly install, configure, backup and maintain any website you throw at him… don’t expect him to be able to make it LOOK good. A significant portion of his free time is dedicated to the making of music, which occasionally carries the added bonus of being mildly profitable. However, he’s learning that late night blues gigs don’t mix well with his young children’s sleeping habits. Sleep deprivation is a way of life… isn’t it?

Likes: The Simpsons (prerequisite for being a sys-admin), good coffee (black, none of those foofy drinks), Battlestar Galactica (duh), vi, Strongbad Emails, and Moose Drool.

Dislikes: text messages, poorly adjusted flat-panel televisions with the picture all stretched out, World of Warcraft (sssh… don’t tell anyone at Omni or they’ll probably fire him), and commuting.

Tami Needham — Operations Assistant

Tami somehow entered the realms of Omni without ever having heard of Battlestar Galactica or playing World of Warcraft. Prior to her Omni days, Tami studied Psychology at Seattle Pacific University. Before coming to Omni, Tami spent her days doing stuff like working with troubled adolescent boys and becoming a certified bra fitter at Nordstrom’s.

She has a green Jeep Wrangler named Jewel that occasionally carries her long distances through the ridiculous winter we seem to be having. She organizes “boutique-style” yard sales, but refuses to define what “boutique-style” means, so we’re going to assume it means cookies. 

Like the three-headed dog Cerberus of greek mythology, Tami fiercely defends our gates, protecting us from scary folk like the UPS delivery man. She demonstrates her awesomeness by doing so with two fewer heads.

Jane Hall — Kitchen Manager

Jane describes herself as “a modest woman,” but luckily there plenty of folks at Omni who are willing to do a little boasting on her behalf. Dear reader, please know that every single one of the following facts about her are true: She rides a perhaps too cool black/magenta/electric blue motorcycle to work. She can often be seen rocking the skins in an arabic music band around the Seattle area. One of her previous bands was named “The Bucharest Drinking Team”. Last but not least, she once played a clown show. In Hong Kong. A CLOWN SHOW IN HONG KONG. We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried, people. Hear us now and believe us later: Jane is rad.

Kristen Powell — Kitchen Assistant

Born with a dollar and six dimes under the mountain Auyantepui in Salto Angel, Venezuela, his mother mistook him for a girl and named him Kristen in a moment of confusion. When she realized her mistake she decided to move him to the ghettos of California, but he ran away from the ‘hood to the safety of Redondo Beach. When he found out about the life in Seattle he said to himself, “this is the last boat I will be on….”

Andrew Abernathy

Andrew is mostly responsible for our spiffy online store, but has also worked on OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle and contributes to various of our products as a member of the user experience team. In his past, Andrew wrote traffic control systems software for five years before escaping VMS, DOS, and Atlanta. His flight took him to Seattle where he worked on AT&T Cellular Services’ NeXTstep-based cellular offerings software for a year and a half before landing at Omni.

Andrew has been programming since the early eighties (which also explains his taste in music). He was first able to program on NeXTstep around 1990, and was delighted to magically find himself a Mac developer after Apple bought NeXT at the end of 1996. He worked on major consulting projects in Omni’s past, including AirMail—a NeXTstep-based OpenMail client, Standard & Poor’s Personal Wealth, and the YourSchoolShop.com and GreaterGood.com cause-based web sites, but gets to focus on Omni’s own applications now that we have transitioned from consulting to consumer software.

Coming as he does from the deep South, Andrew fails to appreciate the fine seafood on offer in Seattle, but wishes there were more good southern BBQ restaurants nearby, though the lack of sweet iced tea is probably good for him.

Andrew Burkhalter

Andrew has, in chronological order: been born, played sports, earned degrees in computer science and music theory, escaped Indiana, gotten hitched, saved the environment, come to work at the Omni Group, and fathered an unreasonably cute child.

His best attributes include, in random order: nerd cred (he has been caught talking to himself in Ewok), a handsome face (he was once mistaken for Josh Groban by a woman wearing a Josh Groban jacket), and mad skillz (see: the ever-improving OmniFocus).

He is also very humble, which is why his wife wrote this bio.

Curt Clifton

Before joining Omni, Curt was already a long-time user of OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, and OmniFocus. He once procrastinated for three months on his PhD dissertation by writing OmniOutliner scripts to manage his task management system. Being a bright guy, the irony was not lost on him.

Curt came to the Omni Group from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, where he was an associate professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering. He wanted see how great software is made in the real world these days. It seems to involve great people, a passion for making beautiful things, and extraordinary amounts of coffee. Since he’s a fan of all three, he decided to stick around. At the Omni Group Curt is working primarily on OmniOutliner.

