Rip Gerber
Encyclopedia
Robert “Rip” Benthall Gerber, Jr. (Born December 27, 1962), best known as Rip Gerber, is an American author, business executive and entrepreneur, best known for his work in the science fiction and thriller genres. His books have been published by Random House under the Heyne imprint and sold almost exclusively as German language techno-thrillers in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. His literary works are usually based on the action genre and heavily feature technology. His novels epitomize the techno-thriller genre of literature, often exploring technology and failures of human interaction with it, especially resulting in catastrophes with biotechnology.
At age ten he started a business designing and selling greeting cards, raising enough money and winning a scholarship to attend the University of Virginia beginning in 1981. In college he studied biophysics and chemical engineering and supported himself by designing campus posters, T-shirts and greeting cards, working as a staff political cartoonist for the Cavalier Daily and University Journal, and working summer jobs at the Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. He also served on the University of Virginia’s Honor Council and as an officer for the Virginia chapter of Delta Upsilon fraternity. He was a member of the Virginia rugby and cycling club teams. During his undergraduate study, an engineering professor criticized his excessive doodling and unnecessary language in his lab notes, promptly Gerber to enroll in a fiction writing class in his final year, his only A+ grade of his entire college career. For his writing class he produced his first short story, A Fishing Day Correspondence, later published in The Virginia Literary Review in 1985. Gerber did not write another work of fiction again until twenty years later.
Gerber applied for and was rejected by Harvard Business School in 1987. Upon his second attempt at admission he did not complete the required personal essays in the application forms but instead constructed a large painted wooden puzzle of a pictogram detailing his life and accomplishments and shipped it to Harvard Admissions in a Zip-Loc bag. Gerber was accepted in Harvard University’s School of Business and graduated in 1992. Of note was he was a political cartoonist and journalist with the HARBUS school paper and co-wrote the Harvard show, Vulgarians at the Gate, the Don Sull, now an author and London Business School professor, and Jay O’Connor, son of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Also in 2007 Gerber published Pharma, his first techno-thriller concerning a team of pharmaceutical scientists conducting genetic tests on exotic rare plants in the Amazon rainforest. The novel included references to emerging biogenetic procedures, particularly growth enhancement of photosynthesis, that have since become mainstay techniques in biogenetic engineering research laboratories. The Random House edition published by the imprint Heyne briefly reached best-seller status in Germany in mid-2007.
In 2010 Gerber published a sequel entitled Killer Virus about a plot to infect the America public during a nationwide anti-terror rally utilizing medical device implants. The Food and Drug Administration featured prominently in the book. The book received excellent reviews but was published only in German under the Heyne imprint.
Also in 2010, Gerber’s second short story, Last Supper, was selected among hundreds of submissions to be included in an anthology from new authors and New York Times best-selling authors including Lee Child, Steve Berry, Gregg Hurwitz, Stephen Coonts, Heather Graham, Daniel James Palmer and Michael Palmer. The anthology, First Thrills: High-Octane Stories from the Hottest Thriller Authors was published internationally by Forge. Gerber’s story concerns a priest who utilizes the chemical properties of exotic mushrooms in administering the last rites to the man who murdered his pregnant wife. The story garnered acclamations from Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist.
, a wireless software company, in 2006. In 2004, Mr. Gerber joined Intellisync, then a struggling consumer data sync company, to lead a restructuring, repositioning and re-branding of the company, consolidate its products and market focus and position Intellisync for sale. Mr. Gerber and CEO Woody Hobbs transformed the company and brand to a worldwide leader in wireless email and mobile software for the enterprise and wireless carrier markets. Nokia acquired Intellisync for $480M in February 2006. During this period Mr. Gerber was an often-quoted industry expert on wireless technology and corporate mobility.
