Sam Friedman
Co-Founder and CEO
Sam Friedman, Co-Founded ParkMe in 2009 to solve his own parking problems. Having paid a seemingly uncountable number of parking tickets and having arrived embarrassingly late to one too many meetings, he realized the parking process needed an overhaul.
Sam also held positions at Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, a Los Angeles based wealth management firm, National Public Radio, and Merrill Lynch. Sam has a BA in Economics and Business from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He used to be fluent in Spanish, and has had amazing parking karma over the past several years.
Fun Fact: Sam can say the alphabet backwards
Alexander Israel
Co-Founder and COO
Alexander Israel, has worked in both the Location-Based Services and Digital Media industries before Co-Founding ParkMe.
Earlier, Alex was involved in the entertainment industry, specializing in producing and new media. He worked with MTV International, the American Film Institute, the Sundance Institute, Disney and the United Talent Agency. Additionally, Alex has guest lectured at the University of New Orleans, USC and served as an interim member of the Board of Trustees at the American Film Institute and the University of Puget Sound. Alex earned a BA degree in Business and Economics from the University of Puget Sound and an MFA from the American Film Institute.
Fun Fact: Alex can play the flute upside down
Sam Blake
Data Aggregation Specialist
Sam was born in Boston on Christmas day, raised by a hillbilly medicine woman, and thinks picklebacks make the best mouthwash. He studied history at Bard College and has worked as an archaeologist, a tutor, and a waiter. He now judo chops data into bite size pieces for ParkMe.
Kevin Blomberg
Director of Communications & PR Coordinator
Kevin is an original co-founding member of ParkMe and helped aggregate what is now the world's leading database of parking information. As internal head of PR and social media, he's produced several high profile press releases and manages content for the ParkMe blog. He's gained company attention from such reputable sources as L.A. Times, Mashable, Entrepreneur Magazine, All Things D among many others.
Kevin studied Film and US History at the Emerson College in Boston, MA, and began his career as office manager at film production startup The Masses. He is a West Los Angeles native with intense love for the Dodgers, cinema, and the great outdoors (particularly the Santa Monica Mountains). Don't ask him to join your a-cappella group, he just might blow your mind
Mark Braibanti
Director of Marketing & Business Development
Mark Braibanti joined the ParkMe team in its inception and focuses on integrated marketing strategies and business development. A marketing "jack of all trades", he uses his wealth of marketing, design and logistical expertise to dream up unique marketing campaigns and see them into reality, by developing and pitching concepts, coordinating with vendors, and managing project budgets and personnel. On the biz dev side, Mark works with developers and navigation companies to help get ParkMe's data and technology to the masses.
Mark graduated from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business in 2005 with a concentration in marketing and a minor in Psychology.
Fun Fact: Originally hailing from Washington D.C., Mark is an avid D.C. sports fan who never misses a Redskins game.
Sean Cameron
Data Aggregation Specialist
Sean Baldwin-Stevenson joined ParkMe fresh out of college. Intending to study the physical sciences, he somehow finished his undergraduate education at UC Berkeley with both BA in German and a BA in Philosophy. Now seeking a compromise between his interests, Sean was naturally drawn toward getting involved with the ParkMe app as an everyday tool of awesome technology. Plus! he now (finally) gets to put his German skills to use while mapping overseas, expanding the app for users in Europe. Sean plans to one day pursue research studying energy and the urban environment in Berlin – maybe even sticking around to go to back to school.
Fun Fact: Sean got into Berghain on his first try.
Dmitry Diment
Data Aggregation Specialist
Dmitry Diment joined ParkMe after returning from a semester living in Russia and traveling through Ukraine, where he was busy photographing Soviet subway stations and discovering the limits of his civil liberties. A recent graduate of UC Berkeley with BAs in Economics and Political Science, he developed an interest in transportation and public policy while working at the Port of Oakland in college. At ParkMe, he works night and day (in that order) analyzing data to shorten your commute. When he isn't working, Dmitry is obsessing about Detroit and how public transportation can be used to promote population growth.
Keith Hackbarth
Product Engineer
Keith Hackbarth spent 8 years working in management consulting, helping Fortune 500 companies manage their tech infrastructure. On the side, he founded
Rentersfriend.com and was employee number one at SaveBrite.com, both successful startups.
Keith has a BS in Management and Computer Sciences from University of California, San Diego and did graduate level studies at Stanford.
Fun Fact: Keith is a tournament level Super Smash Brothers player.
Kimberly Huang
Marketing Associate
Kimi started working at ParkMe as a Marketing intern after graduating from UCSB with a B.A. in Art History. After a few months Kimi was hired as the Marketing Specialist for the ParkMe team. She plans and coordinates ParkMe promotions at various events and conferences. As a tech "newbie," Kimi hopes to reach out to the tech-challenged masses and teach them how to use ParkMe, because if she can learn how to use the app, then anyone can!
Kimi was born and raised in Los Angeles and is full-fledged city girl. Her best exercise regime includes walking the entire length of the Westside Pavilion while carrying increasingly heavy shopping bags (she is currently still looking for a cheaper way to exercise but has yet to find one as effective). Working on the 3rd Street Promenade has proven to be dangerous.
Fun Fact: Kimi is allergic to trees (especially Christmas trees) and has become natural enemies with nature.
Jon Krop
Director of Business Development
Prior to joining the ParkMe team, Jon Krop was an attorney at a boutique public-interest law firm in Los Angeles. He litigated cases at the trial and appellate levels, including election disputes, civil rights lawsuits, and education law cases. And yes, it WAS exactly like "The Practice."
