About Us

Founded in 2004 by former Cisco Systems executive and Novell Executive Director, Jeff Turner, nuMetra, Inc. is a provider of an open-source, bandwidth mediation system, whose technology will enable ISPs to: 1) Offer broadband customers a superior video streaming experience; 2) Provide their media customers with a new offering of premium-priced services such as copyright enforcement, and; 3) Decrease their costs and maximize profits via increased control of their networks.

nuMetra’s technology shifts the economic and logistical burden of this growth away from ISP’s, while simultaneously addressing ongoing concerns from content companies and the entertainment industry regarding intellectual property and copyright protection. It also enables ISP’s to offer different levels of service which addresses the shrinking margins of their current business models.

Management Team

Anthem Blanchard, CEO

Anthem began working with Jeff Turner in December of 2002 as a key strategic advisor and strategic lead for nuMetra. He officially stepped in as the company’s CEO in September of 2008.

For the 6 years prior to his taking the key leadership role for nuMetra, Anthem worked with online precious metal retailer GoldMoney.com as one of the founding members of management and served as the company’s Director of Strategic Development & Marketing. Anthem was the architect behind GoldMoney's current business model, which transformed the company from an early stage start-up venture to a cashflow-positive, $200M+ per year revenue-grossing company. As of August 31, 2008, GoldMoney held over $368M in total value on behalf of its over 25,000 active customer base. Due in large part to Anthem’s prior involvement to prepare the company for future growth, the total value in circulation at GoldMoney is over $608M as of February 28, 2009.

Mr. Blanchard holds a B.B.A in Finance and Accounting from Emory University and serves on the Board of Directors and Audit Committee of Pernix Therapeutics, Inc. (NYSE Amex: GTA) a publicly traded pharmaceutical company.

Jeff Turner, Founder/Chairman

A Silicon Valley veteran and network management expert, Jeff Turner has led Marketing and Engineering teams at the premiere firms of Cisco Systems, Novell, and Hewlett Packard. His early work with Hewlett Packard provided him with a deep knowledge of LAN technologies, TCP and low level network traffic. As a Member of the HP Technical Staff (MTS), Turner distinguished himself by developing real-time recognition algorithms for network analysis products. During his tenure at Novell, the CEO entrusted Turner with the product direction and strategy of their Netware and Network Management lines. Jeff’s management of QoS technology with Cisco Network Management Group led to his ground-breaking discoveries about broadband traffic characteristics that eventually led to his vision for his own company, nuMetra.

Jeff holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Case Institute of Technology at CWRU. Prior to CWRU Jeff attended Dickinson College, a liberal arts school in Carlisle Pennsylvania.

Nancy Lanning, COO

Nancy J. Lanning is an executive project manager with 30 years of computer software and business management experience in both the public and private sector. Her near obsession with achieving results, process establishment and improvement, team building, and entrepreneurial culture are among the many passions that make her both a strong leader and a successful key contributor to start up environments.

Nancy’s career was born during the first wave of personal computing, serving as Product Manager for SoftTech Microsystems, Developer Relations Manager for Metamorphic Systems, Marketing Manager for Softra, Inc and Product Manager for Infocom, Inc. Nancy served in several key roles at the Microsoft Corporation during its infancy and adolescence (from 1988 to 1993), including as Senior Project Manager for the OS/2 Development Group during which time she received the “Making It Happen” corporate award for her results achievement. She held executive management positions for the rest of her term there including as Group Manager for International Systems Marketing, Senior Manager for the Far East Development and Marketing Group and finally as Group Program Manager for the Worldwide Sales Training Group.

Nancy then coalesced her 10-plus engineering management career into a successful consulting firm. She was immediately contracted by Microsoft’s Asia-Pacific division where she developed training and personnel competency models that were so successful, they were adopted by the company’s US headquarters. As a consultant, she also led development teams at Atrieva (which included defending the company in a breach of contract suit), Crystal Point (where her evaluation of staffing needs led to a 90% staff replacement) and Advanced Interactive Systems (where she grew the development staff from four to over 20 in 18 months and delivered the first product in the company’s history on time).

