Tom Spengler

Chief Executive Officer

Tom co-founded Granicus, Inc. as Chairman and CEO in 1999. He currently heads up Granicus' senior management team and will lead the company in its next stage of growth. Prior to co-founding Granicus, Tom was a member of Anderson Consulting’s (now Accenture) premier Internet development group, performing Internet strategy and development work for Q-pass, E-trade, Anderson's R&D division, the United States Post Office and others. Prior to Anderson, Tom worked at Hewlett Packard to help develop leading Intranet communications tools used throughout the organization. Tom currently is a University Advisor for Cal Poly, a frequent public speaker, and also a certified teacher for the International Institute of Municipal Clerks (IIMC), teaching classes on minutes annotation and digital audio/video recording for government agencies.

Emery Jones

Chief Financial Officer

As a co-founder of Granicus, Emery's focus is multi-faceted and far-reaching. In addition to building and expanding financial procedures, Emery's client-centered vision is at the base of Granicus' philosophical foundation. Emery brings a wealth of knowledge to his responsibilities in the financial sector. Before co-founding Granicus, Emery owned a successful financial consulting practice in the San Francisco Bay Area, offering financial advice and strategic planning to start-ups and small businesses. Emery received his B.A. in Accounting and Economics at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Thao Hill

Vice-President of Operations

Thao Hill imparts a unique combination of expertise to Granicus with industry experience in both information technology and legislative content management. His objectives focus on quality Granicus products and overall Customer satisfaction; from product development and infrastructure, quality control and Client deployments, to Customer training and our company's overall effectiveness and response to Client issues. Thao received his Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University. While in college, he served as President of the Student Government Senate, and was responsible for overhauling the organization’s rules based on Robert’s Rules of Order. After college, he joined Exxon-Chemical as an Advanced Control Systems Engineer, but found his passion for government drawing him back. He was the Chief Technology Officer for a legislative technology firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. During his tenure there, he worked with many state and local legislative clerks to create software and technology to automate legislative processes.   At Granicus, his prior roles have included regional sales, partner development, and product development.

Charles Blanchet

Sales Director

Mr. Blanchet oversees Granicus' worldwide sales. After his arrival in 2004, Charles' first objective was to establish Granicus' presence outside of California through direct sales efforts. To accomplish this goal, Charles builds system processes, procedures and tools that allow the Granicus sales machine to scale on a global level. He preps new territories by building infrastructure and acquiring new clients before turning each territory over to a Regional Sales Director. Since Charles' arrival, Granicus has enjoyed a consistent yearly sales growth of 300%. Prior to Granicus, Charles served with AT&T where he was an account manager for 10 Fortune 500 clients. Charles also served as President and founder of Improve Safely, a preventative healthcare company and held several key positions within Sprint, where he encountered the founders of Granicus. Charles earned his bachelors degree in Business Management from the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business Administration.

Benjamin Lucchesi

Chief Software Architect

As Chief Software Architect, Ben directs the strategic vision of application development in the Granicus' legislative management platforms. His mission is to continually advance and improve Granicus’ software technology, and to make it easier, more cost-effective and more enjoyable for clients to use. Ben has several years of experience in building robust, interactive web and client-server applications. Prior to joining Granicus, Ben was the e-Design Manager at IQ Systems, where he designed and developed custom business solutions for electronic commerce and inventory management applications for major industries. Ben holds a Masters of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Reno.