Brett Newman - President/CEO and Co-Founder

Brett began his career as a professional architect in New York City, joining IBM in the mid-eighties to bring a state of the art computer aided design system to market. As a consultant in the graphics software industry, Brett worked for Visio, Autodesk, Accugraph, and IBM. Brett co-founded Visimation in 1997 with a vision to revolutionize the way people view their businesses through the creative use of visual automation. A registered Architect, Brett holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a Professional Degree in Architecture from CCNY (City College of New York).

Steve Payne - Technical Director, Web Technologies

Steve has over 13 years of engineering, development, and production software experience in the manufacturing industry. He leads Visimation’s R&D and implementation activities for Web enabled graphics. Steve is the technical lead for several major clients, including Carrier and Boeing. Prior to Visimation, Steve pioneered a Visio automation process at Boeing to produce complex wiring diagrams. Steve is currently working on new technologies that extend Visio capabilities to Web browsers.

Chris Hopkins, Technical Director, Desktop Technologies

Chris has over 12 years experience with Visio Corporation, Microsoft, and Visimation. His primary focus is solutions development with Visio and other Microsoft application platforms. Chris is responsible for VisiTools, a family of add-on products that extend Visio’s capabilities. He has served as the technical lead on Visio automation projects for DaimlerChrysler, Siemens, Microsoft, and NASA. Chris has extensive consulting experience with large corporate clients, helping them develop productivity solutions for business and technical problems.

Gary Klapel, Senior Applications Consultant

Gary has over 20 years experience with CAD and graphics systems. With Ketiv Technologies, Gary worked on ArchT, an AutoCAD add-on for architecture, engineering, and construction uses. Gary moved to Visio Corporation with its acquisition of ArchT and then to Microsoft with its acquisition of Visio where he produced engineering solutions and other software components for the Visio product. Gary is highly renowned as one of the premier experts in the world on Visio shape development.

Liz Louie, Business Operations Manager

Liz has 25 years of extensive operational experience with technology and design firms. She selects, implements, and manages many of Visimation’s infrastructure systems as well as develops and manages Visimation’s human resource policies. She holds a degree in Business Administration from the University of Hawaii.

Fred Diggs, Project Manager

Fred has worked with graphics systems for over 20 years with Boeing, EDS, Visio, and Microsoft. At Visio Corporation, Fred was part of the consulting group that trained Visio developers and architected solutions for large Visio accounts. As Visimation’s lead Project Manager, Fred is responsible for developing content for Microsoft contracts. Fred holds degrees in Mathematics and Economics from the University of North Carolina, a Master of Computer Science from Washington State University, and a Master of Business Administration from Seattle University.

Shanna Toth, Marketing Manager

Shanna has 5 years of intensive hands-on experience with Visio as a user, trainer, content developer, and marketer. Responsible for managing Visimation’s various partner relationships with Microsoft, Shanna works directly with the Visio product group in Redmond, WA as well as Microsoft’s Visio Specialists and Account Teams throughout the US, helping them provide valuable solutions to Microsoft customers. She also manages marketing activities for Visimation’s training and consulting clients, including Boeing, Microsoft, and US government agencies. Shanna has a professional background in education and holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from the University of Washington.