Nancy Macnab, Former VP, Finance
Nancy and I (Nancy Knowlton) were taking the tube from Heathrow airport one morning in 2003. We had slept on the plane overnight and were facing a full day of meetings in London. We both sat quietly for the early portion of the ride. After listening to the message “mind the gap” over and over again as we passed through a number of stations, Nancy said in a still-tired voice, “Why don’t they just fix the gap?”
From the day she joined SMART to the day she left, Nancy set about fixing things and making them better. It never occurred to Nancy not to take a proactive approach and make improvements. Everything she touched benefited by her natural curiosity, common sense and strong process orientation, whether it fell within the neat confines of finance or not.
Thinking of Nancy as “just an accountant” would miss the depth of insight that she brought to everyday business issues and opportunities. Classically trained in business (bachelor of commerce degree from the University of Calgary) and accounting (chartered accountant in Alberta), Nancy was more like a general manager than anything else. While never technical, Nancy didn’t shy away from a technical explanation if needed in order to better understand a problem or an opportunity.
Nancy saw us through many challenging times. She set up systems, she worked with customers, she negotiated with our bankers and suppliers, she gave credit to dealers who needed it to build their businesses, she mentored and developed her staff, and she protected and nurtured SMART. In short, she kept us on track – and a good track it was.
Through everything, Nancy had a great sense of humor. When things were at their most challenging, she laughed and made us laugh, too.
Nancy’s fingerprints are all over SMART – as they should be. Great talent. Unusual energy and enthusiasm. Unquestioned loyalty. A friend.
We deeply appreciate Nancy’s contributions to the development of the company and the creation of its spirit.
Lucien Potvin, President, KTS Kanata Teleconferencing Systems Ltd.
In late 1989 we met Lucien through a mutual customer who described Lucien as a very talented engineer. When we met Lucien and started talking about our business and product ideas, we found that introduction to be fortuitous. To top it off, the three of us had grown up within forty miles of each other in Quebec.
Lucien had some of the missing skill set that we needed at that time – hardware and firmware development. He designed the first interactive whiteboard that we brought to market as part of the SMART 2000 Conferencing System. Not only did he design the hardware, but he also set up a manufacturing operation to produce it. We operated on a handshake and a simple, one-page agreement for several years. In 1995 SMART bought the manufacturing and product development activity from Lucien, and Lucien continued to work with us, applying his leadership and talents in our product development activities.
SMART’s relationship with Lucien was a critical one in our development. The ability to multi-task and work well together as we imagined the future were key elements in our success. The time between imagining a product and having it available to demonstrate was often short. To add to the challenge of creating a whole new industry, we were doing it with a good portion of our team two thousand miles away. A vision of the future, a focus on the customer, a drive to innovate and a willingness to iterate quickly are all attributes and values that Lucien contributed to and had in common with SMART staff.
We deeply appreciate Lucien and his substantial contributions to SMART’s success. Creative. Determined. Committed. Talented. An engineer’s engineer. An entrepreneur.
Les Vadasz, President, Intel Capital
On the first day of Comdex in November, 1991 two men approached SMART’s very modest booth in the multimedia hall. One man identified himself as Les Vadasz, senior vice president of Intel Corporation, and said that Intel had an interest in the combination of the PC and telecommunications. In the next few minutes he explained that what prompted him to stop and look at us was that we seemed to have some of the elements of a new vision for working at a distance that Andy Grove had just laid out in his keynote address.
After a short discussion Les said that he would look within Intel for a group that might want to work with us. True to his word, within a short period of time we were receiving calls from a variety of people within Intel interested in learning more about our hardware and software products. Those discussions led to Intel’s investment in SMART in 1992 and, equally importantly, to joint development and marketing efforts for new collaborative tools.
The relationship that Les started was extremely critical not just to our survival and growth but also to our development as an organization. The access that we had in those early days to some incredibly bright and dedicated people at Intel was important in our understanding of the technology industry. All of our interactions helped us in imagining and defining the type of company that we wanted to build. Some of the shared values on which SMART has been built came from the excellence that we saw and experienced within Intel. Performance. Integrity. Respect and teamwork. Competitiveness.
We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Les for providing needed capital and giving us an opportunity to bring our vision to life.