Eren Niazi
CEO/Founder
Eren is the original visionary/creator who not only pioneered the Open Source Storage movement but also acclaims the credit for branding the entire industry, as we know it today. In the early 2000's there was an entire bandwagon of closed-minded non-supporters who did not believe in Eren or his vision for Open Source Storage but Eren is a born champion and he did not care. Their slander only fueled his tenacity. Not only did Eren succeed in moving the entire United States away from enterprise software, but he is now leading the Open Source Storage expansion worldwide. According to a recent poll conducted in 2015 from zdnet.com: 78% of the internet currently runs on Open Source. Eren is a supreme advocate for open source storage as his platform has proven to be 3x faster, 50% cheaper and 75% more cost effective to support. This paradigm shift allows people to unlock their minds and create start up's for a fraction of the cost to large companies.
Open Source Systems specializes in disruptive technologies and allows start-ups and young entrepreneurs to create new technology at a fraction of the cost. This encourages and allows new innovative technology to be created and currently technology to advance.
He is a serial entrepreneur, and a visionary. The technologies that Eren developed in the early- to mid- 2000s became the model for data storage solutions today, and this is a movement he continues to champion as he has reputably changed technology from a global standpoint forever.
Eren holds several U.S. Patents and patents pending which specialize in disruptive technologies. One patent, from 2004, was the very first patent to ever be filed in AI technology. Some of Eren's other patents/patents pending include his work towards the world's first social media gamefication platform, data center server, hardware designs, software designs, cable management solution, network switches and designs.
Eren designed Facebook's core systems during its hyper-growth phase (2004-2007) and was instrumental in supporting Friendster, the Web's first social media platform. US Army, NASA, Lockheed Martin and Shutterfly are just a few more examples of Eren Niazi's very impressive and extensive resume. Eren's enterprise level Open Source products and services have each contributed and resulted in world class, industrial strength deployments. A US government mandate was recently put into effect appointing Open Source to be used as their platform in the United States and their governmental projects around the world.
Eren Niazi is committed to further creating a world for Open Source Software where free thinking and open minds are encouraged and the reward is a better environment for everyone.
He was recently featured in The Street and Forbes as a comeback in tech worth watching.
"Live Free, Go Open" – Eren Niazi
Marc Rotzow
VP of Engineering
Marc Rotzow’s brilliant mind has made several major contributions to the technology industry. He is an expert in the integration of large-scale data center and software infrastructures and specializes in their deployments. Rotzow has successfully architected and operated some of the world’s largest websites.
Starting his career more then 20 years ago at Apple his resume includes top positions for some of the nations most respected tech companies including, but not limited to the Director of Operations for Linuxsolve, Director of Operations for Friendfinder, Inc., Senior Linux System Engineer, Linux Operations Manager, Senior Manager/Systems Operations for Friendfinder Networks and Senior Manager/Systems Operations for 8x8, Inc.
Rotzow first met Niazi back in 2002 while Rotzow was working for Friendfinder, which at that time was one of the top 25 largest websites in English. Friendfinder was one of OSS’ first clients. Niazi saw Rotzow as a knowledgeable expert in the field of Open Source and large-scale deployments. Rotzow supported Niazi’s vision for a world running on Open Source. Rotzow left Friendfinder and joined forces with Niazi to serve as OSS’ CTO. Now, together as a force, they were able to immediately scale OSS, which then enabled them to target and secure large contracts such as the US Army, Facebook, NASA, KPMG, AOL, Friendster, Shutterfly, and shopping.com.
Rotzow worked with Niazi from 2004-2007 and then rejoined the OSS team, with its re-launch in 2014. Niazi and Rotzow hold several US patents and technologies together.
John Sanderson
VP of OS Solutions
Drive, Dedication, Determination, Born Leader, Open Source Evangelist. These are just a few words one can use to describe John Sanderson VP, Solutions Architect for Open Source Storage.
Sanderson has always had a love for gaming, computers and building. He got his first job at Silicon Mechanics based mostly off his gaming resume. Sanderson started at Silicon Mechanics in 2012 with their support department and within 4 years earned his way into their lead storage engineer.