Consulting Period: Prior to joining Intellisync, Mr. Gerber served as Managing Director and Group Vice President
of Carlson Marketing Group, the $2 Billion subsidiary of Carlson Companies
. Mr. Gerber led regional integration of CMG’s acquisitions, notably the Peppers & Rogers Group, and he initiated and led the firm’s technology practice for clients including HP, Intel, Oracle, Xerox and Home Depot. Prior to that he was Senior Vice President for Digitas Inc. (NASDAQ: DTAS) where he established the firm’s B2B division, leading strategic marketing programs for Microsoft and Charles Schwab, advising CMOs and senior client executives on strategy, market positioning, customer acquisition and retention, CRM, communications, branding and infrastructure investment.
Email Infrastructure: In 1999 Mr. Gerber joined a company based out of Tel Aviv, Israel and took the company public on NASDAQ. At Commtouch
Inc., an email infrastructure company, (NASDAQ: CTCH), Mr. Gerber served as Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Marketing Officer and led several operating divisions. Prior to that, Mr. Gerber also served as President of @once Inc, an email marketing company he founded, which was later acquired by InfoUSA
.
Pre-Silicon Valley Roles Prior to his work in software, Mr. Gerber was a senior practitioner at Deloitte & Touche, later Deloitte consulting. He is most noted for being the first management consultant in Deloitte’s software practice in 1992. He also served in Deloitte’s Merger & Acquisition division (and an affiliation with KKR), and helped build the firm’s Financial Services practice, serving clients such as Bank of America, Charles Schwab, and First Republic Bank. He was also a key analyst in the thrift portfolio consolidation for Gerry Ford’s acquisition of Cal Fed.
Mr. Gerber also held key line positions as a senior marketing director at American Express, Inc. in New York, where he was the youngest employee in American Express’s history to join the Graduate Managament Program. He built the first polychromatic polyethylene manufacturing plant for Firestone Tire & Rubber in Hopewell, Virginia. He began his career at the Central Intelligence Agency, with documented roles in both the Psychological Testing Division in Arlington, Virginia and at Central Records in Langley, Virginia.
Credentials
Mr. Gerber earned a biochemical engineering degree from the University of Virginia
and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He has served on numerous boards and industry committees. He is also a published author (PHARMA; Random House in July 2007; PILOTS TO PROFITS; Hudson House in 2005), and KILLER VIRUS (Random House, December 2010). He is a member of various writing and national organizations, including:
http://www.student.virginia.edu/~valit/Virginia%20Literary%20Review.htm
San Francisco Writers Workshop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Writers_Workshop
Random House author bio
http://www.randomhouse.de/author/author.jsp?per=114017
KILLER VIRUS book site
http://www.randomhouse.de/book/edition.jsp?edi=311023&frm=false
FIRST THRILLS
http://us.macmillan.com/author/ripgerber
International Thriller Writers
http://www.thrillerwriters.org/connect/Rip%20Gerber/
http://www.vwtapes.com/doyouhavetolivewhereyouwritecd.aspx
Mensa
http://www.mensa.org/
http://www.prepaidmvno.com/tag/rip-gerber/
Locately Advisory Board
http://www.locately.com/company/advisors/
CTIA Presentation/Panel
http://www.ctiaenterpriseandapps.com/info/speakerdetails.cfm/18995
http://www.ctiawireless.com/info/speakerdetails.cfm/18063
Career: Crunchbase
http://www.crunchbase.com/person/rip-gerber-2
Early Life and Education
Robert Benthall Gerber, Jr. was born in Washington, DC, to Robert Benthall Gerber, a plumber, and Carolyn Wyser Gerber, a State Department employee, on December 27, 1962. He was raised in Falls Church, Virginia and had three siblings: a brother, William and two sisters, Donna and Cheryl. Gerber pursued cartooning, not writing, in his youth.At age ten he started a business designing and selling greeting cards, raising enough money and winning a scholarship to attend the University of Virginia beginning in 1981. In college he studied biophysics and chemical engineering and supported himself by designing campus posters, T-shirts and greeting cards, working as a staff political cartoonist for the Cavalier Daily and University Journal, and working summer jobs at the Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. He also served on the University of Virginia’s Honor Council and as an officer for the Virginia chapter of Delta Upsilon fraternity. He was a member of the Virginia rugby and cycling club teams. During his undergraduate study, an engineering professor criticized his excessive doodling and unnecessary language in his lab notes, promptly Gerber to enroll in a fiction writing class in his final year, his only A+ grade of his entire college career. For his writing class he produced his first short story, A Fishing Day Correspondence, later published in The Virginia Literary Review in 1985. Gerber did not write another work of fiction again until twenty years later.
