Leadership Bios
Thane Kerner
As co-founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Silverchair, Thane Kerner has since 1993 led the organization's strategic development of platforms and professional services that focus on the intersection of technology with health care knowledge. Medical informatics, the semantic web, clinical information processes, and web-based learning are the foundations for a broad variety of Silverchair-created health reference products delivered via networked digital media. Thane serves on the Executive Council of the Professional and Scholarly Publishers Division (PSP) of the Association of American Publishers; as Co-Chairman of the American Medical Publishers Committee; and on the National Library of Medicine's Publishers Advisory Panel. He is an advocate for issues of concern to the health information industry, and a frequent speaker and moderator at industry conferences including the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) Top Management Roundtable, the Council of Science Editors (CSE), the PSP Annual Conference, the AMPC Medical Informatics Seminar, and the AMPC-National Library of Medicine Biennial Symposium.
Prior to establishing Silverchair, he was publisher of Experimental Hematology, the official journal of the International Society for Experimental Hematology. He holds a Bachelor's Degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Elizabeth Willingham
Elizabeth Willingham is a founder of Silverchair and serves as Chief Operating Officer. She focuses on the optimal retrieval and display of medical information. In that pursuit she takes both a macro view in designing website architectures that use semantic metadata for building blocks, and a micro view in leading a team of indexers who classify medical content at a granular level designed to anticipate the needs of health care professionals for quick, accurate answers to clinical questions. In this role, Elizabeth has collaborated with Silverchair software developers to design and build online tools that support taxonomy development and management and that improve the efficiency of topical indexing.
Elizabeth also leads Silverchair's team of project managers, who play leadership roles in product development with Silverchair's clients. She has served as the product development leader for AccessMedicine and played a supervisory role in the development of AccessSurgery, AccessEmergency Medicine, AccessPharmacy, and PsychiatryOnline. She currently serves as a leader of the AHRQ Innovations taxonomy development team and launched the Silverchair Search Service for Journal Watch in May 2007.
Elizabeth's career in medical publishing began in 1986 at Little, Brown & Company in Boston. She is a graduate of Duke University and the Radcliffe Publishing Course.
Jake Zarnegar
Jake Zarnegar was named Chief Technology Officer of Silverchair in early 2003, attained partner status in September 2006, and was named President of Silverchair Information Systems in January 2009.
Jake has led the development and deployment of a number of Silverchair's major software platforms, including:
- Silverchair Content Manager (SCM)
- Silverchair Custom Editorial Management Application (SCEMA)
- Taggers Online Thesaurus and Editorial Manager (TOTEM)
- TagMaster
- Silverchair Learning Systems (SLS)
A pioneer in XML web services for health reference content management, Jake has spearheaded a family of technologies including the application of semantic metadata to clinical content, ontology management tools, an online authoring platform for medical authors and editors, and an e-learning CMS/LMS platform.
He is a graduate of The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Bobby Jenkins
Bobby Jenkins is Silverchair's Chief Financial Officer. He brings to the Company over 20 years of experience in a variety of financial roles, including as CFO of several public companies. He has extensive experience in corporate finance and M&A transactions. A graduate of The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill with a BS in Business Administration (concentration in accounting), he attained CPA certification when an auditor at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
George Reynolds
George Reynolds is Silverchair's Vice President and Director of Health Information Research, providing strategic development and analysis for Silverchair and its clients. Additionally, he leads Silverchair's health information product research efforts, often working with university and government institutions to investigate the intersection of content, technology, and healthcare.
George has recently served as the Primary Investigator for NCI and HHS–funded research on physician tools for smoking cessation and alcohol counseling. He is the project supervisor for the AHRQ Innovations Exchange, and was the technical supervisor for AHRQ PS Net.
George brings more than 15 years of publishing industry experience and entrepreneurial success to Silverchair. Before joining the company, Mr. Reynolds was a principal founder of GonzoMedia, a San Francisco-based developer of content management and web publishing tools. From 1992 to 1997, he served as director of multimedia production at Sumeria, a new media publisher incubated by IDG Communications. George began his publishing career at Macworld magazine.
Mike Benzian
Mike Benzian was named Silverchair's Chief Business Development Officer in January 2009. Prior to this role, Mike served as the President of Silverchair Learning Systems (SLS) and led the subsidiary's strong growth from 2004 to 2008.
Mike brings 10 years experience in start-up software and 'software as a service' ventures, with specific expertise in product marketing and go-to-market strategy. He received his BA from the University of Virginia and his MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.
Mike Mutka
Mike is the President of Silverchair Learning Systems (SLS), a subsidiary of Silverchair Science+Communications. SLS, an eLearning company, develops online training systems for all caregivers working in a senior care setting. SLS serves skilled nursing, assisted living and home health companies.
Mike earned his Bachelors in Business and a MBA in Marketing from Indiana University's Kelly School of Business. Prior to joining SLS in 2005, Mike had a 15 year track record of success within the Hill-Rom Company, Berchtold Corporation, and Briggs Corporation—all leaders in their market spaces. Mike has extensive experience in new product development, field and corporate account sales, sales and marketing management, strategic planning, Kaizen continuous improvement methodology, and general management.
At SLS, prior to becoming President in January 2009, Mike was the architect of the SLS sales and marketing organization, building it from just two people in 2005 to a team of 20+ professionals with an impressive track record of growth that includes over 3500 clients and 265,000 users taking more than 3 million courses a year nationwide.