With what little free time Nancy has left, she is a devoted animal advocate and caregiver. She was a founder of the Kindred Spirits Animal Sanctuary, which she also ran for over 10 years and is currently a loving foster mother to countless kittens and cats in desperate need of rehabilitation.

Nancy received a B.S. in Economics and Computer Science with minors in English Literature and Psychology from the University of California, San Diego. She received an M.S. in Management (MBA equivalent) from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with concentrations in International Business Management and Technology Management.

Scott Landman, Vice President Business Development

As a 17-year veteran of the computer networking industry, Scott Landman has evolved into a specialist in the areas of strategic alliances, market development, and strategy. Currently, he has global responsibility for business development, which includes creating and managing partnerships in the areas of technology, content, and public policy.

Earlier in his career he had been employed by network equipment manufacturers, including Lannet, Xylan, and Cisco in marketing and analyst relations roles. In addition to his work within the networking space, Scott gained experience working for market research firms as a quantitative and qualitative industry analyst.

Rounding out his career, he has been the the founder and proprietor of two coffee houses.

Scott holds an B.A. in Psychology from Allegheny College.

Rachel Parker, Director of Marketing and Communications

Rachel Parker has been involved in the media industry and start up environments for over 15 years. She cut her teeth as an entrepreneur as a producer and screenwriter of a a full-length feature film in 1997, (which premiered at the New York Independent Film Festival). During the five year development and production phase of the film, she gained extensive knowledge about the film and media industries. She then transitioned into a new career by applying her writing talents and producing experience to the then job-rich "dot.com bubble", landing at the Los Angeles-based news wire Market Wire where she served as the Director of Marketing and Media Relations for six years. While there, she also developed key communication protocols on behalf of the engineering team that were key to the company’s implementation of its news feeds to media outlets.

From 2005 to 2008, she worked as the chief communication and marketing strategist for online precious metal retailer GoldMoney alongside Anthem Blanchard, helping to implement his cutting-edge product advancements and overhauling the company’s customer experience marketing and communications paradigms and logistics.

Rachel holds a B.A. in Theater from the University of Southern California.

Anees Narsinh, Vice President, Engineering

Anees Narsinh is a Senior Level Engineering Leader with over 15 years of management experience in companies ranging from start-ups to Global Corporations.

He distinguished himself at Alcatel/Lucent/Xylan where he delivered multiple generations of high-density products with evolving features that included carrier-class redundancy and support for real-time services. His leadership of the 124 employees in cross-functional teams resulted in a flagship product that Internet Telephony Magazine named Product of The Year.

Success came early for Narsinh, who delivered the first working prototype for start-up company NetVantage that went on to win Best Workgroup Product by Data Communication and which set the stage for their IPO and subsequent acquisition by Cabletron. The flagship database computer he delivered to AT&T/NCR/Teradata is considered the company’s best developed product in history and responsible for the acquisition by AT&T. Mr Narsinh is the author of seven U.S Patents including 6,389,035 & 6,088,745; 20060140128, 20050201415, 20050198258, 20050141510, 20030016625 (pending).

Anees holds an MSEE from University of California, Santa Barbara and is a distinguished member of the Alcatel Technical Academy.

Engineering Team

Fernando Paganini, PhD, Systems Consultant and Engineer

Dr. Paganini is currently a professor of Engineering at the Universidad ORT, Uruguay. He has been a professor of Electrical Engineering at a number of other esteemed academic institutions including the University of California, Los Angeles, The California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Paganini has been a contributor to several research papers for the public and private sectors including Princeton University and the IEEE. In total, he is the Co-author of 24 journals & book chapters, 56 conference papers, and a book, A Course in Robust Control Theory: A Convex Approach. He is an ongoing participant and advisor on many research projects both in the U.S. and Uruguay.

