About Us
In January of 2008, four colleagues embarked on a journey to create a unique software business. The founders and partners are Paul Bolz, Rick Lines, Tom Murphy and Colin Hansford. We found it very rewarding when we were focused on serving higher education customers during our Pinnacle Software tenure. Pinnacle grew to over 200 higher education customers. With this experience clearly in our mind, we have ventured out as partners for a specific reason:
We enjoy working together to create software solutions for higher education.
The foundation of the business consists of a core set of values which, over the years, have proven to be essential ingredients for success; they drive every important decision. Our core values include:
 | Dedication to Customers - from listening to their requirements and concerns to providing exemplary Customer Service. |
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Innovation - by embracing new ways to improve or even re-think existing methods, to the packaging of software solutions that carry high value for low cost. |
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Integrity - by continuing our stellar record of ethical and moral principles. |
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Passion - by having fun doing what we love provides the best opportunity for creating excellent software solutions with high customer satisfaction. |
Rick Lines began his career with a small software company, Information Associates (IA) later acquired by SungardHE (SCT). IA pioneered the way in providing administrative applications specifically to higher education. Rick's passion to spend time with colleges creating application solutions to support their processes continued when he formed Pinnacle Software, a private company founded in 1990 with the mission to focus on serving higher education. The success of the Pinnacle Communications Management System lead PAETEC Communications Inc to acquire Pinnacle in 2000 with Rick assuming the responsibility of President of the Pinnacle Software Division. In keeping in close touch with the needs of CIOs and other higher education management, Rick and his partners formed NextStep in January 2008 to continue their passion of creating software solutions for the benefit of higher education.
Paul Bolz started his career as an entrepreneur owning his own software business, SoftLogic, delivering telecommunications solutions to higher education. Paul brought this experience to Pinnacle Software and PAETEC as Vice President of Sales and Marketing. As a founder, Paul is now executing his vision for NextStep by listening to customers in order to create a unique solution focused on higher education. Paul is instrumental in our success by leading product vision and definition, marketing, sales and overall customer satisfaction.
Earning his degree in Computer Science from RIT, Tom Murphy began his career as a software engineer with Information Associates (IA), helping a small firm grow to become the leader in higher education administrative solutions. Tom then joined Pinnacle Software and PAETEC as Vice-President of Software Engineering. His passion as a founder of NextStep is the opportunity to use his creative software development skills to create a ground up solution. Tom has a unique ability to listen to customers and translate this input directly into a completed solution customers enjoy using to drive their everyday business processes.
Colin Hansford brings extensive software development experience from a broad range of industries both in the U.S. and the U.K. His expertise in higher education applications came from his extensive career with Information Associates (IA), Pinnacle Software, and Director of Software Engineering at PAETEC. He joined Pinnacle Software attracted by an opportunity to design and build a software application from the ground up. His passion as a founder of NextStep comes with this same opportunity to listen to customer needs and design an application without barriers. Our early adopting customers enjoy working with Colin on User Interface design beginning with story boarding through final version.
