iRise Adds William Pierskalla, Recent UCLA Anderson School Dean, To Advisory Board

Internet infrastructure firm iRise today announced the appointment to its Advisory Board of William P. Pierskalla, Ph.D., John E. Anderson Professor of Management and former dean at the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA.

Privately owned iRise focuses on providing tools and services for Java-based Internet applications to help companies customize and integrate e-business solutions.

"Bill Pierskalla brings a depth of knowledge in managing operations of rapidly growing organizations that will be invaluable in helping guide our company's continued growth," said iRise CEO Emmet Keeffe III. "We are pleased and honored he has agreed to take an active role in the company's management as a member of its Advisory Board."

Dr. Pierskalla is currently engaged in research projects involving the use of operations research and operations and technology management to solve issues of global competition and management aspects of health care delivery.

Other boards of which he is a member include the Northern Trust of California and the Bush Foundation.

"I'm most impressed with the success iRise has achieved in its three-year history in meeting the rapidly changing e-business requirements of an impressive list of companies. iRise has the depth of core knowledge and the technology and e-commerce implementation ability to provide significant added value to clients," said Dr. Pierskalla.

Prior to joining the Anderson School, Dr. Pierskalla was at the Wharton School as the Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs, the Director of the Huntsman Center for Global Competition and Leadership and the Chairman of Wharton's Health Care Systems Department. Prior to his positions at Wharton, he served on the faculties of Northwestern University, Southern Methodist University and Case Institute of Technology.

Dr. Pierskalla holds B.A. and M.B.A. degrees from Harvard University, a M.A. in mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh and a M.S. in statistics and a Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford University.

He has served as a consultant to a number of organizations, including Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Recognition Equipment, Johnson and Johnson, IBM, the National Institute of Mental Health and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

iRise, founded in 1996, has worked with approximately 50 clients including Excite@Home, Providian Financial, Hollywood Stock Exchange, Kaiser Permanente, Bergen Brunswig, and RealCentric.com. The company has strategic partnerships with AOL, BEA Systems, Sun Microsystems and the Sun-Netscape Alliance/iPlanet. By narrowly focusing on Java-based Internet implementations, iRise accelerates software implementation while cutting cost and risk from the process.