Shows
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Donna LaquintanoSeason 3 Episode 44: (Originally Recorded March 2024) In this final episode of Season 3 of Onwards!Infonauts, we welcome Donna Laquintano who shares her journey from property management to managing startup management as the executive assistant to Ron Berg and Van Morris. She leaped into startup life juggling executive travel arrangements, never-ending office reconfigurations and professional growth while maintaining kindness, respect, humility and a wonderful sense of humor.Donna dives into her fondest memories at Infonautics, from the legendary Friday Frolics and her karaoke performances to the profound sense of unity experienced during the 9/11 tragedy. She shares humorous a...
2025-02-2050 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Michael HollandSeason 3 Episode 3: (Originally Recorded February 2024) What happens when inspiration strikes and leads to an unexpected journey? In this episode of Onwards! Infonauts, we sit down with Michael Holland, who shares how a chance encounter with Infonautics founder Marvin Weinberger during his time at Cornell University changed the trajectory of his career forever. From hopping on a tiny plane for a last-minute interview to his first day on the job bumping into a Cornell fraternity brother in the hallway, Michael’s introduction to Infonautics was anything but ordinary.Michael takes us on a whirlwind ride through his time at...
2025-02-0349 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Marvin WeinbergerSeason 3 Episode 2: Marvin Weinberger
In this episode of "Onwards! Infonauts" we chat with Marvin Weinberger, one of the founders of Infonautics Corporation. Marvin’s story started well before Infonautics, at another data-centric company called Telebase Systems. Telebase was an online information company, providing customer access to databases around the world using telex machines with 75 baud speed, as Marvin jokes with Sean and Jim. Later, Marvin was featured in Business Week, where they took a picture of Marvin in front of the computer room… giant computers with only 1 Gigabyte of capacity on them.
In the 1990s, techn...
2024-03-0959 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Kyle OdumSeason 3 Episode 1: Kyle Odum
Join us on a captivating episode of "Onwards! Infonauts" as we delve into the inspiring journey of Kyle Odum, the Director of Creative Services for the city of Philadelphia. Hailing from the heart of the city, Kyle shares his remarkable trajectory from a Drexel University graduate to spearheading the IT department at Infonautics.
In this episode, Kyle unfolds the early days at Infonautics, where CTO Jim Beattie provided him with the opportunity to establish the IT department and navigate the intricacies of this pivotal role. Hear firsthand about Kyle's stint on...
2024-01-0855 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Josh KopelmanSeason 2 Episode 9: Josh Kopelman
Jim McMonagle and Sean McGlinchey speak with Infonautics’ co-founder, serial entrepreneur and investor Josh Kopelman in this episode of Onwards! Infonauts. Josh brings his high energy, appreciation and sense of humor to our rambling discussion of his career and his start with Marvin Weinberger in the early 1990s.
Despite Josh’s not-so-veiled threat to launch an alternative show about Infonautics that he believes will crush our efforts and spirit, we thoroughly enjoyed our chat.
He brings up lots of fun memories of working at Infonautics, the lessons he learned and w...
2023-07-2043 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Joyce BellSeason 2 Episode 8: Joyce Bell
In this episode of Onwards! Infonauts, Jim McMonagle and Sean McGlinchey speak with Joyce Bell, who was an exceptional QA team member. Joyce made a big impact on the teamwork and culture environment while working 4 + years at Infonautics, from 1995 to 1999. Joyce, like many others, went to work for BigChalk for a little over 1 year, and like many others had to pivot following the internet crash of 2001.
Listen to this episode with Joyce while she reminisces with Sean about their great times in the Content department, playing between the buildings baseball and int...
2023-05-3151 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Ron BergSeason 2 Episode 7: Ron Berg
In a very special episode of Onwards! Infonauts, Infonautics’ CFO Ron Berg, we are very pleased to warmly welcome Infonautics employee #3 or 4 or 3 and a half, Ron Berg. Since Ron’s four years as Infonautics’ CFO he has gone on to take his turn in multiple C-suite and founding roles at companies around the country, spending too much time on the west coast. He’s now back in the Philly area and joined us from home in Bucks Country.