Eren Niazi, founder/visionary for Open Source Storage and the OSS movement states: "I hired Sanderson because I consider him an expert at OSS integration and solutions. I know that he has the ability to architect solutions using OSS in order to fill the proprietary enterprise storage gaps caused from our competitors. "
Better, Faster Cheaper: As consumers we have always been taught that we need to *pick two: You can have your "widget" better and faster, but it is not going to be cheap. You can have your "widget" faster and cheaper, but it’s not going to be good etc. Sanderson and Niazi both believe that with OSS, you can have technology that is Better, Faster AND Cheaper thus ultimately depleting the need for the “Big Guys” and their overpriced, outdated hardware.
Freedom Maters- Go Open, this is not just OSS' slogan, it’s also the promise that Niazi and Sanderson give for the future of technology, Worldwide.
Patrick Willis
EVP Partnerships, Advisory Board
Patrick Willis is a born leader. Born into a poverty driven family, he was immediately assigned the leadership responsibilities of caring for his younger siblings. By the age of 10, Willis was working full time picking cotton in the Tennessee cotton fields helping to financially support his family. Willis endured dreams of a richer life and dedicated himself to reaching these goals. Indeed, his tenacity shined through. Willis became a rising star in high school reaching the limelight as a trifecta earning letters for football, baseball and basketball. He became a superstar on the football field acquiring a full ride scholarship for himself to the University of Mississippi and followed by an immediate draft into the San Francisco 49ers. While playing for the 49ers, Patrick was respectively honored as their defense captain. Patrick Willis is arguably the greatest linebacker in modern history.
In 2015, after eight historically successful years on the field, Willis retired. Ready for his next great journey he joined the Open Source Storage movement in an effort to once again, join history in its making, by helping to take enterprise software to its next level. Eren Niazi, visionary/founder/CEO of Open Source Storage (OSS) appointed Willis as his strategic liaison. Niazi saw a vivid correlation between intertwining sports technology and media entertainment with the OSS platform. Willis, having always encompassed a fascination for technology, saw Niazi’s vision and stepped up to accept the role of EVP of Cloud Partnerships.
Willis is part of the OSS advisory board. Niazi states that Willis has an acute innate ability to select the right partners and people to work with. Similar to Willis navigating his way defensively on a football field, he now helps navigate toward building the right team members.
OSS agrees with Ed Oregon, former Mississippi coach “Patrick leads by example. He is not a big talker. He just gets in there and does his job every day and makes everybody around him better.”
Gracie Gato
Director of Support Services
Gato brings almost 20 years of technical support engineering experience with her. Her exceptionally strong background in storage solutions, security and network administration will serve as an integral asset to our executive team.
Eren Niazi, Founder/CEO of OSS states that Gato is respected industry wide as an amazing support technician. She not just understands the Open Source community but is very connected to it and is excellent at supporting it. “When I interviewed Gato I was impressed by how straight forward and direct she was.”
Gato’s position oversees OSS cloud support, solutions support and key customer support. Gato is known as an Open Source Ninja support expert. She is exceptionally skilled at ZFS storage solutions, enterprise skills, network security, systems administration, enterprise web and cloud hosting in addition to SAN, NAS, ISCSI. Gato is also experienced with Hyper V and Network experience in NFS, CIFS and FC.
Gracie prides herself in managing, investigating, and resolving customer issues quickly and effectively. She has provided valuable support for Nexenta, Dreamhost, Media Temple, Verizon, Yahoo, and Earthlink, just to name a few, before joining the OSS team.
Bret Denton
Dir. of Business Development
Bret Denton is passionate about people and the technology that they make work. He believes strongly in the premise that technology can be made not only to improve business process but also to better our lives and the planet that we live on. He has extensive experience in Enterprise Storage Sales that began in 2003 at MicronPC. Prior to joining Open Source Storage, Bret was at Silicon Mechanics.
Phil Hadreas
Sr. Director of Global Sales
Phil Hadreas, Sr. Director of Global Sales, has over 17 years of strategic software sales experience. He started his career with Xerox, which he often refers to as "the boot camp of sales."
In the years since leaving Xerox he has held positions at EMC, Cardiff Software, and Spok (formerly Amcom Software). Phil has successfully on-boarded and managed large enterprise accounts, including Stanford Medical, Kaiser Permanente, UCSF Medical, Dignity Health, Boeing, AIG, and Wells Fargo, playing a pivotal role in driving growth.
Phil lives in Capitola, CA, where he coaches his son's football team and is actively involved with his daughter's gymnastics team.
