Gary Culliss is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 who has founded several technology companies, including the search engine company Direct Hit Technologies

Direct Hit Technologies

Direct Hit Technologies, Inc. was a Boston-based search engine company that provided search engine services to major web portals and operated a public search engine at directhit.com...

 and the interactive voice telecommunications company, SoundBite Communications (NASDAQ: SDBT).

Biography

Culliss grew up in Overland Park, Kansas

Overland Park, Kansas

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 149,080 people, 59,703 households, and 39,702 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,627.0 people per square mile . There were 62,586 housing units at an average density of 1,102.9 per square mile...

 and has a degree in mechanical engineering

Mechanical engineering

Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...

 from the University of South Florida, a Juris Doctor

Juris Doctor

Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...

 degree from Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

 and an MBA in finance

Finance

"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...

 from the Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania. He currently lives with his wife and three children in New York, NY.

Patents

Culliss holds a number of patents relating to computer and telephony systems, including US Pat. 6,006,222, US Pat. 6,078,916 and US Pat. 6,014,665 all entitled "Method for organizing information," as well as US Pat. 6,785,363 entitled "Voice message delivery method and system" and US Pat. 7,054,419 entitled "Answering machine detection for voice message delivery method and system."

External links

• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/tech/techthursday/dotcom/talk/walker012899.htm