In this episode Ron tries out a new role as Chief Corrections Officer f...
2023-05-2155 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Lucinda DuncalfeSeason 2 Episode 6: Lucinda Duncalfe
In this episode of Onwards! Infonauts, we have a power chat with Lucinda Duncalfe. Lucinda is presently Founder and CEO of AboveBoard, an inclusive platform for executive hiring. Although she was officially a part of the Infonautics team for only one short year, she made a great impression on everyone she met. Like most Infonauts, she is a startup fanatic, but also took some practical steps in her career, like joining powerhouse tech company SEI when she knew she had to pay for student loans. But as soon as the opportunity arose, she qui...
2023-05-1249 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Matt SimeoneSeason 2 Episode 5: Matt Simeone
In this episode of Onwards! Infonauts, we sit down with Matt Simeone, Managing Partner of Riverton Partners, as he takes us on a captivating journey through his unique experiences at Infonautics. Coming to Infonautics from LexisNexis was quite the culture shock when he sat down at his first all-hands meeting that included Marvin playing the violin.
Matt shares stories of bad coffee, wiffle ball battles, making sales calls with ping-pong in the background, and a sales pitch outcome that was straight out of Hollywood.
Embark on a captivating journey...
2023-05-0639 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Jim UlshSeason 2 Episode 4: Jim Ulsh
Today you can hear Jim and Sean interview Jim Ulsh. Or does Ulsh interview Jim and Sean? Mr. Ulsh gets into his early days at Infonautics, where he was looked upon as the only adult amongst children because he wore a tie. He shares his prior career as a toxic waste remediator and how that career was appropriate, given his college degree in Chemistry. Lucky for us, he did not bring any toxicity into the culture of Infonautics. Like many folks, Ulsh answered an ad from the Sunday newspaper and was hired due to...
2023-04-2740 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Beth LaingSeason 2 Episode 3: Beth Laing
In today’s episode, Beth Laing recounts her journey to and away from Infonautics. An early hire at Infonautics fresh from Atlanta and a role with The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Beth started in 1994. Admittedly green at the start she relished the role of building the impossible with like-minded people who were all willing to just figure it out.
She eventually found her niche landing content deals and then figuring out what to do with the content in all its varied forms. She put together a team that partnered with engineering to bu...
2023-04-2145 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Rich GallagherSeason 2 Episode 2: Rich Gallagher. In this episode, Rich Gallagher recalls joining Infonautics after interviewing with the executive team. Rich had a long career at another company in a nearby town, but Rich felt that the company was being affected too much by recent M&A activity. His first days at Infonautics were about setting high level goals and then letting loose to solve any and all problems put before him.
Rich had 4 objectives: (1) create a content management team; (2) help create a subscription model; (3) build out the information system for the royalties; and (4) figure out how to ful...
2023-04-1244 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Eileen LimrothSeason 2 Episode 1: Eileen Limroth. In this episode, Eileen recounts her first days at Infonautics in 1995, animal crackers, building a customer support team from scratch, hijinx, juggling startup life with babies, the transition through the iterations of the company and essentially turning the lights off at Infonautics in the early 2000s. Plus what it meant to walk away from her career.
We enjoy talking to Infonauts and especially those we haven’t been in touch with to find out how their lives unfolded since, what it meant to you to be an Infonaut and how that affected (or...
2023-04-0555 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Scott BernbergSeason 1 Episode 8: Scott Bernberg. In this episode, Scott Bernberg recalls his first days at Infonautics sitting at a folding table in a room focused on bug fixes for the just-released Electric Library, while Jill Kauler sat directly on the other side of the table from him. He learned to be a web developer on the fly using his trusty O’Reilly reference books.
Scott walked us through his work on Entertainment Sleuth and what he’s up to these days as Vice President of Product Development at Vivvix, a company he has been with through several iterations sinc...
