Glen Meakem

Glen Meakem (born in New York, New York) is an American entrepreneur and founder & CEO of a permanent cloud photo storage and sharing company called Forever.[1] He is also a former radio host based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Glen Meakem
Born
New York, New York
EducationHarvard University
Harvard Business School
OccupationEntrepreneur
Political partyRepublican
SpouseDiane Meakem

Early life and education

Meakem was the second of five children, raised in Armonk, New York.[2] He graduated cum laude with an A.B. from Harvard University in 1986. He served as a combat engineer officer in the United States Army Reserve. In 1990-1991, he volunteered to return to active duty in the Army, took a leave of absence from Harvard Business School, and served as a platoon leader in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the First Gulf War.[3] After the war, Meakem returned to Harvard Business School and completed his M.B.A. in 1992.[4]

Career

Meakem worked for General Electric Information Services, but left in 1995 to start his own company, FreeMarkets Inc., a software company that offers services to the Global Supply Management market.[5] He sold the company for $500 million.[2]

Between 2005 and 2012, Meakem founded and led an early-stage venture capital firm called Meakem Becker Venture Capital (MBVC). MBVC invested in a number of technology companies, including Kiva Systems (sold to Amazon),[6] HotPads (sold to Zillow),[7] Shipwire (sold to Ingram Micro),[8] and CloudMeter (sold to Splunk).[9]

He sat on the board of directors of Akustica, and is Chairman of the Board of both SEEC and Niche. He is a trustee for Carnegie Mellon University, Grove City College,[10] Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, the Urban League of Pittsburgh and the Extra Mile Education Foundation.

From March 2008 until June 2015, he hosted Glen Meakem on the Weekend, a talk radio program about what it takes to be successful in business and life; the program aired initially on WPGB 104.7 until the station flipped formats to country music in August 2014, when it moved to WJAS 1320. He gave up the program to spend more time with his family and on another business he started, a cloud-storage host, Forever.com.[11][12][13]

Politics

Meakem served as campaign chairman for William Scranton, III, the former Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, during the 2006 campaign for the Republican nomination for Governor.[2]

He reportedly considered involving himself in a primary challenge to incumbent Republican Senator Arlen Specter in 2010, due to opposition to Specter's support of the federal stimulus package.[14][15] He was mentioned by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette[16] and the National Journal[17] as a possible candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate to challenge incumbent Democrat Bob Casey Jr. in the 2012 election.

In 2010, Politics Magazine named him one of the most influential Republicans in Pennsylvania.[18]

Personal

References
  1. "Forever Guaranteed Storage, Digital Scrapbooking, and Printing".
  2. "FreeMarkets founder Glen Meakem contemplates future in politics - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review". Archived from the original on June 2, 2007. Retrieved June 2, 2007.
  3. "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — PG Benchmarks — Glen Meakem". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
  4. Patty Tascarella (November 7, 2014). "Veterans of influence: Glen Meakem". Pittsburgh Business Times. Retrieved April 23, 2023.
  5. "Glen Meakem". Businessweek.com. October 13, 1999. Archived from the original on October 13, 1999. Retrieved February 10, 2019.
  6. "Amazon paying $775M for Kiva warehouse robotics company". March 19, 2012.
  7. Lardinois, Frederic (November 26, 2012). "Zillow Acquires Rental And Real Estate Search Site HotPads For $16 Million To Grow Its Rental Marketplace".
  8. Williams, Alex (October 28, 2013). "Ingram Micro Buys Shipwire, The Cloud Logistics And Supply Chain Management Platform".
  9. "Splunk Announces Acquisition of Cloudmeter".
  10. "Board of Trustees".
  11. "Glen Meakem - Veteran Entrepreneur » 2015-06-27 Our Final Program…".
  12. "Glen Meakem". Family Office Insights. May 16, 2016. Retrieved April 29, 2020.
  13. MarketScreener. "Glen T. Meakem - Biography". www.marketscreener.com. Retrieved April 29, 2020.
  14. O'Toole, James (February 11, 2009). "Angered by stimulus plan vote, Republican vows to oust Specter". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
  15. "Pennsylvania statehouse and political news and commentary from The Harrisburg Patriot-News - PennLive.com". Archived from the original on February 16, 2009. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on February 23, 2012. Retrieved October 18, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  16. Malloy, Daniel (November 26, 2010). "Murrysville native planning for 2010 run against Casey". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved December 26, 2011.
  17. Jacobs, Jeremy P. (November 16, 2010). "GOP Looking For A Casey Challenger". National Journal. Archived from the original on February 12, 2012. Retrieved December 26, 2011.
  18. Roarty, Alex; Sean Coit (January 2010). "Pennsylvania Influencers" (PDF). Politics Magazine. pp. 44–49. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 29, 2009.
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