Traceability Experience: Real-world Learnings (Food Traceability 2006)

 

Mr. Pape is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of AgInfoLink Global Inc. - an international, information-services company providing food traceability solutions. AgInfoLink works with food supply chain members to build data networks which track information on each production unit across different company ownership and across product transformations (e.g., seed to wheat to flour to dough to buns). These systems help management make better informed decisions to enhance business performance, meet regulatory requirements and heighten food security. AgInfoLink has been delivering commercial food tracking solutions since 1998. Pape currently also co-authors the "Technology Toolbox" monthly column in the Food Traceability Report, a column dedicated to real-world traceability solutions.

 

Mr. Pape is a third-generation, Oklahoma-raised rancher, with ranches in Hawaii and New Mexico. From 1997 through 1999 Mr. Pape was a co-founder and chairman of Hawaii Natural Meats, Inc. a niche meat marketing company based on the Big Island of Hawaii.

 

Prior to 1997, Mr. Pape was a VeriFone co-founder, senior manager, and corporate officer for seventeen years from 1982 until 1998, a year after VeriFone's sale to Hewlett Packard. VeriFone pioneered the electronic acquisition and transfer of credit card information and, at the time of the H-P acquisition, handled over 65% of the world's daily credit card traffic. Mr. Pape was one of the first five VeriFone employees. During his VeriFone tenure, Mr. Pape had responsibility for the technical development groups, the product marketing groups, and the information, system and controls groups.

 

During the early 1990's Mr. Pape had an active public speaking schedule on the virtual corporation, a concept VeriFone pioneered. Mr. Pape authored the quarterly Virtual Manager column for Inc Technology magazine for five years, served on the board of another NASDAQ NMS company, and was a lecturer at the National Defense University at Ft. McNair Virginia.

 

Before VeriFone, Mr. Pape was a General Partner in Innovative Software Applications of Menlo Park, California. He co-designed Spellguard, the first commercial spelling checker for personal computers whose spell-check engine was licensed to other word processors. Spellguard was selected as the 1981 Software Product of the Year by InfoWorld magazine.

 

Mr. Pape was Assistant Professor of Decision Sciences at the University of Hawaii School of Business in the late 1970's. In the mid-1970's he spent four years in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and other Asian locales working for the United Nations (UNDP, Unesco, and UNFPA), and an additional two years on short-term U.N. consultancies. Mr. Pape began his career in broadcasting, ending as general manager of a radio station in San Francisco.

 

Born in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, Mr. Pape holds an A.B. degree in Psychology from Stanford University and two advanced degrees from the University of Hawaii, an M.A. in Social Psychology and an M.A. in Communications.

Traceability Starts Here. Founded in 1997, AgInfoLink designs and develops secure, high quality, traceability solutions for the world's food supply. The company's products provide the food industry with data collection, secure data transmission, data warehousing, reporting and analysis tools for increasing profits and reducing risk. AgInfoLink solutions provide customers increased efficiencies, increased commodity value, and "value traceability" from the farm to the table. The company's headquarters are located in Longmont, CO. (www.aginfolink.com )