2023-03-3030 min
Onwards!Infonauts(Honorary) Infonaut! Sonia StammSeason 1 Episode 7: Sonia Stamm. In this show, Sonia Stamm, an honorary Infonaut and founder of Stamm Consultancy, shares her experience as a recruiter with CEO Resources during the early days of Infonautics. She describes her role as a gatekeeper for hiring the right people who could align with the company's mission and values.
Sonia explains how her passion for aligning people and processes with organizational goals led her to create Stamm Consultancy, a company that provides custom consulting and training to mission-based organizations. She talks about her approach to consulting, which involves understanding the unique challenges and...
2023-03-2235 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Ram MohanSeason 1 Episode 6: Ram Mohan. Ram Mohan was hired by two engineering leaders, Mike Krupit and Terry Graber, in 1995. Terry had been working with Ram at a prior company, and he successfully recruited Ram to join Infonautics. Ram confided that he did not interview with the team, it was more of a conversation. They brought Josh Kopelman in for a quick meeting with Ram and they agreed to hire Ram before the end of that day. Ram progressed through the company and wound up in the CTO seat very soon. He was with us in the good times and bad an...
2023-03-1548 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Cathy PalmaSeason 1 Episode 5: Cathy Palma. Cathy Palma was hired by VP of Marketing, Jack Clewis back in 1995. Though she has been formally trained for music and theater, she made the trips to NYC a few too many times, and decided on her next passion, internet startups. Jack hired Robert Palmer, and eventually Robert was promoted and Cathy reported to him. One of her many claims to fame was to own the chachke closet, and that earned her a special title, well, we will let her tell you what that nickname was! Cathy was an active part of the trade shows an...
2023-03-0844 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Andrea MichalekSeason 1 Episode 4: Andrea Michalek. Andrea has a wonderful viewpoint and great stories to tell from her start as an Infonaut a week after the INFO IPO developing search backend technology with Mike Shultz, Lee Larocco, and Khosrow Motamedi. She was inspired by Marvin’s core belief that “every child deserves an unfair advantage.” It changed the way she looked at her career and doing work that matters. Andrea continuously took on new challenges and leadership roles at Infonautics becoming an entrepreneur there and launching many companies since then.
Her life came to a halt with a traumatic brain i...
2023-03-0144 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Eric Van GordenSeason 1 Episode 3: Eric Van Gorden. Eric joined the Content team in 1998 when we were chugging along with endless piles of publisher material, contracts, and royalties to work through. He was the hero we needed at the time we needed him to step in and become an integral part of the team and company.
In this episode, Eric walks us through his life as an English major working in medical and mathematics publishing to Infonautics and the Internet Age where he pretty much didn’t understand a word anyone said. Find out how he survived, thrived, and then bu...
2023-03-0152 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Mike KrupitSeason 1 Episode 2: Mike Krupit. Mike was a very early employee at Infonautics, the first outsider after Marvin, Josh and Ron. He was hired in 1994 to be the company's first Director of Software Development. Mike established himself as a very competent leader as the company grew through rapid changes. He has had a great influence on many in the technical world inside and outside of Infonautics. For example he started up the Philadelphia New Tech Meetup. This group has easily impacted over a thousand technology entrepreneurs in the region. Mike also started several other companies, and at one point joined CD...
2023-03-0151 min
Onwards!InfonautsInfonaut! Alan PrestonSeason 1 Episode 1: Alan Preston Alan was Infonautics' Director of HR for 3ish years, and he established himself as a real leader and effective advisor to many people within the company. Hired by Van Morris in 1996, Alan quickly made an impact on people throughout the company. Almost everyone has a story to tell about Alan, and he has a few to tell about everyone! Who can forget Friday Frolics and when Alan dressed up as Elvis! Alan talks more about chachkes, tall teas in the kitchen and some practical jokes that were part of the culture. Alan also became an expe...
2023-02-0949 min