Management changes proliferate among major PACS vendors

Management changes proliferate among major PACS vendors

Dot-coms lure industry veterans

Internet start-ups are wreaking havoc on upper management at several major PACS companies. One of the latest to leave this industry for seemingly greener pasture is Eli Rapiach, vice president of sales for Cemax-Icon (a division of Eastman Kodak). Rapiach has accepted a position as vice president of sales at Zantaz.com, a Pleasanton, CA-based provider of secure Internet archives. Rapiach's position at Cemax-Icon will be taken over immediately by Greg Masek, national sales manager at Cemax-Icon.

Rapiach joins Jean Luc Chatelain, former director of engineering at Cemax-Icon, at Zantaz.com, where Chatelain has been vice president of engineering since his departure from a similar position at Cemax-Icon earlier this year.

"Working with Cemax-Icon has been an extraordinarily rewarding experience and the decision to leave an especially difficult one, especially since we're finally seeing the result of years of hard labor," Rapiach said. "Cemax-Icon has developed an extremely strong team of sales, marketing, and management professionals that, combined with the corporate backing of Kodak, will allow them to continue the upward growth they experienced while I was part of the team."

Several other key players have either changed companies or positions in the PACS industry over the last few months. Mike Mahoney, national sales manager in General Electric's PACS division, has left GE to take over the reins at another Internet start-up. Former Agfa marketing manager Tom Colluci recently joined Cemax-Icon to head up its marketing department, along with former Philips PACS head Fred Pryor, who is now chief technical officer at Cemax-Icon (HNN 5/3/00, 5/17/00). David Brown, former national sales manager for PACS, has taken a parallel role in PACS marketing at Siemens, and Christie Whalen, a longtime Siemens PACS employee, has left the company to help bolster ADAC's PACS efforts. Finally, StorageTek recently lost Bill Knight as vice president of sales when he left to oversee the PACS business at EMC, parent company of Data General.