|
The Team
|
|
|
|
Jeff and Cassius, the founding members and managing partners of the company, met at TD Ameritrade in the mid 1990's where both were managers in the Product Development division. Both had a passion for online gaming including Everquest, a once-popular RPG, but they were particularly interested in the social and community aspects. In 2001, Jeff and Cassius came up with an idea that combined the social characteristics of online gaming with the excitement of following your favorite sports teams. Over the next three years Jeff and Cassius casually discussed the idea while they observed the emergence and popularity of other online communities such as MySpace. In January 2004, as online communities began to explode across the country, they sat down to start creating the blueprint for a social networking platform and CrowdPicks.com was born. With the assistance of the Scott Technology Center, they have a built an exceptional technical team that can effectively deliver solutions. The team’s dreams have become a reality with the launch of CrowdPicks.com in beta form and they continue to forge their social networking vision into shape.
|
 Jeff Murnane, co-founder and managing partner
Jeff was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska and graduated from Bellevue University with a BS in Marketing Management. The majority of Jeff’s career experience was at TD Ameritrade where he started in 1996 as a phone sales representative. He was moved into various management positions within the company which utilized his entrepreneurial spirit, which included developing procedural manuals, marketing plans and strategic initiatives. Jeff was later tapped to start the Competitive Intelligence (CI) department within the company’s strategy area and helped the company react to competitive threats over the next 7 years. In his role as Director of CI Jeff was responsible for monitoring competitive trends and identifying market opportunities for TD Ameritrade. This experience helped Jeff identify potential in the marketplace for WSC Group.
Jeff lives and breathes sports and is a die hard Nebraska Cornhuskers fan as well as a Dallas Cowboys fan. He also enjoys participating in fantasy football; watching March madness and the College World Series and basically any live sporting event taking place. Jeff has been married since 1995 to his wife Jenny and has 2 young sons who all share his passion for sports. Jeff coaches his sons’ soccer teams and plays indoor soccer and sand volleyball.
Visit Jeff's Trophy Room |
 Cassius Almeida, co-founder and managing partner
Cassius’ passion for things mechanical was evident early but he especially loved cars. He spent most of his youth riding dirt bikes and eventually bought his first car – a used 1980 Honda Accord HB. He’s had a love affair with Hondas ever since. He followed his passion for machines and obtained a BS in Mechanical Engineering from New York Institute of Technology in 1990. In 1993 Cassius started working for a small New York broker-dealer, K. Aufhauser & Co. (later acquired by TD Ameritrade), which went on to develop and execute the first ever online stock trade and he was there making history in a small apartment converted into an office. At the firm he obtained the Series 7, 63, 4, and 24 registrations and became very interested in trading and technical analysis. He continued working for TD Ameritrade where he witnessed the tremendous growth of online trading and helped manage the flood of clients by running the Technology Support department which he developed from a team of four to fifty-five, including five managers, in about two years. Eventually he moved into Product Development where he invented and designed the patented QuoteScope® active trader product. Developed in Java Swing, it is a unique and innovative liquidity visualization Level II trading interface for very active traders. Cassius helped design many other interfaces for Ameritrade including Market Motion Detector, SuperStream Machine, SnapTicket and other order tickets including complex option orders back in the mid 90’s. He also received an award from the company for identifying a $1.5M technology savings which added 2 cents to net quarterly earnings.
Cassius was born in Brazil but grew up in New York City and has now lived in Omaha with his family since 1996. Cassius enjoys online gaming and his X-Box 360, he loves auto racing and working on his Integra GS-R, fishing, soccer, baseball, extreme sports, Hold’em Poker, and trading stocks. Cassius has been married for 12 years and has one son.
Visit Cassius' Trophy Room |
 Jeremy Heeg, Lead Developer
Since customizing a "Pong" game on a "hand-me-down" Apple IIe at age 7, Jeremy Heeg knew that he was going to be forever intrigued by the wide world of computers. Once receiving his first x86 PC, Jeremy instantly dove into the Internet, exposing him to an endless library of how-to's and tutorials. At age 16, Jeremy earned an Internship at a local software company where his duty was to explore the .NET beta framework.
In 2003, Jeremy graduated High School and began to continue his education at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. During his freshman year, he was titled the Assistant Network Administrator of three departments at the university. In 2006, Jeremy began contract programming in Omaha and in October, Jeremy was offered a full-time position with WSC Group.
Jeremy is currently the Lead Developer of WSC Group, and continues to expand his expertise in .NET, SQL, Server Administration, and anything where 10 = 2.
Visit Jeremy's Trophy Room |
 Tim Cederdahl, Developer
Tim has always been a big fan of online gaming and sports. He puts his X-Box to work on an almost daily basis and enjoys fantasy and sports games. Tim also enjoys developing Flash and other animated content for the web. On his free time you can catch him making picks and posting news on www.crowdpicks.com. He is a huge Lakers, Nebraska, and Vikings fan.
Tim spent four years in the Air Force where he worked with Electronic Warfare Systems. He’s also worked for Net Shops and Union Pacific. He also has a BS in Management Information Systems from University of Nebraska at Omaha and has started a Masters in MIS at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Visit Tim's Trophy Room |
 Shakthi D. Bachala, Developer
Shakthi aka “Shak”, enjoys a healthy lifestyle including his regular workout routine and eating and drinking healthy foods. He’s a certified Sun Java Programmer and is currently pursuing his Masters in MIS from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He earned his BS in Electronics and Computer Engineering from Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology, India.
Visit Shakthi's Trophy Room |
 Vamsi K. Madabhushi, Developer
Vamsi enjoys long drives in his car through the Colorado Rockies. He’s our expert with SQL and other database systems. He earned his BS in Computer Science from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, India and is currently pursuing his Masters in MIS from the Peter Kiewit Institute in Omaha, Nebraska.
Visit Vamsi's Trophy Room |
 Jeff Dedlow, Web Graphic Design
All the artwork on the website was designed by Jeff Dedlow. Jeff has been doing graphic art, design and illustration for more than 10 years. Jeff grew up in York, Nebraska where he graduated high school, he then continued his education at the Creative Center in Omaha Nebraska. Jeff enjoys paintball, basketball and recreational sports in his spare time. You can access his trophy room at.
Visit Jeff's Trophy Room |
|
|