This month’s spotlight features one of our beloved Synergis founders, Bill Stamp. Bill, along with Janet Kiehart and David Sharp, founded the company in 1984. In 1990, while working with Scott Paper Company, Bill first realized the need for an automation tool to control and manage electronic engineering documents and drawings. Bill brought the idea for a network file manager to his fellow founders and a short time later, NFM (Network File Manager), the predecessor to Synergis Adept, was born!
Today, Bill serves as our Chief Software Architect for Synergis Software. In this role, Bill has responsibility for our Synergis Adept platform product design, contributing to our development efforts and supporting customers in the field. Throughout his 37-year tenure, Bill has had the opportunity to envision, invent and collaborate on the platform design, features, functionality and use of Adept. He humbly attributes much of the platform’s success to his teammates in our software release and development organization, and he fully understands that our customer’s success is a result of cross-functional teamwork. What he enjoys most about working at Synergis is working with others to share ideas, actively solving problems, pitching in on sales calls to help customers understand our platform, supporting our technical resources in the field and our inhouse helpdesk team.
For Bill, it’s all about working with others – his fellow Synergites and our valued customers. “We’ve come a long way from the days of working in a garage, to a company that supports the livelihood of nearly 100 employees and their families, and positively impacts companies around the world who use our products. What motivates me is knowing my efforts have a positive impact on our customers and my friends at Synergis. I look forward to helping manifest the new ideas and products we are envisioning. The best is yet to come.”
On a personal note, Bill is happily married to his wife, Heidi, of 31 years and together they have two cats, Buddy and Molly, who will often make guest appearances during our Zoom calls. Together, Bill and Heidi support the Boston Animal Rescue League whose mission is to rescue all sorts of homeless and abused animals from donkeys to dogs and cats. When I asked Bill about his favorite quote, he said simply, “Trust in God, but tie your camel.”
In his spare time, Bill enjoys anything having to do with nature, working out, playing guitar, being with his family, and learning new technology. As our Chief Architect, Bill spends a great deal of time thinking and obsessing about technology. One of Bill’s favorite Synergis Family Values is ““Be an architect & Agent for Innovation and Change.” Bill recognizes that “Technology is moving so fast. Change is with us every day, and it’s both exhilarating and challenging.”
To give you a little more insight into the marvel that is Bill, his friends and co-workers have told him that if they had to cross the ocean in a Kon-Tiki Raft, they’d want Bill with them. He jokingly adds, “I don’t think it’s because I’m great company, I just have a talent for seeing a way through problems and situations.”
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of working with Bill, then you’d know that his superpower is his ability to understand a problem, look at it from different perspectives, and through collaboration and the application of technology, design and deliver an elegant solution. Sounds like the job description of a Chief Software Architect to me!
