Where are they now?

Over the years, many of the original Citrix employees have left and found other jobs or ventures. Some of these people I have located again.

Probably the most concentrated new venture I have found so far is mVisible. It is not far from Ft. Lauderdale and boasts a wide selection of former Citrix talent. The leaders of the company come straight from old Citrix engineering. I have worked closely with both Bill Madden and Scott Kinnear even before working at Citrix. Scott I met in 1986 and Bill in 1989 at IBM Boca Raton. Their project is to make ringtones based on music that you already own. I’ve heard through the grapevine that it is a very good market. Others at mVisible include George Vanderhoof, Charlene Cummins, and Kurt Perry. It is impressive to see this much ex-Citrix talent in one place. Myk Willis is the founder and CTO and I even heard that the business was first started at his house. If you want to find out more about what mVisible is about, please read here.

Another place which has attracted a lot of attention is DayJet. Ed Iacobucci is the CEO and given that he is the founder of Citrix carries much weight. His venture is to put together an airline based on “Per-Seat, On-Demand” jet service. It is an innovative idea which would allow business flyers to get straight to their destination without having to charter a whole plane. It is driven by clever scheduling software developed by some of the original Citrix engineers. It certainly is not a totally ex-Citrix shop but it still has a few old timer names. Vicky Harris, Erich Stellar, and Ed Janeczek all work at DayJet. Each of these people played a major role in early Citrix development.

Even as early as 1993, there were ex-Citrix people working on new projects. Greg Gruse, Mike Hines, and Glen Hamblin all left to work on a project to dynamically record music CDs in conjunction with Blockbuster Video. The venture never caught on due to the record industry not releasing the right to sell music this way.

Probably one of the more famous old timers is Al Chechetka (sp?). AlC (as he was known) was in the early test department and had a certain way of looking at things. Not long before he left (1994?) he told all of us that he was going to the Australian Outback to find himself. Most of us thought this was pretty funny. Just a few years later I left Citrix to live in Australia. A few of us have joked that I took the trip that AlC never took.

AlC, if you are there, drop me a line. At the very least, correct my incorrect spelling of your last name. 🙂

In fact, any of you old Citrix people that read this blog, please let me know what you are up to now. I’m also curious to find certain bits of information like:

• The last names and correct spelling for people on the oldest employee list that are missing
• A more expansive list of employees (up to around 1996) with numbers
• Any interesting stories (Help me out GeorgeV!)
• Any pictures of the old building at 210 University
• Any pictures between 1989 and 1996 of Citrix people/events

That should be enough for now.

Thanks

Update April 24, 2011 DayJet is now out of business. mVisible is better known as Myxer.

About Jeff Muir

Live near Brisbane, Australia. Software developer currently focused on iOS and Android. Avid Google Local Guide