Board of Directors

Fred A. Brown
Founder & Director
With over 20 years of engineering experience and entrepreneurial leadership in the software industry, Fred founded Next IT in July 2002. Prior to Next IT, he was founder, President and CEO of LineSoft Corporation in Spokane, WA from 1989 to 2002, when that company completed a successful merger with Itron, Inc. At LineSoft, Fred and his team developed and created an innovative and unique way to enable line-design engineering for utilities. Under his leadership, LineSoft attracted $26 Million in venture funding, at that time the largest-ever VC placement in Spokane County.

Fred is actively involved in a variety of organizations serving the northwest educational and scientific communities, including serving on the Board of Trustees at Gonzaga University. In addition, he is the founder of WIN Partners LLC, a private investment fund for aspiring technology entrepreneurs in Spokane.

Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., Ph.D.
Director
Father Robert Spitzer, President of Gonzaga University, was elected to the Next IT Board of Directors in 2003. Father Spitzer is a writer, professor, and speaker involved with community boards and projects. Since 1999, Father Spitzer has published two books and twelve articles. His two books are: The Spirit of Leadership: Optimizing Creativity and Change in Organizations (Provo UT: Executive Excellence Publishers, June 2000); and Healing the Culture: A Commonsense Philosophy of Happiness, Freedom, and Life Issues (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, October 2000).  His twelve articles concern leadership, ethics, metaphysics, the ontology of physics, and higher education. He received his B.B.A. from Gonzaga University in 1974, his M.A. in philosophy from St. Louis University in 1978, his M.Div. in Theology from the Gregorian University in Rome in 1983, his Th.M. in scripture from the Weston School (Cambridge) in 1984, and his Ph.D. in philosophy from the Catholic University of America in 1988.

John L. Gilbert
Director
John joined the Next IT Board of Directors in January, 2005.  He was President and CEO of Bank of Latah, a community bank in Eastern Washington and North Idaho, until it was merged with AmericanWest Bank in 2002.  He remained with AmericanWest Bank as a Regional President and then Investment Manager of the bank’s investment portfolio through 2004.  He is presently a special projects manager for the bank.  His banking career has spanned 30 years with the same organization.  During that time John served on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Washington Bankers Association, Board of Directors of Western Independent Bankers, and Chairman of the American Bankers Association Agriculture and Rural Bankers association as well as other industry and community committees and associations.

James F. Brown
Director
An entrepreneur since the age of 16, Jim helped establish Engineering Consulting Services, Inc. (ECSI), which later became LineSoft Corporation. At ECSI, he managed a number of challenging projects, including developing the specification for all electrical distribution systems on the Mariana Islands, while simultaneously managing the mechanical upgrade of a 1 million gallon fresh water storage facility at Saipan International Airport. Jim later became a Vice-President and a member of the Board of Directors at LineSoft. Prior to LineSoft, he was an instructor at Fairview College in northern Alberta, Canada, where he developed the first-ever Turf Technology program, which became the model for park and golf course management in western Canada. 
 
Johnny Humphreys
Director
Johnny Humphreys is Chairman and CEO of Gen Prime.  He was the CEO of Itron, a public Spokane-based company from 1987 to 1999, and was Chairman of the Board there until January of 2000.  Johnny served as Board Chairman of LineSoft Corporation for 2 years.  Prior to serving at Itron, he was the President of Datachecker, a $250 million subsidiary of National Semiconductor.  Datachecker pioneered in the development of scanning systems used in retail sales.  Previously he was the founder and President of Telxon, a manufacturer of handheld computer systems for supermarkets. 

Kelly Foster
Director
Kelly Foster is a 25 year veteran of the software industry. His technology career began as a software developer for several early stage Silicon Valley ventures, each culminating in an IPO or successful acquisition by a public company. In the early nineties, Mr. Foster reinvented himself, transitioning from R&D engineer to top sales performer. He consistently overachieved sales targets for electronic design automation ventures such as Viewlogic, Synopsys, and Cadence. In the late 90’s, he was Simplex Solutions’ top performer from their founding through to IPO, one of the most successful offerings of 2000. Mr. Foster consistently delivered early adopter technology to customers such as Intel, HP, Sun, Cisco, nVidia, Brocade, and AMD. Recently Mr. Foster reinvented himself once more, and is now developing hotel and residential resort projects in the Rockies and Mexico with his partners at Bald Mountain Development. Mr. Foster is a graduate of Stanford University, and a Spokane native. He is active in coaching youth sports, and resides with his family in Menlo Park, California.

John J. Luger
Director
John Luger is presently the Manager of JDL Enterprises, LLC. JDL Enterprises is involved in the purchase and development of real estate and various other investments. John is the former CEO/President of Data Base, Inc. John was directly responsible for the corporate culture of Data Base, Inc. and oversaw the entire operation with direct involvement in strategic direction, growth strategies and new product lines for twenty-three years. The growth of the company was largely due to expansion in targeted locations throughout the United States through new startups as well as mergers and acquisitions. John is a graduate of Gonzaga Preparatory School and earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing at the University of Oregon. After two years as an Army officer, he started in the data processing field at Electronic Data Systems. He was the Data Processing Manager with EDS before joining Washington Trust Bank in 1975 as a Data Processing Operations Manager. He founded Data Base, Inc. one year later. Since the sale of his company John has been involved in philanthropic causes mostly in the area of private education. He currently serves on the following boards: Foundation Board President, Eastside Catholic High School; Board of Trustees, Gonzaga University; Business Advisory Council; Charles Lundquist College of Business -University of Oregon; and Board of Directors, MedData Inc.