Dave Towert

Ten-year-old Meridian Project Systems, Folsom, Calif., has announced the departure this summer of Dave Towert, co-founder and chief technology officer. Towert, whose technical team works out of Vancouver, Canada, will be Meridian's technology consultant on contract and will remain on the board and a major stockholder.

"We're not letting Dave get too far from the tree," says Meridian CEO Jim Olsen, who joined the firm in November.

The entrepreneurial Towert is leaving to start a new software company but will not be competitive with Meridian, Olsen claims. Towert was unavailable for comment. His new venture will be "complementary to Meridian," says Olsen.

Towert's departure, effective July 31, will have no impact on the company, claims Olsen, because Towert stayed through the development of Proliance, Meridian's newly announced Web-native, interoperable foundation for an array of separate business applications. (enr.com, 7/1/03; http://enr.construction.com/newsletter/informationtech/archives/030701)

Also, Towert has augmented his staff and turned over his CTO duties to two staffers, John Brown, vice president of development, who now is also general manager of the company's Vancouver facility, and David Ing, chief software architect.

"Dave is just itching to go build something else from scratch that he's had in mind for about a year and a half -- it's something he's already started," says Olsen.

Meridian's other co-founder, John Bodrozic, remains president.