His awards include:

  • Level III Researcher, National System of Research, Uruguay, since March 2009.
  • Honorary Committee, presiding body of the National System of Research, Uruguay, April 2008.
  • Senior Member, IEEE, awarded October 2005.
  • 2004 George S. Axelby Award from the IEEE Control Systems Society, for Best Paper in the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.
  • 2001 TRW Excellence in Teaching Award, Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, UCLA.
  • 1999 Packard Fellowship from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation
  • 1999 NSF CAREER Award, on "Robust Control of Distributed Systems".
  • 1996 PhD Thesis Awards, California Institute of Technology
    • Milton and Francis Clauser Doctoral Prize
    • Awarded to the PhD candidate "whose PhD thesis reflects extraordinary standards of quality, innovative research, ingenuity, and -especially- the potential of opening new avenues of human thought and endeavor."
    • Charles Wilts Prize, "for outstanding independent research in electrical engineering leading to a PhD."
  • O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award , American Automatic Control Council, 1995
  • Finalist, Best Student Paper competition, 1995 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control

Desmond Borresen, Software Architect

A Software Architect and Engineer with more than 20 years experience, Desmond was co-founder and Software Architect of Xceler Corporation, a company dedicated to the development of the industry’s highest speed Internet security appliance. While there, he oversaw eight employees and designed and implemented Linux development environments, based on embedded Debian package. While at Alcatel as a Software Architect, he helped to specify and develop: the company’s flagship switching-engine ASIC chipset, a software emulation of an ASCI implementation of TCP/UDP, a software emulation of the systems queue management (deficit round robin) and porting a stripped/embedded Unix kernel/boot environment to twin Sparc cores embedded in a very large switching ASIC. His early years were spent with Retix, Inc. developing software for Ethernet and ATM switches.

Desmond holds a Bsc in Computer Science from University of Essex, UK and an MBA from Tanaka Business School at Imperial College, London.

Laurence E. LaForge, PhD, Consulting Scientist

Laurence E. LaForge, PhD, is the inventor of Embedded System for Wireless Network Optimization, U.S. patent pending. Previously an assistant professor of Computer Science and Mathematics for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Dr. LaForge took adjunct status in 1998 in order to found The Right Stuff of Tahoe, and to devote his energies to practical applications of computational connectivity. His more than forty publications include articles in the IEEE Transactions on Computers, the IEEE Transactions on Reliability, and the IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Processing. In 1998 he was guest editor for the IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology, and in 1997 was program chair for the IEEE International Conference on Innovative Systems in Silicon (née the IEEE International Conference on Wafer Scale Integrated Systems). When on faculty in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Nevada, he was recognized as most influential mentor to the top senior scholar in the College of Engineering.

In 1991 Larry received a degree of proficiency in French, along with his PhD, from McGill University; his doctoral research in fault tolerant arrays spanned electrical engineering, computer science, and mathematics. In 1977 he graduated with a baccalaureate in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His Erdös Number equals Two. Prior to obtaining his doctorate, Dr. LaForge headed Environments, Limited, a computer consulting firm in Northboro, Massachusetts. A Principal Engineer for Hewlett Packard (née Digital Equipment Corporation) he was a technical contributor to the VAX/VMS 8600, and to CHAS, a pioneer CAD/CAM suite for integrating VLSI design domains. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Dr. LaForge programmed the power distribution unit for NASA's Deep Space One, the first extra-orbital probe propelled by an ion engine. He is a member of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and of the IEEE Computer Society.

Ajay Raval, Director, Systems QA

Ajay is a customer-focused, award-winning, creative, and action-oriented Quality Assurance professional with over fifteen years of Quality Assurance and Test Engineering experience in the networking industry. His seasoned managerial and hands-on contributions in planning, building and leading domestic and international quality assurance teams make him an ideal member for a startup environment.

He began his career at Unisys Corporation where he served as a senior software and testing engineer for six years. While there, he was twice awarded the Excellence Award for his outstanding contributions to product releases. Since then, he has worked at a number of organizations including Alcatel (Team Leader), Occam / Accelerated Networks (Manager, Quality Assurance), and Micom Communications (Principal Test Engineer). For over six years, he worked as a Senior Quality Assurance Manager for Ixia, where he was recognized for managing a QA team (up to 25 QAEs across three continents) for the Ixia application which generated an average of $4m in revenue per quarter.

Ajay received his B.S. and M.S. (equivalent) in Electrical Engineering from Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (Bombay, India).