The Virant Group

Profile of Peter D. Erdman, Principal

Peter has a diverse and practical background in business, engineering, accounting, computers and information systems. As founder of The Virant Group in 1984, he brings a wealth of practical experience and expertise to clients.

Peter started his career at IBM Corporation. He moved on to Hubbard Broadcasting / KSTP Television where he produced electronic graphics for live prime-time news programs. He free-lanced for National Hockey Night in Canada, Minnesota North Stars Hockey, Spectrum Sports, CHCH-TV, USA Network, ABC’s Monday Night Football, and numerous local productions. Switching career paths, he joined Unisys Corporation where he designed the layout of high-performance bipolar semiconductor devices using an elaborate CAD system. After two years, he was officially credentialed as a Semiconductor Device Engineer through a rigorous peer review of self-taught skills.

Peter has founded and co-founded several companies throughout the years, chief among these, is Sienna Technologies, a company which designs, manufacturers, and markets semiconductor device reliability test equipment. He served as the chief designer of the original product line and was President / CEO responsible for raising capital, accounting, operations, manufacturing, and human resources. Sienna remained consistently profitable as it grew from a start-up to a public company when he left to pursue consulting on a full-time basis.

Since 1992 Peter has built relationships with small to mid-sized manufacturing companies ranging from job shops to repetitive environments. He has implemented numerous information systems including hardware and software selection and installation, classroom training, strategy planning, data conversion, and product support.

Peter's past design work includes a full-featured robotic controller system, audio mixer, theater lighting controller, and numerous software programs including being selected as one of four designers to conceive a total re-write for a major ERP software company.

His current design interests include OLAP analytics, Microsoft SharePoint, semantic methodologies for ERP integration, and database cleansing tools. His hands-on entrepreneurial experience enables Peter to offer his clients a unique perspective and keeps technology focused on practical business results.

Product knowledge, technical skills and a sense of urgency are all critical to successfully serving clients," Peter states.  "I look forward to providing all of our clients with the opportunity to grasp onto our leading-edge product offering and proven real-world services."

perdman@virant.com

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