Gerber applied for and was rejected by Harvard Business School in 1987. Upon his second attempt at admission he did not complete the required personal essays in the application forms but instead constructed a large painted wooden puzzle of a pictogram detailing his life and accomplishments and shipped it to Harvard Admissions in a Zip-Loc bag. Gerber was accepted in Harvard University’s School of Business and graduated in 1992. Of note was he was a political cartoonist and journalist with the HARBUS school paper and co-wrote the Harvard show, Vulgarians at the Gate, the Don Sull, now an author and London Business School professor, and Jay O’Connor, son of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Writing Career
The Journeyman was Rip Gerber’s first published novel, published by iUniverse in 2007. It is a novella of 52,000 words in length which describes the coming of age of an Iraqi boy in post-war Iraqi. The manuscript was rejected by over a hundred agents, primarily for its favorable views of the outcome of the Iraqi war, an unpopular stance at the time. It sold under a hundred copies.Also in 2007 Gerber published Pharma, his first techno-thriller concerning a team of pharmaceutical scientists conducting genetic tests on exotic rare plants in the Amazon rainforest. The novel included references to emerging biogenetic procedures, particularly growth enhancement of photosynthesis, that have since become mainstay techniques in biogenetic engineering research laboratories. The Random House edition published by the imprint Heyne briefly reached best-seller status in Germany in mid-2007.
In 2010 Gerber published a sequel entitled Killer Virus about a plot to infect the America public during a nationwide anti-terror rally utilizing medical device implants. The Food and Drug Administration featured prominently in the book. The book received excellent reviews but was published only in German under the Heyne imprint.
Also in 2010, Gerber’s second short story, Last Supper, was selected among hundreds of submissions to be included in an anthology from new authors and New York Times best-selling authors including Lee Child, Steve Berry, Gregg Hurwitz, Stephen Coonts, Heather Graham, Daniel James Palmer and Michael Palmer. The anthology, First Thrills: High-Octane Stories from the Hottest Thriller Authors was published internationally by Forge. Gerber’s story concerns a priest who utilizes the chemical properties of exotic mushrooms in administering the last rites to the man who murdered his pregnant wife. The story garnered acclamations from Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist.
Locaid Technologies
Mr. Gerber is currently President and Chief Executive Officer of Locaid Technologies, Inc., a “Location-as-a-Service” (LaaS) company that provides network location to mobile application developers in the United States and abroad.Prior to Locaid Technologies
Rip Gerber was the Chief Marketing Officer and head of Ecommerce and Business Development for NOKIA (NOK) following its acquisition of IntellisyncIntellisync
The Intellisync Corporation is a provider of Data and PIM Synchronization software for mobile devices, such as Cell Phones and PDAs. The company is currently a part of Nokia, after it was acquired in 2006.-History:...
, a wireless software company, in 2006. In 2004, Mr. Gerber joined Intellisync, then a struggling consumer data sync company, to lead a restructuring, repositioning and re-branding of the company, consolidate its products and market focus and position Intellisync for sale. Mr. Gerber and CEO Woody Hobbs transformed the company and brand to a worldwide leader in wireless email and mobile software for the enterprise and wireless carrier markets. Nokia acquired Intellisync for $480M in February 2006. During this period Mr. Gerber was an often-quoted industry expert on wireless technology and corporate mobility.
Consulting Period: Prior to joining Intellisync, Mr. Gerber served as Managing Director and Group Vice President
Vice president
A vice president is an officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin vice meaning 'in place of'. In some countries, the vice president is called the deputy president...
of Carlson Marketing Group, the $2 Billion subsidiary of Carlson Companies
Carlson Companies
Carlson is a privately held international corporation in the hotel, restaurant, and travel industries. Headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, near Minneapolis, Carlson brands and services, including franchised operations, employ more than 170,000 people in more than 150 countries and territories...