Curt started his professional life as an electrical engineer with IBM and Procter & Gamble. After ensuring the uninterrupted supply of mouthwash for the free world, he decided to pursue his love of bits and bytes, earning his PhD in Computer Science from Iowa State University in 2005. When not programming, Curt can be found on the roads and trails around Seattle wearing out another pair of running shoes or hiking boots.

Tim Ekl

Tim developed his first iOS application in 2008 as a fun weekend project on a then-new iPhone 3G, with no real intention of expanding his Objective-C skills. Years later, he somehow managed to leverage that project (and the several dozen since) into a full-time career with Omni, where he primarily works on OmniFocus.

In the interim, Tim earned his B.S. from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, where he helped develop several computer science courses and tried to force other students to learn about Ruby and GitHub. After graduating, Tim returned for his Masters of Engineering Management, which consisted mostly of cross-listed software engineering courses. Between classes, he spent an inordinate amount of time writing open-source software (which is a fancy way to say “Minecraft server plugins”).

Tim moved to Seattle from the suburbs of Chicago, bringing with him a MacBook Pro and a 42U server rack. He maintains that the Nintendo 64 is the best gaming console and has a deep affinity for Starbucks, which coincides well with Omni’s location.

Ryan Patrick

Ryan was born and raised in Syracuse, NY which explains why he thinks that Seattle has fabulous weather year-round. In a previous life, he was a mechanical engineer and spent a few years designing airplane engines (so, yes, you should be afraid to fly). After realizing that he enjoyed algorithms and conditional loops over gears and coefficients of friction, Ryan went back to school and got his Masters in CS from George Washington University in 2003.

When not programming, Ryan can be found outside on either a trail or a bike.

He works so that he can support his soccer habit and is still expecting a call from the national team.

Greg Titus

Greg Titus is currently development lead on OmniPlan, after spending much of his time before that on OmniGraffle 2, 3, and 4.

Greg joined Omni Development in late 1993, just after the company was incorporated. He came to Omni after four years at Microsoft, where he concentrated on software development tools and internet applications, helping to develop automated system testing software for OS/2 and Windows 3.1, internet FTP and SMTP servers for Windows NT, and designing a debugger of distributed object-oriented programs for the cancelled Cairo operating system.

In his Omni-past, Greg initially specialized in index and database optimization, doing web indexing work for both InfoSeek (now Go.com) and Excite, and implementation of a third-tier database caching architecture for AT&T Wireless Services. Greg has led analysis, design, and development for many of Omni’s past custom consulting projects, including Personal Wealth, Greater Good, and Enterprise Co-op.

Kristina Sontag — Test Manager

Growing up in Northern California, Kristina’s love for science and technology was nurtured by the educational nature of every toy and science kit she earned with her chore money. She spent many childhood hours hunched over her Commodore VIC-20 keyboard learning the basics of BASIC. Taking a job testing software at LucasArts Games while in college, Kristina turned her love of technology into a 20-year career spanning two states and many different areas of the computer industry.

At Omni she can be found making software misbehave and slowly converting her coworkers into Seattle Sounders supporters. Outside of Omni she can be found wearing seasonally inappropriate scarves while singing in the Brougham End and teaching her young son to appreciate the beautiful game.

Kam Dahlin

Kam comes from a background of professional audio engineering and production. He spent eight of his nearly ten year career, recording, mixing, editing, and building studios on land and at sea for Vulcan Inc. During this time, Kam worked on the music software DrumCore and its little brother KitCore, did his best to maintain recording systems in differing time zones, and generally tried to find the cleanest way to wrangle sound waves into 1s and 0s. After Vulcan Kam started his own residential systems integration company, but quickly decided that food and shelter were important - he was fortunate enough to then find Omni. Today he can be found in a dark office critiquing and breaking others’ hard work.

During his off hours Kam does AV integration and design work and tries to manage two rowdy little boys.

He is a member of the Audio Engineering Society and prefers music that hasn’t been smashed and squeezed to bits.

Derek Motonaga

Derek is well-loved by all of us here at Omni, but seems to be particularly well-loved by Lotus, our office cat. In fact, he’s so well-loved that we’ve dubbed him “Mister Tunapants”. Seriously, the wake that cat leaves as she bounds through the office towards Derek’s lap could snap your neck if you’re not careful. Derek also likes robots a whole bunch and plays a lot of World of Warcraft. He spends his time here figuring out how to break our software and refusing to write his own bio.

Dan Segars

Dan’s roots are in the deep South. He graduated from the University of Alabama - hence his enjoyment of sweet tea - but he grew up all over the US of A as an Army brat. After meeting his beautiful wife in the Pacific Northwest he decided in 2002 to settle in Seattle.

