Management Team

The Apisphere management team consists of passionate and experienced visionary entrepreneurs, dedicated to bringing forth a new world of dynamic, vital communications in the mobile space.

Craig Harper, co-founder and CEO

Craig has more than 22 years experience as a visionary, entrepreneur and manager. Prior to co-founding Apisphere, he held positions as President/CTO at Lilien Systems were he was responsible for growing company revenues 375% over four years. Craig was the CTO and a member of the founding executive team at Avasta (now Navisite).  While at Avasta, Craig was named one of the Top 50 IT Executives at xSPs InfoWorld magazine. An author of over 50 papers he has completed the Channel Elite MBA Program at Babson College in Boston, MA., has an honorary Masters Degree in Information Technology Management from Cornwall University, and BS degrees in Quantitative Economics & Decision Science and Computer Science from the University of California, San Diego.

Vincent Sheffer, Vice President of Engineering

Vince brings 12 years of experience to his position as Apisphere’s VP of Engineering. His career includes background as a software architect and engineering manager in a wide variety of industries, ranging from aerospace to online publishing. Most recently, he was Engineering Manager at CNET, where he developed its next-generation content management system, which consolidates and unifies many disparate CMS tools. He also led CNET’s API – a Web service that allows developers to access CNET-created content. Prior to his position at CNET, Vince was Chief Product Engineer at Sun Microsystems, Inc., where he managed teams implementing Sun’s remotely managed services based on his managed services platform. He also served as Chief Architect at Avasta, where he helped design and implement the Prasma platform as well as Avasta’s management portal. Vince received an MS in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology at its Lorraine, France, campus where he did operations research at the French research lab INRIA. He also has a Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech.

Vytas SunSpiral, CTO

Vytas recently lead Robotic Manipulation Research efforts for the Intelligent Robotics Group at the NASA Ames Research Center, and was employed by Carnegie Mellon University. His 12 years of robotics research has covered a wide range of topics including: Motion Planning, Trajectory Tracking, Simultaneous Localization and Mapping, Artificial Intelligence, Probabilistic Reasoning, Human Robot Interaction, Computer Vision, and Robust Autonomous Operations. His recent work focused on situational awareness, robotic manipulation and a six legged walking robot for Lunar Exploration. Prior to NASA, Vytas was the Technical Manager and Robot Personality Engineer at Mobot Inc., a start-up that built and installed fully autonomous robotic tour guides which were able to localize and navigate without human assistance for museums and other public spaces. Vytas holds an MS in Computer Science and a BA in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University.

Warren Hewerdine, General Manager Geomate, Vice President Marketing

With over 10 years experience in GPS product development and product marketing, Warren was previously a Senior Marketing Manager with SiRF Technology, a fast growing consumer GPS IC company - driving product development and corporate communications from pre to post-IPO. Prior to this, he was a Product Manager with Trimble Navigation, a $3.5 billion GPS company. Most recently however, Warren co-founded Navit Innovations – a company focused on developing affordable, easy to use GPS products – that was acquired by Apisphere. Warren holds a Bachelor of Science in Geomatics Engineering with Honors from RMIT University, Australia, and a Graduate Degree in Management and Marketing from Canterbury University, New Zealand.

Chris Marshall, Director of Business Development

Chris has held leadership positions in various Silicon Valley start-ups.  Prior to Apisphere, he was Director of Sales and Business Development at LegalMatch, where helped drive major regional offices to rapid profitability.  Chris held a senior management role at SmartAge, where he negotiated and expanded marquee partnerships with major players such as AT&T, Bell Canada, Dell, and Southern Bell. These partnerships accounted for more than 15% of total company membership growth over an 18 month period Chris started his career as the fifth sales person to be hired at Concentric Networks, now XO Communications, where he contributed to the successful sales launch of two enterprise level products, and recruited channel partners in the central U.S. A firm believer in working with non-profits, Chris has donated thousands of hours of his time to organizations dedicated to solving problems related to child literacy, drug treatment, and the homeless. Mr. Marshall is an Eagle Scout.

Robert Harvey, Director of Hardware Engineering

Robert has been engaged in GPS-based software development for over ten years - most recently as a software architect for a GPS semi-conductor manufacturer. Prior to this, he was a technical lead on wireless adoptions of GPS to mobile handsets. He has worked on combined GNSS systems, integrated sensor systems, and has extensive experience and believes strongly in market-driven and goal-orientated software product development. Robert has a M.Sc. in Geomatics Engineering from the University of Calgary and a B.Sc. in Engineering Physics from Queen's University, Kingston, Canada.