About Quest

Executive Leadership

• Kurt Thomet: President
  
• George Zicman: Vice President Sales
  
• Stephen LaFreniere: Professional Services Manager
• Gary Hunter: Director of Software
• Mary Burke: Director of Marketing
• Bernie Murphy: Controller

Kurt Thomet: President

As the President and founder of the premier transaction processing automation company, Kurt Thomet leads a National organization focused on Enterprise Mobility for the supply chain companies in Retail, Distribution and Manufacturing.

He founded the company in 1993 after 9 years working in sales and channel management inside the data collection industry.Prior to starting Quest Solution he was VAR Manager for Venture backed pen based computer company PI Systems, and VAR Manager for Mobile and Barcode Computer Manufacturer Percon. He was responsible as a sales representative for Telxon Corporation the original WI-FI founder before acquisition by Cisco and Symbol Technologies.

Thomet is based at the corporate headquarters in Eugene, Oregon. He attended Arizona State University majoring in Marketing.

He is an Eagle Scout, an Advisory Council Member to Intermec, an American Cancer Society Volunteer, and a member of the World Executives Organization (WEO).

George has been involved in Quest Solution since the beginning, first as a vendor sales manager to the company, then as the other owner.

George is responsible for Sales Management at Quest, working with all of the major vendors and on each of our customer engagements. With almost a quarter century in this industry, George brings with him valuable experience and contacts.

As a UCLA graduate, George majored in accounting and uses that background to help customers justify and understand the financial impact of investments in a Quest Solution.

George is very creative and has a who’s who’s list of industry firsts and major wins with leading companies. This creativity is used to package solutions and solve problems in ways that most manufacturers and sales reps simply do not have the experience to draw from.

George is a member of the Scan Source elite advisory group, the Ingram Micro Advisory council,the Motorola premier partner group and is often asked by customers to help create a specification for their project with comparison grid creation. George runs sales from his office in Northern California and travels frequently nationally working with sales representatives at Quest.

In 2004, Quest Solution hired Steve to manage their Professional Services group, and expand their offerings. Steve has managed the successful implementation of several Warehouse, Distribution, and RFID Solutions.

Operating out of the Bay Area, California,. Steve came to Quest with an impressive background in Mobile Data Solution technical sales and implementation.

Prior to joining Quest, Steve worked for Symbol Technologies as a Senior System Consultant focusing on wireless solutions. Symbol came to rely on Steve for his strong RF integration, implementation, and Account Management skills. As a Senior Technical Leader, Steve helped to indoctrinate and train several Systems Consultants, and organize Account Support teams to manage high revenue projects.

Prior to joining Symbol, Steve held various systems engineering and account management positions at Telxon and divisions of First Data specializing in POS integrations.

Steve has a certificate in Digital Electronics and Computer Information Systems from Rhode Island Institute of Technology, Microsoft MSCE for NT4.0 Server, and Cisco CCNA through the Cisco Network Academy. Additional industry related courses include Alien Technology RFID Certification, Symbol Spectrum24 Wireless Networks, Advanced Wireless Switch deployment, Advanced Wireless Security, Symbol Mobility Services Platform (MSP), Wavelink Avalanche and Wavelink Mobile Manager, Windows CE.Net and Windows Mobile.

Gary Hunter heads up the Software Development group in Akron, Ohio. He previously headed service and support with Aironet, the wireless subsidiary of Telxon, which later became the wireless group of Cisco.

Prior to that Gary was with Telxon Corporation, working with the Var’s and software and hardware partners that made Telxon a key part of the mobile hand held community.

He was also a member of AIM International as the spokesperson for Telxon where they drafted specifications and certifications on the various one dimensional and two dimensional bar codes standards. He also headed up the service and support side of Telxon responsible for repair and support of several million hand held terminals sold by Telxon and their partners.

Gary has more than 26 years in the Mobile Data Collection industry. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina with a major in Computer Science and a graduate of Malone College with a degree in Business.

Mary Burke is the director of marketing for Quest Solution, heading the drive to promote the company as an industry leader in enterprise mobility solutions. Mary works closely with major vendors and distributors, developing and administering national marketing campaigns.

Mary came to Quest with more than 20 years experience in broadcast sales and marketing. She has served in sales and marketing positions for leading radio and television broadcast groups in Washington DC, Virginia, Maine and Oregon.

Alongside her career in marketing, Mary actively pursued a strong interest in aviation. She graduated from an extensive flight-training program earning her multi-engine, commercial and instrument aviation licenses. She went on to fly for the National Forest Service and Oregon State Forestry. Mary is also an expert rated skydiver with over 1,200 jumps and is a certified scuba diver.

Bernie Murphy has 30 plus years of managerial, financial and accounting experience. For over 20 years his expertise has been focused in the high tech industry. His achievements have been noted in analyzing corporate weaknesses in sales, margins and operation inefficiencies. As CFO and Operations Manager for a high-tech company in the wood products industry he successfully positioned the corporation for several strategic acquisitions and taking it public.

Bernie’s track record of business improvement is based on his philosophy of total enterprise engagement in change, customer service to all, positive communication and the team approach. He is known for his ability to quickly identify and diagnose problem areas, working collaboratively with customer, vendors and staff to find creative solutions.

Bernie received his BSBA from the University of Denver, his Masters Degree from Western State in Colorado. He has been a licensed CPA since 1975. Bernie was a college professor of business and accounting for five years, and was active as a CPA in public accounting for over twelve years. Bernie is a trained mediator. Additionally, he is a Board Member and past Chairperson of Community Mediation Services of Lane County Oregon.