After leaving his professional soccer caree… wait, that didn’t happen, now, did it? Darn. Anyway, Dan came to the tech field with little more than just a passion to learn and to help technology be a joy for people to use. Dan is driven by quality, simplicity, and can also be found pointing out pesky bugs in Omni’s software.

When he’s not working on Omni products, you can find Dan spending time with his family, playing guitar, kicking a soccer ball, or enjoying a delicious beverage. (Favorites include IPAs, glass-bottle-cane-sugar-taste-bud-pleasin’ Mexican Coke, and caramel lattes.) With three children under the age of seven, he tries to squeeze room in for sleep every once in a while.

Brian Covey — Support Manager

Brian is something of an anomaly amongst the members of The Omni Group, since he didn’t enter college until well after he could legally operate a motor vehicle, has more affection for Portland* than Seattle despite living here for over a decade, and believes that Babylon 5, not Star Wars, is the definitive science fiction work of the latter half of the twentieth century.

Firefly, of course, is the first great work of the twenty-first, though Battlestar Galactica was comin’ on strong for a couple of seasons. It was a good thing they ended the show with that daring jump away from New Caprica. If the show had continued from there, it might have devolved into a boring show about feelings without any shooty-robot parts and would’ve had a hand-wavy, unsatisfying final episode. Man, we’re so lucky. That. Didn’t. Happen.

By virtue of being hired before the rest of them, he ended up leading our league of support humans.

* Pre-“Portlandia” Portland, that is. He looks forward to returning to his homeland once the hipster-bubble pops and it returns to not caring about being cool.

Aaron Cherof

Aaron comes to Seattle from Florida via Boston. After no winters and decidedly real winters, he enjoys the pleasant fake winters that can be experienced in the Pacific Northwest.

In his non-Omni time (nOmni time?), Aaron writes music and does all manner of audio work. He also pretends to be a foodie.

David Messent

Dave answers support email for OmniWeb and is the Product Manager for OmniGraphSketcher. Born and raised in Seattle, he enjoys a quiet life at home with his wife, dog, and growing ukulele collection. Prior to joining Omni, Dave made coffee and powerpoints about mobile phones (though not at the same time).

April Ramm

April grew up in South Park (the Seattle neighborhood, not that other one on TV) as a mechanic’s daughter. She had to learn how to rebuild an engine before she was allowed to drive. She quickly realized that she liked fixing things but wasn’t so keen on the whole grease thing; computers seemed like a natural next step.

Fast forward a few years, add a husband, three kids, and a dog. April thinks computers are cool, but traveling all over the country to fix them isn’t. She greatly prefers helping folks learn about our products.

In her free time, she likes shows and movies about robots and spaceships, often when they’re making each other go Kaboom. Her favorite member of the X-men is Kurt Wagner; she also likes to do crafty things like woodworking, knitting, and sewing, especially while her husband is busy getting his Tyranid army ready for their next campaign.

Steve Schenk

A chameleon of sorts, Steve has roots in central Illinois and arrived in the northwest via Brooklyn, NY. He comes to us with years of field experience with a well-known orchard and a Psychology degree from the University of Illinois. In the summer of 2004, Steve decided Seattle was the place to be after taking a solo road trip to the region in his 1977 VW Westy and drinking real coffee for the first time.

When he’s not at Omni taking calls and responding to email, you’ll find him tackling tv show marathons with his girlfriend, playing guitar, or running, though not usually at the same time. Myers-Briggs says that Steve is an INTP.

William Van Hecke — User Experience Lead

“User Experience Lead” is the nebulous job of making software civilized enough to bring out in public. This involves lots of squinting six inches away from the Cinema Display at 3200% zoom and consulting etymology dictionaries to properly label buttons. It often ends up entwined with documentation, marketing, testing, customer support, and Dungeon Mastering too.

Bill has lived near Chicago, where he wrote odd code for companies on the Board of Trade, and in Green Bay, where he operated nocturnally for a year. He also spends a prodigious amount of time in Tokyo, and has learned exotic foreign languages such as Dvorak, Python, and New Standard Tuning.

When not shoveling pixels or graphemes, Bill likes creating video games, translating video games, and, occasionally, playing video games.

David Lonning — Documentation Wrangler

Dave hails from the wilds of Minnesota by way of eight years in Japan, where he was exposed to the mysterious mineral hot springs that are the source of his technical writing prowess. He honed those skills at a small games localization company before finding a home at Omni, where he treats crafting manuals and in-app help as a labor of love.

He has been known to make music in service of Omni’s marketing videos, and is secretly trying to rally support for a company-wide talent show. When not word- or tunesmithing he enjoys just about any game that can be played on a table, and a lot of computer-based ones as well.