Technology >> CEO Interviews >> October 1, 1998
ROBERT RICHMOND 47, is the co-founder, Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer of Active Voice Corporation, a publicly traded corporation based
in Seattle and the world's leading manufacturer of PC-based voice
processing systems. A pioneer in the voice processing industry, Richmond
is a frequent speaker at national and international telecommunications
symposia and trade shows. He built Active Voice from a small, three-
person operation into a multi-million dollar enterprise that has won
numerous industry awards and has been hailed by experts for its
ingenuity and sophisticated product design. Under Richmond's leadership,
Active Voice was recognized by both Business Week and Forbes magazine as
one of the 'Best Small Companies in America' for 1994, and was among
Inc. magazine's 'Top 500 Private U.S. Companies' in 1992 and 1993.
Following in the footsteps of Bill Gates, Richmond in 1994 was named the
'Northwest Software Entrepreneur of the Year.' In 1990, Teleconnect
magazine named him 'Telecom Person of the Year.' Before starting Active
Voice, Richmond worked at Intermetrics, Inc., in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, where he developed engineering software for NASA and The
Boeing Company, and was responsible for inventing a system for detecting
avionics problems on Boeing's 757 and 767 airplanes. Richmond launched
Active Voice in 1983 with Robert C. Greco, when the two decided to form
their own venture. The vision that came out of their early brainstorming
meetings resulted in the world-renowned Repartee' voice processing
system, now installed in more than 30 countries worldwide. In 1991,
Richmond became a leading force behind the development of the Community
Technology Institute, a community voice mail program designed to help
the homeless secure jobs, healthcare and other services. The program,
adopted by ten other cities, has won national acclaim and is the
recipient of the 1993 Harvard Innovations Award. Richmond was appointed
Chairman of the Board for the Institute in 1994. Richmond earned a
Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972. He is a member of Tau
Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society. Profile
Mr. Richmond: We started in 1983 with some technology developed at MIT's
media lab by a classmate of mine who was a principal research
