ShotSpotter Management

John K. Peters, Chief Executive Officer

John has built a distinguished executive management career in Silicon Valley. For the past several years John has been providing CEO coaching/consulting services to portfolio companies of leading Venture Capital firms.   John has been CEO of several venture capital backed companies including Anagran, a provider of traffic management solutions for broadband networks;  Reconnex, a leading provider of Data Loss Prevention solutions;  PocketThis, an application software provider to mobile carriers; Yipes Enterprise Services, an enterprise-focused provider of Ethernet network services within and between cities; Netli, a software-intensive network service business; and  Sigma Networks, a  provider of broadband metropolitan area services.  Prior to Sigma Networks, Mr. Peters was executive vice president for Concentric Network Corporation where he held various senior management roles leading the operations, engineering, product development, product management, Web hosting services, and corporate development organizations and Chief Operating Officer of Pacific Bell Information Services.  

Peters has an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.S. degree in statistics from Stanford University. 

James G. Beldock, President, International, Executive Vice President, Corporate Development

James G. Beldock, an experienced turn-around and growth entrepreneur, joined the ShotSpotter team in early 2003, when he was introduced by the Company's lead investor.  As the company’s first CEO, James developed and executed ShotSpotter’s market entry strategy and led the company from deployments in four cities to over 50, increased annual sales more than 50-fold, and led the company’s 2005 acquisition of Centurist Systems and its 2009 acquisition of the SECURES business unit of Planning Systems, Inc.  He has now turned his energies towards global market penetration as President of the company’s International efforts.  ShotSpotter is his third venture-funded or private equity-backed company, and he has raised in excess of $65m for companies he has led. Previously, he was chairman and CTO of WebPutty, an enterprise software company subsequently acquired by Charles River, of which he had previously served as the Company's president and CEO. Prior to joining WebPutty, James was Entrepreneur in Residence at SAC Capital where he performed turn-around and portfolio operations work at other portfolio companies. Previously, as president and CEO of Cogito Software, a company he founded in 1994, James delivered software and managed technology projects for well-known institutions including Princeton University and New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center. He has also served as vice president for R&D and CTO at Primavera Laboratories, where he was responsible for product development of over-the-counter drugs and other regulated products generating retail revenues in excess of $300m. He holds patents in the fields of computer memory hardware, Internet business methods and information security and has published peer review articles in fields ranging from medical informatics to user interface design.

James is a cum laude graduate of Yale University and studied Computer Science at Columbia University. In 2001, James was recognized as one of America’s leading executives under the age of 45 when he was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.  He sits on the board of directors of PAX, the nation's largest anti-gun violence non-profit organization and creator of the life-saving Ask and Speak Up! campaigns, and is a member of Business Executives for National Security (BENS) and the Steering Committee of the Aspen Institute Socrates Society. He maintains a blog at www.jamesbeldock.com.

Jerry Davis, Chief Operating Officer

Jerry Davis brings over 20 years of business and strategic leadership to his position as Chief Operating Officer for ShotSpotter. Prior to ShotSpotter, he held the position of Senior Vice President of Operations at Mirapoint. Earlier, Mr. Davis held the position of Acting CEO at Mirapoint where he put the company on a path to six quarters of consecutive revenue growth. Before Mirapoint, Mr. Davis acted as President and COO of Wytec, a leader in the development of Local Multipoint Distribution Services (LMDS) fixed wireless equipment. There he negotiated partnerships in China and Europe and managed all aspects of the business outside of Finance and HR. Prior to Wytec, he was VP of Operations and Customer Logistics at Nokia Internet Communications (NIC) and VP of Operations at Silicon Wireless (a.k.a. Spectrum Wireless). He also held the position of Vice President of Worldwide Client Support & Corporate Quality (WCSCQ) at Network Equipment Technologies (NET) where he built these organizations from the ground up. Under his leadership, WCSCQ became recognized as a World Class organization by Industry Week Magazine and in Chapter 7 of "Total Customer Service: The Ultimate Weapon by William H. Davidow and Bro Uttal.

He is a graduate of the DeVry Technical Institute in Chicago and attended the Berkeley Executive Program at the Walter A. Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley.

Gregg Rowland, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing

Gregg Rowland joined ShotSpotter in early 2006 and leads the company’s sales and marketing groups. Under his leadership, the company has experienced aggressive sales growth and solidified its position as the industry standard for wide-area acoustic surveillance technology. Mr. Rowland brings nearly 29 years of proven technology start up sales, marketing and management expertise to ShotSpotter, leveraging an extensive background in mission-critical networking, mobile computing and wireless communications systems. At Silicon Valley start-up PacketHop as Vice President of Sales, he helped the company launch their first product in the public safety market.  Previously Mr. Rowland served as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing leading a turnaround at IPMobileNet, Inc in Orange County California. At Dataradio Corporation in Atlanta, he developed the sales, marketing and distribution channels that created a 35 percent compound annual growth rate leading to market dominance in the US State and Local Government sectors. Earlier, he was part of the senior management team at Firearms Training Systems (FATS) that drove sales to $100M in three years leading to the company’s IPO.  He began his career in Washington, DC with premier integration companies, Centel Federal Systems and M/A Com Information Systems. He is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials and many other Industry Associations and is a frequent speaker at industry events.

