Raima's Embedded Database Management Team
Steinar Sande
Chief Executive Officer
Office Seattle: +1 206 748 5236
Mr. Sande brings over 20 years of solid experience in hardware and software sales for industry leading
companies including IBM, Sun and Computer Associates. He joined Birdstep Technology in 2000 as
Vice President of Sales where he doubled sales of the Raima database products. He moved to Seattle
in 2004 to take over the operations Sales as a Vice President of Sales of the Raima division. Starting
January 1, 2005 Mr. Sande took over as Raima’s Chief Executive Officer and has successfully turned
the company around. This remarkable turnaround included the rectifying of general operations, financial
issues, liabilities, regulatory and legal considerations, product lines, and sales and marketing restoring
shareholder value in the company. Today Raima Inc. is an efficient and predictable revenue generating
business of Birdstep Technology ASA. Mr. Sande has also served as an officer in the Norwegian armed
forces and holds a BA Business and Economics from the BI Norwegian School of Management.
Bill Houglum
VP of Engineering and Services
Office Seattle: +1 206 748 5206
Mr. Houglum brings nearly 30 years of experience in leading teams in the development and testing of
commercial software. He joined Raima in 1996 and was promoted to V.P. of Engineering and Services
in 2007. He has lead multiple development projects including the re-architecting of both RDM Server and
RDM Embedded. Mr. Houglum has also served on the board of directors of a privately held software
company. Other positions held by Mr. Houglum include Lead Software Engineer, Quality Assurance
Manager, and Director of Engineering. An expert in embedded database technology and embedded
systems he has authored several articles and blogs. Mr. Houglum holds a BS of Information Technology
and Databases from the University of Phoenix.
Duncan Bates
VP of Product Management
Office Seattle: +1 206 748 5245
Mr. Bates brings nearly 15 years experience in sales engineering and product management and is a recognized expert
in database management systems. Mr. Bates joined Birdstep Technology in 2000 as Senior Sales Engineer where he
helped double sales in EMEA. He relocated to Seattle in early 2004 where lead the Worldwide Sales Engineering team
for the Raima product line. Also, during this time Mr. Bates took over the Product Management role and has successfully
help define and deliver multiple product releases. As Vice President he continues to lead the Sales Engineering team and
works with the Sales Team on key accounts. This is in addition to his full responsibility of the product management of the
Raima database product lines. Other positions previously held by Mr. Bates include Senior Engineer for a cellular network
testing solution startup that was very successful and ultimately acquired by the Swedish telephone giant Ericsson. Mr. Bates
holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Oslo.
Paul Johnson
Marketing Manager
Office Seattle: +1 206 748 5213
Mr. Johnson joined Raima in April 2007 bringing over twenty years of marketing and operational experience to
to the company. Prior to joining Raima he worked at Microsoft as a product manager in the SMSG SD Group.
He also ran his own independent consulting firm working where he worked with the Microsoft's Windows Evangelist Group
creating and managing developer events such as the Windows Server DevCon and Route 64 Worldwide Tour.
Additionally he worked with MySQL to create their product packaging, fulfillment and distribution of their popular
open source database product. Other positions held by Mr. Johnson include a Senior Product Manager of Database
Technologies for Raima Inc, Technical Sales Representative for Commercial Documentation Services, and
Operations Manager for Microrim developers of the R:BASE relational database. Paul holds a MBA in Ecommerce
and Information Systems as well as a BA in Business Management both from Seattle University.