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Marcus Adolfsson is the President and Founder of Smartphone Experts. His charter is to push the company to become the leader in both retail and manufacturing of smartphone accessories, by assembling a world-class staff, streamlining business processes, developing new opportunities, and making strategic acquisitions.
Online commerce comes natural to Marcus, who has been online since 1993 and remembers with fondness exploring the early days of the web.
As a freshman at University of Florida, Marcus started the community site VisorCentral in late 1999 and followed up with TreoCentral in 2002. TreoCentral at the time featured a ringtone store, Marcus first attempt at integrating commerce into the community sites. The ringtone store, which brought us our first paying customers, is considered the root of Smartphone Experts.
Before founding Smartphone Experts, Marcus served as Chief Technology Officer for Legendary Marketing and co-founded Level 2 Group.
Marcus holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from University of Florida. He currently lives in Gainesville, Florida with his wife and two sons.
Diana Kingree is the Director of Commerce, overseeing and leading the day-to-day operations of the merchandising, warehouse, administrative and customer support staff.
She joined Smartphone Experts in early 2004 to assist the quickly growing company. Having worked together with Adolfsson for several years at previous company, they knew each other's strengths and weakness and put them to use. You could say they were a combination of yin and yang (or maybe old school and new school) that fostered the growth of a premier online community and an e-commerce company.
When Diana came on board to Smartphone Experts, she brought with her six years of operational background from a large online marketing company, 10 years of retail management from her own business, and 13 years as Vice President of construction project management for a Florida's Home Builders Association "Home Builder of the Year" company.
Diana has served her off-line community on many volunteer non-profit boards and has held many elected positions, including the Presidency of a worldwide civic-service organization, Pilot International, and chair of their worldwide non-profit Pilot International Foundation. While president of Pilot International, she traveled to many countries and throughout the US to speak about the organization.
Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Parsippany, New Jersey, Diana has called Citrus County, Florida home for many years.
Dieter Bohn started participating in the TreoCentral community way back in the VisorCentral days, writing his first review for TreoCentral in 2002. He joined Smartphone Experts full time in 2006, and was promoted to Vice President of Communities in 2007.
Dieter oversees the community editors and writers who produce the journalistic content for Smartphone Expert's Communities, as well as shepherding their growing online communities of readers, users, and forum members. He is also responsible for exploring and developing new community site niches.
Dieter's aim in the company is to foster conversations between online communities and technology journalism. An avid reader and writer of blogs, he believes that just as the people who buy gadgets are more than just consumers, visitors to the SPE Communities of sites are more than just readers.
Since his early days at TreoCentral he has received a BA in English and Philosophy from the University of St. Thomas and spent several years in the English department at the University of Minnesota as a PhD candidate. His studies in modernity and semiotics quickly morphed into an interest in using web technologies for building communities and knowledge, his first foray into this area was a stint developing Voices from the Gaps, a website devoted to Women Writers of Color.
A lifelong Minnesota resident, Dieter recently moved down to Inverness, Florida to work more closely with Smartphone Experts.
Ray Schnieder joined Smartphone Experts in early 2007, leading our customer service staff. Ht believes he has had good jobs before, but this one is great! Ray loves going
to work in the mornings, and enjoys working with the Smartphone Experts team because
everyone pitches in wherever they are needed.
When not enjoying his work, in his off time Ray loves to go fishing and
motorcycling. His hobby could be the reason for his for his favorite quote.
"Some days you're the windshield and some days you're the bug."
Born in Floral Park, New York and raised in West Babylon, New York he now finds
Inverness, Florida as the place he calls home. Ray credits his Father for his
sense of right and wrong and his wife Pat as the driving force in his life.
Joel Martin joined Smartphone Experts in 2005 for a new life experience and industry change. Joel is in charge of ensuring that Smartphone Expert's stores are stocked with a wide variety of accessories for each smartphone model we support. Joel and his team interacts daily with many of our 60 suppliers spanning 80 different brands, and are constantly on the lookout for new products.
He also manages Smartphone Expert's manufacturing partners, and solicits feedback on new product designs from both staff and community site members.
Joel's previous job in the custom car stereo business brought him an attention to detail and a feel for consumer products that has served him well in his duties at Smartphone Experts. His favorite quote says a lot about his personality, "Bring it on, it's all good." It also shows how he has become the "go-to-guy" around here.
Born and raised in Citrus County, Florida, you can find Joel enjoying sport
bikes and mud trucks in his spare time. Joel says his life is driven by his love
of his family.
Chris Kingree joined Smartphone Experts at the beginning in 2004 as a customer support specialist, and was quickly promoted to merchandise manager. After interacting with our suppliers for almost two year, he recently took on the challenge of establishing a wholesale operation for the Smartphone Experts line of products.
When asked "how has
Smartphone Experts changed his life" he explained that he was given a chance at very young age
to learn and grow with the newest technology. He enjoys blogging, pool, golf,
racing and Camaros.
Chris says his life has been influenced by Marcus Adolfsson because he
has was a pioneer in building web communities, building a career at a very young
age and avoiding the typical dot com pitfalls.
Chris' life is driven by optimism and trying to keep a positive outlook on
everything he does. Chris believes the best part of working for Smartphone Experts is that we
are not only a team but, more like a family.
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