Leadership

Rose Blackburn, President

Rose Blackburn is President and one of the founding partners of QuantumPM, Inc., a forward-thinking innovation technology business dedicated to helping companies drive innovation and simplify processes for work management. She began her career in the telecommunications industry, working in a variety of positions in customer services and information technology. Rose’s experience includes an overseas assignment for MediaOne in Belgium to provide program management for setup of the business technical systems for Telenet, the first competitive telephone business in the country. Upon returning to the U.S., Rose established the program management systems within the domestic branch of MediaOne until its sale to AT&T.

Rose received a BA from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a master’s degree in Technology Management from the University of Denver. She also holds a PMP designation from PMI and a certificate in Program Management from DU.

In her spare time, Rose enjoys spending time with family and friends in the Colorado Rockies. She is an active participant in local community and nonprofit groups, and is an adjunct faculty member at Regis University.

Kris Athey, Executive VP

Kris is a visionary leader with extensive experience devising creative solutions for complex problems. As CIO and founding partner of QuantumPM, Inc., Kris has used his expertise to help build an innovative and collaborative company with a focus on product solutions that capitalize on employee knowledge and business best practices. The solutions are built to work in the cloud and leverage the best of Microsoft’s SharePoint and Server platforms. Most recently, Kris has led QuantumPM to develop Innovation Director (ID), a solution for a full life cycle of Idea capture from concept to product. ID leverages crowd-sourcing and work management processes to make Innovation a repeatable and manageable Enterprise resource.

Kris has worked closely with Microsoft over the years to design solutions that demonstrate platform capabilities in a pragmatic and effective business environment. He is often sought after to speak and has accepted engagements at conferences including Microsoft SharePoint and Project Server events, New York’s Digital Government conference, the International Integrated Program Management conference (IPM), and the PMI College of Performance Management (EVM World) spring conferences.

Prior to QuantumPM, Kris worked in the defense and aerospace industries designing and deploying mission-critical systems both domestically and internationally. He also spent time with satellite earth-imaging technologies.Kris is married and has two children. He enjoys spending time with his family, following the school/sport activities of his kids, and occasional excursions to enjoy the mountains of Colorado.

Ken Denman, Board Member

Ken is an experienced Chief Executive with a range of proven leadership skills. He is CEO of San Diego-based Machine Perception Technologies, Inc. Ken’s previous executive roles have spanned large corporate, venture-backed startups, emerging market ventures, turnarounds, and leading IPOs. He is an engaged investor and board member with both public and private board experience. Responsibilities have extended across mobile, broadband, and software industries. Ken led iPass, Inc.’s successful Initial Public Offering. He also led the strategy work for monetizing Openwave’s patent portfolio and spinning off the operating units. At MediaOne, he helped drive the successful expansion of the company’s international mobile push by leading multinational joint ventures that built the market, leading mobile companies in many Central and Eastern European countries.

Ken recently accepted a visiting professor appointment as the Edward V. Fritzky Endowed Chair in Leadership at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. He is also a member of the board of directors of ShoreTel, Inc. and MobileCause, Inc

Gary Gratny, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing

Gary Gratny leads the sales, marketing, and business development teams at QuantumPM.  His managerial career spans over 25 years of helping growth companies reach their potential in the areas of strategy, business development, sales, marketing, and product development. Most recently he led the business development and channel sales teams at Openwave Systems, a leader in the mobile software space.

At Openwave, he led strategic partnerships with companies such as IBM, Redhat, F5, Alcatel-Lucent, and SAP. Prior to Openwave, Gary was an active venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and led investments and board level participation for such companies as Affymetrix, Tibco Software, Infinera Technologies, Starbase Software, Moblelink, and Sage Semiconductor, several of which resulted in IPOs. He also led ISV partnerships with Sybase, Oracle, SAS, and Cognos at Hewlett-Packard.

Gary began his career as a nuclear engineer working at one of the Department of Energy’s premier applied research and development facilities.  Gary has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Kansas and an MBA from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. 

Barbara Spence, Vice President, PPM Solutions

Barbara joined QuantumPM in August, 2006, and has contributed to our success skillfully and professionally. During this time she has managed and scheduled our resources/consultants, been the Account Manager for our clients and deliverables, prepared and delivered Statements of Work to our clients, defined and implemented business processes, and developed and measured corporate metrics and results.

Prior to joining QuantumPM, Barbara held senior management and leadership positions with a number of major firms in the telecommunications industry, including Qwest Communications, AT&T Broadband, MediaOne Information Technologies, U S WEST Communications, and Bell Communications Research (Bellcore)/SAIC/Telcordia Technologies in New Jersey (now integrated into LM Ericsson since its acquisition in 2012).

During her successful career, Barbara has earned numerous prestigious awards including both the Distinguished Member of Staff award and the Award of Excellence from Bellcore. At U S WEST Communications she was a member of the highly prized President’s Club.

Barbara attended the University of Denver where she earned her Master of Technology Management degree. She also received her PMI certification from the University of Denver’s Center for Program Management. Barbara is a native of Pennsylvania and attended graduate programs at the University of West Virginia, Morgantown, and the University of Pittsburgh. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania.

Barbara currently resides in Denver, Colorado, with her husband, Bill, and their 10-year old Beagle, Bailey. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with friends, catching up on her reading, and traveling. Her favorite places to visit are her hometown of Johnstown, PA, and St. Maarten (DWI) in the Caribbean.