Two CAD industry veterans with executive leadership experience are joining @Last Software, makers of the popular 3D design software SketchUp.
Mark Sawyer, most recently of Graphisoft, will be the new CEO. Sawyer was most recently Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations for Graphisoft, where he was in charge of sales. For several years he was in charge of the AEC group at Autodesk, among other responsibilities.
Richard Coons will become the new Vice President of Sales for @Last. He is the founder of what became known as Access Graphics, a reseller for UNIX-based vendors including Sun Microsystems and SGI. Access Graphics was acquired by General Electric in 1997, and renamed to Access Distribution earlier this year, after having been known as GE Access for several years.
“Our growth has been so dramatic that we felt it was time to bring in some help,” @Last co-founder and current CEO Brad Schell wrote in the SketchUp newsletter, sent to subscribers October 27, 2004. “Both of these guys have impressive backgrounds but, more importantly, they are passionate about SketchUp and the potential of @Last.”
Schell plans to stay active in the company. As he wrote in the newsletter, “I'm not going anywhere. This is going to be a blast for me. I get to get back to what I love—cooking up new ideas, doing the ‘vision’ thing, talking to customers… This is a great move for the company and the best is yet to come.”