Jon has a B.A. in business economics from Brown University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Fun Fact: Jon Krop is a decent guitarist and an appallingly bad singer.
Zander Lichstein has spent 16 years working at tech startups in fields ranging from real estate to online/offline advertising. Prior to ParkMe, Zander directed the R&D group at Spot Runner, automating the process of producing, and buying TV ads. His team developed groundbreaking techniques for mediaplan optimization, geo-targeting/analytics, and revolutionary techniques for correlating offline advertising’s effects on online behavior. Prior to that, he architected algorithms for performance-based adserving at L90, Max Worldwide, Excite/iWon, and Ask. During the first dot-com boom, he managed systems development at eHobbies, and web development at FastTV – a pioneer in online video.
He received an AB and BE from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.
Fun Fact: Zander can wiggle just one of his ears. Here, watch…
Felix Mark
Data Aggregation Specialist
Felix used to travel the country, testing and collecting data for GPS car navigation systems. He enjoys playing chess and any game that does not require athletic ability.
Sarah Martin
Executive Assistant
Sarah works as ParkMe’s Executive Assistant and Office Manager. Her role at ParkMe includes: scheduling, event planning, office maintenance and operations. Sarah graduated in 2011 from the University of the Pacific in Northern California. Majoring in Communications and Film Studies, Sarah has acquired a passion for making and analyzing films. Sarah was born and raised in Los Angeles and loves going to the beach. When Sarah’s not helping the ParkMe team defeat the worlds parking problems; she is out at a Dodger Game or taking her cat for a walk.
Katie Redderson-Lear
Data Aggregation Specialist
Katie Redderson-Lear just graduated from UCLA in June of 2012, receiving a BA in Linguistics as well as in Chinese Language and Culture. While at UCLA, she worked in the UCLA Child Language Acquisition Lab running experiments to research how and when children learn language, where she was introduced to the wild world of data entry and learned far more than she expected about entertaining small children. During this period, she also taught English Language classes to international students and faculty through the Dashew International Center. Prior to this, she worked as a Lab Technician at a small company called International Radiation Detectors, Inc, where she tested and repaired photodiodes for use in satellites and deep space probes such as European SOHO, NASA's EOS, and the Hubble Space Telescope.
Fun Fact: Katie used to spend much of her free time pole-vaulting and slacklining.
Jevon Reynolds
Senior Data Aggregation Specialist
Prior to ParkMe, Jevon Reynolds spent a few years in the healthcare industry working as an Operations Engineer. His participation in Abbott Laboratories’ Professional Development Program afforded him the opportunity to work in a diverse mix of departments ranging from from business excellence and product distribution to corporate purchasing and production. Relatively new to the tech startup world, he finds the fast-paced, energetic work very engaging and rewarding.
In addition, Jevon is a singer-songwriter and producer. Moving to LA has helped him find a solid balance in furthering both his technical and musical endeavors.
Jevon received a BSE in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, as well as an Audio Engineering Certificate from Pinnacle College.
Daniel Schuler
Android Developer
Daniel Schuler spent three years writing enterprise print software at
Xerox, and the last year developing cardiac CT imaging applications at
Cedars-Sinai. His main interests are in mobile and embedded devices,
which he discovered with the Micromouse team while earning his BS at
Cal State, Long Beach. He received an MS from USC in 2008, and
currently develops Android apps at ParkMe.
Roy Shea
Senior Systems Architect
Roy Shea spent the first three decades of his life enjoying academia. During this time he obtained a his BS in Math and Computer Science from Harvey Mudd, and his MS and Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA with research focused on diagnosing faults in wireless and embedded systems. After academia Roy split his time between a search for great coffee and tea, and working on a small startup to “solve” parking. While the former pursuit lead to grand adventures from Calgary to Taiwan, the attempts to solve parking proved even more exciting and lead to Roy’s joining ParkMe in 2011. Roy now works with ParkMe to produce software and statistical models that help make parking a more pleasant experience.
Fun Fact: Just before joining ParkMe, Roy traded his car for a tab at a coffee shop in North Idaho
David Switzer
Director of Operations
David is an original founding member of ParkMe and currently manages the world's leading database of parking information. He manages an ever growing team of wide-eyed, in house data ninjas. In addition, he coordinates street teams in hundreds of cities.
After studying Film at University of Central Florida and at Fullsail University in Orlando, FL. He moved to Santa Monica in the summer of '08 to work in the film industry. After a couple years of working in production and post production in the film industry, he jumped on the ParkMe Train.
He grew up on Florida's Gulf Coast, (aka The Redneck Riviera, The Deep South, The Bible Belt, The Dirty Dirty) where he grew up working at a zoo, taming wild beasts.
Brian Vallelunga
Intern Web & Subsystem Developer
Brian Vallelunga is a senior at Da Vinci Science High School. After school Brian likes to spend his time learning new programming concepts and algorithms. He has worked in industry for a year and a half. From 2011 to 2012, Brian worked at AdageGraphics as a Web Developer and Designer. In the summer of 2012, Brian joined ParkMe as a part time employee.
When Brian is not at school or programming, he is always active is some type of competition. From chess to First Robotics Competition to the Science Fair, he is always seeking the next great challenge.
Brian plans to attend a university in the field of computer science.
Fun Fact: Brian used to play Ice Hockey for 7 years but stopped and took up Fencing.
