Company History  Mission  Technology  Management  Careers  Richard Nelson, Chief Executive Officer Dr. Paul Diefenbach, Founder and Chief Technology Officer Richard J. Nelson, MBA, Chief Executive Officer Mr. Nelson, MBA joined OpenWorlds, Inc. as CEO in July of 2000. He has a twenty-year track record of driving sales growth and market expansion. His experience includes executive assignments at Automatic Data Processing (ADP), InnaPhase Corporation and an international marketing consulting career at Science Center International (SCI). He began his corporate career in sales at NCR Corporation and has led consulting projects for dozens of companies including Hewlett Packard, MCI Corporation, Nippon Electric Company (NEC), General Electric Information Services (GEIS), and Fujitsu. At ADP, Mr. Nelson was promoted seven times within thirteen years. He rose to Regional Vice President of Sales and Marketing. At each position his teams consistently exceeded all sales and growth targets. During his time at ADP, he succeeded in diverse Markets while leading sales organizations in the Employer Services Division, the National Accounts Division and the Wholesale Distribution Services Division. Mr. Nelson served as Co-Managing Director of SCI. During six years at SCI, Mr. Nelson helped SCI's business expand fourfold. He repositioned the company into profitable new markets, increased the average project size and increased profitability by 250%. He opened the Latin American market, and established a productive new affiliate relationship in Japan, which together now accounts for 60% of SCI's business. SCI projects are typically market expansion consulting projects. Mr. Nelson's clients included information technology, medical services and devices, capital equipment industries and many others. The clients consist of large and mid-sized companies who sought to expand their markets internationally. Clients included Hewlett Packard, NEC, Sud Chemie (Germany), US Department of Commerce, MCI Telecommunications, General Electric Information Systems (GEIS), Ministry of Industry and Trade MITI (Japan). As Vice President of Sales and Operations at InnaPhase Corporation, an emerging developer of scientific software for the Pharmaceutical Industry, Mr. Nelson, assisted in securing Venture Capital funding, and established the US office. He expanded the company's new business pipeline from $3.7 million to $8.2 million while establishing and selecting the sales team. His team created the most comprehensive database of prospects in the industry. Mr. Nelson established the financial and administrative functions and recruited the key personnel. Mr. Nelson has been a frequent speaker on the Commercialization of Technology. His speeches included engagements at the Asian Forum at COMDEX, multiple conferences for MITI in Japan, the Miyagi University in Japan, and at several International Technology Conferences in Brazil. He is a contributing author to a book published in Japan on Marketing Innovative Technology. main menu Paul Diefenbach, Ph.D., Founder and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Diefenbach established OpenWorlds' under the former name, DRaW Computing Associates in 1991, and provided the technological vision for the creation of OpenWorlds ™. His innovative design of OpenWorlds now is a major factor in the design of the next-generation industry standard, X3D. Paul has guided OpenWorlds ™ development over the last five years. Dr. Diefenbach's prior work experience includes five years as a Research Scientist at Siemens Corporate Research, and two years in development for W. Humprey Associates as Chief Software Developer for test systems for Sidewinder Missile launchers. Dr. Diefenbach was also a key developer of the Jack® software at the Human Modeling and Simulation Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked for six years on his Ph.D. During his tenure at OpenWorlds, Dr. Diefenbach has served as technical lead and principal investigator for OpenWorlds' Phase I and Phase II NASA SBIR contracts, which led to the development of OpenWorlds™. He has also served as a principal investigator for subcontracts to OpenWorlds by the University of Pennsylvania from Army and NASA contracts, and served as technical lead on a contract from Hughes Missile Systems. He has consulted on computer graphics projects for numerous companies including General Motors, Hughes Missile Systems, and Lockheed Martin. Dr. Diefenbach obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is well known for his research in 3D rendering, and author of many publications in computer graphics. His pioneering thesis work in rendering is required reading at major hardware manufacturers, and he has been hired for consulting on this topic by leading 3D companies such as 3D Labs and SGI. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Computer Science and Fine Arts schools, and helped form their Digital Media program. This provides OpenWorlds' a recruiting advantage for the technical talent graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Diefenbach has been an invited speaker on computer graphics, rendering, and virtual reality at major international conferences such as SIGGRAPH and the Web3D Symposium, and has authored many publications related to interactive rendering and virtual reality. He has been profiled in the Philadelphia Business Journal and on "Prime Time Weekend" on Philadelphia television. main menu