Meet the Second Porch team

Second Porch is a completely new concept in the explosively growing vacation rental marketplace based on a simple idea: people should consider renting to and from the people they know and trust, And owners should be able to easily find other trustworthy owners with whom to trade homes. So in 5 minutes or less, a homeowner can list in our fast-growing application that maximizes the dynamic social interactions that Facebook enables for 250 million people so far.

Brent Hieggelke, President and Board member

Brent has more than 20 years of executive management experience, with a range of experience as a high tech marketing executive focused on high-growth, turnaround, and entrepreneurial marketing assignments. In 1986, Brent co-founded NewCity Communications, an alternative media company in Chicago (www.NewCity.com).

In 1996, Brent moved to Oregon to run marketing at ABC Technologies, where he won several software marketing awards. The company was eventually sold to SAS Institute, the largest private software company in the world. In 2000, Brent was recruited to run marketing at fast-growing WebTrends. The company grew from $19 million to $61 million in his first year. The company was acquired by NetIQ. In 2003, Brent was named one the top B2B marketers of the year. In 2005, the WebTrends division was sold off to Francisco Partners, a private equity firm.

In 2006, Brent became CMO of Touch Clarity out of London, where he repositioned the company, launched an industry analyst program, made key partner business development introductions, which played a key role in eventually selling the company to Omniture just 9 months later. Brent then spent the next 18 months at Omniture as a company evangelist and strategic marketing executive, before leaving to start Second Porch Inc.

You can follow Brent on twitter: @bhieggelke
You can view Brent's second porch here: http://apps.facebook.com/secondporch/properties/1

Kerry Kelley, Vice President & Board member

Kerry is an experienced technology executive with over 25 years of increasing responsibility for operations, business strategy, product planning & development. Kerry began his career as an engineer developing office and factory automation tools for Georgia Pacific Corporation while completing an MS in Management at Georgia State University in Atlanta. In 1984, Kerry joined Apple Computer as a field engineer and technology consultant, supporting the sales force with product rollouts, technical presentations and product integration efforts.

Moving to Portland in 1989, Kerry joined Now Software as a product line manager, leveraging design principles learned at Apple to win multiple industry awards and deliver the first peer to peer desktop calendar and contact manager products. He conceived and led the development of the first browser plug-ins for portable contacts and calendar events, which eventually led to today’s vcard and vcalendar standards. Joining Extensis in 1999 as VP of Products & Services, Kerry positioned and led the company through the launch of web portal creativepro.com, converted several key software products to web services, and the successful sale and integration into strategic buyer ImageX.com.

In 2002 Kerry became VP of Product Management at SnapNames.com, leading the company through a fundamental service and business model redesign from its initial subscription offering into the largest daily online auction of domain names in the world. The shift was responsible in driving revenue from $9 to $49 million over a 2-year period and culminated in the sale of the company to strategic investor Oversee.net in the Spring of 2007. After fulfilling post-sale company integration obligations, Kerry joined Brent to co-found Second Porch.

Brian Walsh, Founding Software Architect

With 20+ years in software engineering and engineering management, Brian provides technical leadership with business focus. He is skilled in all aspects of the software lifecycle including planning, management, architecture, design, implementation and qualification. For the last 10 years, Brian has operated his own engineering consulting company in Portland Oregon. Customers served include: Liberty Mutual, XO Communications, PreCash, Timberline Software, TIBCO Software, Standard Insurance, Blackwell, and Clear Wireless.

From 1993 – 1998 Brian was an editor with Network Computing Magazine. In addition to featured analysis of emerging technology he wrote a column called the “Corporate View” that advocated effective leverage of the then emerging internet to enterprise readers.

From 1985 – 1993 Brian managed the Advanced Technology Group at Avis Rent A Car. He was a founding member of the team that created Wizcom, a separate subsidiary providing transparent access between hotel Central Reservation Systems and airline networks (Galileo, Amadeus, SABRE).

Sudhir Bhagwan, Board member, consultant

Sudhir is a local angel investor, serves on two Boards, and till recently was on the Advisory Board of the National Science Foundation SBIR/STTR program. He received his MSEE from Stanford University, and an MBA with honors.

From 2005-2008 he was the Chairman & CEO of SnapNames.com, Inc.. Under his leadership the company profitably grew revenues 600% to $50million. He successfully sold SnapNames to Oversee.net in 2007. Previously, he retired from Intel Corporation, where for more than 21 years he served in several executive positions including Director of International Marketing, General Manager of several businesses, and Engineering Manager. During his tenure at Intel, Sudhir received several awards from Mr. Grove and the executive management in creating aggressive business strategies and delivering committed operational results.

In 1988 he was appointed by Oregon’s Governor Neil Goldschmidt as the founding President for the Oregon Advanced Computing Institute (OACIS), a unique partnership between industry, academia and government to spur the growth of the high-tech industry in Oregon. After serving for two years he returned to Intel.