. Mr. Gerber led regional integration of CMG’s acquisitions, notably the Peppers & Rogers Group, and he initiated and led the firm’s technology practice for clients including HP, Intel, Oracle, Xerox and Home Depot. Prior to that he was Senior Vice President for Digitas Inc. (NASDAQ: DTAS) where he established the firm’s B2B division, leading strategic marketing programs for Microsoft and Charles Schwab, advising CMOs and senior client executives on strategy, market positioning, customer acquisition and retention, CRM, communications, branding and infrastructure investment.
Email Infrastructure: In 1999 Mr. Gerber joined a company based out of Tel Aviv, Israel and took the company public on NASDAQ. At Commtouch
Commtouch
Commtouch is an Internet security technology company founded in 1991. The company is headquartered in Netanya, Israel, with a subsidiary in Sunnyvale, California....
Inc., an email infrastructure company, (NASDAQ: CTCH), Mr. Gerber served as Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Marketing Officer and led several operating divisions. Prior to that, Mr. Gerber also served as President of @once Inc, an email marketing company he founded, which was later acquired by InfoUSA
InfoUSA
Infogroup, Inc., is a data, research and marketing company which offers email marketing and other marketing services. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Papillion, Nebraska. Infogroup employs approximately 3,200 people and operates in 9 countries.- History :Infogroup was formed in...
.
Pre-Silicon Valley Roles Prior to his work in software, Mr. Gerber was a senior practitioner at Deloitte & Touche, later Deloitte consulting. He is most noted for being the first management consultant in Deloitte’s software practice in 1992. He also served in Deloitte’s Merger & Acquisition division (and an affiliation with KKR), and helped build the firm’s Financial Services practice, serving clients such as Bank of America, Charles Schwab, and First Republic Bank. He was also a key analyst in the thrift portfolio consolidation for Gerry Ford’s acquisition of Cal Fed.
Mr. Gerber also held key line positions as a senior marketing director at American Express, Inc. in New York, where he was the youngest employee in American Express’s history to join the Graduate Managament Program. He built the first polychromatic polyethylene manufacturing plant for Firestone Tire & Rubber in Hopewell, Virginia. He began his career at the Central Intelligence Agency, with documented roles in both the Psychological Testing Division in Arlington, Virginia and at Central Records in Langley, Virginia.
Credentials
Mr. Gerber earned a biochemical engineering degree from the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He has served on numerous boards and industry committees. He is also a published author (PHARMA; Random House in July 2007; PILOTS TO PROFITS; Hudson House in 2005), and KILLER VIRUS (Random House, December 2010). He is a member of various writing and national organizations, including:
- MENSA
- International Thriller Writers
- Squaw Valley Writer’s Conference (2007)
- San Francisco Writer’s Workshop
- Mystery Writers of America
External Links
Virginia Literary Reviewhttp://www.student.virginia.edu/~valit/Virginia%20Literary%20Review.htm
San Francisco Writers Workshop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Writers_Workshop
Random House author bio
http://www.randomhouse.de/author/author.jsp?per=114017
KILLER VIRUS book site
http://www.randomhouse.de/book/edition.jsp?edi=311023&frm=false
FIRST THRILLS
http://us.macmillan.com/author/ripgerber
International Thriller Writers
http://www.thrillerwriters.org/connect/Rip%20Gerber/
http://www.vwtapes.com/doyouhavetolivewhereyouwritecd.aspx
Mensa
http://www.mensa.org/
Quotes
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/rip_gerber/http://www.prepaidmvno.com/tag/rip-gerber/
Locately Advisory Board
http://www.locately.com/company/advisors/
CTIA Presentation/Panel
http://www.ctiaenterpriseandapps.com/info/speakerdetails.cfm/18995
http://www.ctiawireless.com/info/speakerdetails.cfm/18063
Career: Crunchbase
http://www.crunchbase.com/person/rip-gerber-2