Gathering Around Our Good Fortune

A growing list of former FreeMarkets/Ariba/SAP alumni (and a few still there!) are looking forward to a long-overdue reunion in Pittsburgh this September 26-27. For many like me, it’s a rare chance to return to western PA and reconnect with such a talented group, many of whom have continued to have high impact careers, and many of whom can trace their supply chain expertise to our early innovations.

It's always been one of my proudest reflections, to recognize how many careers were launched from those days. While FreeMarkets and Ariba were never really household names by virtue of our business-to-business focus, headhunters surely knew the name and routinely prowled our list of alumni. I feel we all have much for which to be grateful.

As we gather back in Pittsburgh, a group of us has started to raise a modest fund for donation to give back to our community and to rouse the public memory of our years as a hot growth Pittsburgh company. It would seem Pittsburgh has continued earning national press for its technology scene and quality of life.

Our charity effort around the reunion has three themes: (a) helping the local community, (b) remembering some of our departed colleagues, and (c) reviving our profile among a new generation of business leaders.

To help the western PA community that proved such fertile ground for our early growth, we’re aiming to support the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. Our very own Gary Doyle serves as this organization’s CFO, and it’s quite an impressive operation. They count more than 8,300 volunteers and distribute the equivalent of 48 million annual meals. Many of us recall fondly how our own firm operated on a high plain of professionalism and hustle. We think the Food Bank exhibits some of this same hustle, and we’re proud to have Gary representing our generation of Pittsburgh technology professionals.

While we have imperfect information about the lives of all our former colleagues, many of us fondly remember Trip Levis and Rob Austin as such important contributors. We have lost both of these friends to cancer. In their honor, we will make a contribution to the American Cancer Society to recognize the ongoing efforts to understand and prevent a future generation of lost friends.

It's a bit daunting to observe that there’s a whole generation of emerging Pittsburgh business and technology leaders that were literally not yet born during our growth heyday. My own youngest son, then the “first FreeMarkets baby” is now 28. Fortunately, we have a former colleague, Eric Paljug, who moved into the academic world to teach supply chain management as a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Part of Eric’s work includes a region-wide business case competition for student teams from multiple western PA schools and campuses. Eric has informed us that a modest contribution can serve as a “naming gift” with FreeMarkets as sponsor. As Pittsburgh continues its technology transition, we thought this would be a nice way to support the academic efforts while keeping alive the legacy of an early Pittsburgh technology pioneer.

We’re not looking for to make huge financial commitments, but we do want to recognize these three worthy causes. Glen and I have each committed $6 thousand ($2 thousand each for the three gifts). We would welcome others to join us in supporting these gifts. We’ll seek to make some form of public announcement or presentation at the time of our September reunion.

Please, if you’re on the fence, do sign up to join us. I can’t wait to see as many old friends as possible.

Sam Kinney