Major General (Ret.) Steve Siegfried, Vice Chairman Emeritus

Steve Siegfried serves as Vice Chairman Emeritus for ShotSpotter and provides input in the areas of military applications and homeland security; he is also a key spokesperson for the company. Major General Siegfried was the first director of homeland security for South Carolina, a capacity in which he served from 2001 to 2003. In that role he was responsible for all aspects of civil and homeland defense for the state, acted as South Carolina’s liaison to secretary Tom Ridge in the Department of Homeland Security, and chaired the Homeland Security Council for the state. Major General Siegfried enlisted in the Army in 1961, rose to the rank of Sergeant, attended Officer Candidate School and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Infantry. He subsequently rose to the rank of Major General. He commanded Ft. Jackson, SC from December 1991 until March 1994. His last assignment was as the Deputy Inspector General, US Army. He retired in 1995 after 34 years of service, but was recalled to active duty in 1996 to serve as the chair of the Secretary of the Army's Senior Review Panel on Sexual Harassment.

Robert L. Showen, Ph.D, Founder & Chief Scientist

Engineer, scientist, and teacher, Dr. Robert Showen attended San Jose State University, University of California at Berkeley, and Rice University, obtaining degrees in electrical engineering and space physics, before winning a fellowship to the Max Planck Institute. He has taught astronomy and physics at the University of Puerto Rico, performed experiments to heat the ionosphere at the world’s largest RADAR, participated in the development of over-the-horizon RADAR at SRI International, and studied the effects of lightning on the ionosphere. With over three decades of acoustic and geophysics research experience, it was Dr. Showen’s initial vision of helping police curb gunfire and urban crime which caused him first to conceive of ShotSpotter. Dr. Showen is a company founder and patent holder on the technology.

Dr. Charles K. Pickar, Senior Vice President, Military Business and Corporate Development

Dr. Pickar is responsible for the company's efforts in the military and national security markets. Prior to joining ShotSpotter, he was Vice President for Technology Solutions and Products with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in Vienna, VA. While at SAIC, he managed significant technology projects including one that resulted in the first successful demonstration of an optionally piloted commercial aircraft. He is a retired U.S. Army officer with extensive experience in business development, management, international affairs and strategic planning. He holds a Bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland, a Master's in International Relations from the Naval Postgraduate School and a Doctorate from Nova Southeastern University. His professional experience also includes business development and management positions at Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman Corporation. Prior to retiring from the military, he was an Attaché at the American Embassy in Germany. He is fluent in German and Italian and is currently an adjunct professor on the faculty of Southeastern University in Washington, DC and the Naval Postgraduate School in California.

Edward J. Jopeck, Vice President, Federal Programs

Edward J. Jopeck is a recognized expert in security risk management, antiterrorism and homeland security. He comes to ShotSpotter, Inc. with over 20 years of security and risk management experience at the federal, state, local level, and with private sector clients. He joins ShotSpotter after more than a decade of leading many security analysis, risk assessment, risk management, intelligence and critical infrastructure protection consulting projects. Between 2003 and 2007 he served as a security risk management consultant to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, leading the development of strategic-level antiterrorism risk management methods to improve the protection of critical infrastructures and special events from terrorist attack. Since the early 1990s, he has continuously created and improved risk analysis methodologies, performed security risk assessments on our nation’s most critical assets, and taught risk management skills to numerous federal, state and local agencies concerned with threats to our national security and homeland security.  In addition to being the author of numerous articles, lectures and training courses on security, antiterrorism and counterintelligence risk assessment, he currently serves on the board of directors of the Security Analysis and Risk Management Association (SARMA) and is both the organization’s Founder and its Immediate Past President.

Doug McFarlin, Vice President, Engineering

Doug McFarlin brings more than 20 years of senior engineering leadership to the growing team at ShotSpotter. He held the position of VP of Engineering at Honeywell for 6 years and held senior engineering management positions at Measurex for eleven years prior to that, including VP of Engineering. Most recently, Mr. McFarlin was VP of Engineering for Novariant, a company that delivers solutions for precision guidance and control of vehicles and heavy equipment based on real-time kinematic GPS technology. Mr. McFarlin earned his BSEE from the University of California at Davis and his MSEE from the University of California at Berkeley.

Sonya Strickler, Vice President, Finance and Controller

Sonya Strickler is responsible for all financial operations for the company. She has over 10 years experience in public accounting auditing both public and private technology companies.  Prior to joining ShotSpotter, she worked for both KPMG and Arthur Andersen in Silicon Valley. She holds a bachelor’s in Business Administration from the University of the Pacific and is a Certified Public Accountant.