Business: Bruce E. Johnson

Profile

Bruce E. Johnson

By FRED W. WRIGHT Jr.

New position: President and CEO, Skyway Software, Tampa

Previous position: President and CEO, ClearCross, Reston, Va.

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As Bruce E. Johnson sees it, his new role as president and chief executive of Skyway Software has dual focuses.

"It's inward facing," he said, "meaning sales, marketing, R&D, finance -- all the functions of internal operations.

"There are outward facing functions as well," he said. "Fifty percent of my responsibility is to take a small startup company that is pre-revenue and go out and actually drive the sales and marketing engine to get traction in this market we're in."

Skyway Software, formerly known as Turtle Software, is developing software that will allow businesses to integrate processes. Skyway's Direct Procurement Unification Application Suite is expected to be ready for market this quarter. Johnson says the product represents the "fourth paradigm shift" for software that will integrate "billions of dollars worth of software employed across the world" by major corporations.

Skyway Software has just finished raising $3.3-million. "Now, we're mostly focused outward," Johnson said.

"Our immediate goal is to get business in this market and in this economy. Traction speaks volumes," he said. "The days of the dot-com bust are over. Today, you've got to run your business."

Johnson came to Skyway Software on Oct. 1 with years of experience at high-tech companies. He spent five years as president and chief executive of ClearCross, a software company in Reston, Va. Johnson raised more than $15-million in private financing for ClearCross and also led the merger between ClearCross and Atrion International.

Prior to ClearCross, Johnson worked in senior executive and sales management roles at Baan, another software solutions provider in Reston. He led revenue growth at Baan from $1-million to $64-million in three years. He also has worked for Oracle, Electronic Data Systems and IBM.

Johnson said he knew he wanted a career in technology since taking computer science classes in college. He earned a bachelor's of science degree in computer science and business in 1973 at California State University at Chico, where he attended on the G.I. Bill. Johnson served nearly three years in Vietnam, from 1966-68, as an non-commissioned officer in the Army.

In college, Johnson said, he "looked around at what I wanted to do." Computer sciences and business seemed the ideal partnership, he said.

Johnson, 56, is relocating his family to Tampa. He and his wife have five children, three of them at home. They are avid water skiers, he said. "My kids say we have to find a place (to ski) where they don't have alligators," he said, laughing. "I know I'm going to have to be the first in the water to prove that."