Guy Grand, President and Founder
Guy is a visionary entrepreneur that brings veteran Adjusting experience to the team. He started his first business as a freshman in college at the age of 21. After 17 years as a concert producer for some of the worlds best known musicians Guy was introduced to catastrophic insurance adjusting. He was licensed and trained in less than 6 months and began adjusting in 2003. In 2004 after four catastrophic hurricanes in Florida, Guy recognized a niche in the industry that was not being properly serviced; “The first contact after a claim was filed”. After Hurricane Katrina, Guy knew that something had to be done to help those affected after such devastation. In 2006, he founded First Contact, Inc and pulled together a team of technology experts who, with his vision, created the patent pending solution Adjusters First Contact.
Calvin Cooke, CEO
Calvin brings 15 years of entrepreneurial experience to First Contact, Inc. with a particular knack for building capital efficient technology companies. Calvin has helped shape business and technology strategy, implement technology solutions and has particular strengths in transitioning companies from product development to scalable sales-driven businesses. With a keen tech sense, Calvin can traverse development teams as well as hardware and software solutions, while keeping his eye on the business fundamentals essential to success. Calvin understands what it takes to build organizational alignment, strong teams and everything necessary to reach profitability. Having bought, built and sold 5 different technology companies, Calvin brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the areas of early stage formation, funding, sales, and M&A.
Daniel Esbensen, Chief Technology Officer
Dan brings substantial experience in developing and implementing successful commercial software projects to First Contact, Inc. Dan has been programming since 1968 and is proficient in a number of programming languages. Dan began developing successful commercial software for enterprise use in 1974. In 1982, Dan co-founded Touch Technologies, Inc. Dan is the inventor of record for a number of technology patents:
• Patent# 5,796,942: Method and apparatus for automated network-wide surveillance and security breach intervention.
• Patent# 5,226,141: Variable capacity cache memory
• Patent# 6,822,586: Apparatus and method for converting binary numbers to character codes
• Patent# 7,149,765: Apparatus and method for precision binary numbers and numerical operations
• Patent# 7,124,427: Method and apparatus for surveillance using an image server
Steve Akash, Chief Operations Officer
Steve has extensive experience in technical project development and management. His many talents include multi-media production and integrating front end design with data fed web applications and identity branding. After consulting for First Contact Inc. during 2005 - 2006, Steve joined the team as COO in 2007. His innate ability to coordinate with vendors and nurture productive industry alliances makes him an integral part of team. With 15 years of brand management and creative design experience under his belt Steve is able to wear many hats including coordinating the efforts of company personnel.
