Leadership Team

Andy Aroditis (CEO/President)

Andy Aroditis co-founded NextGate with the mission to deliver robust, real-world, affordable Enterprise Master Patient Indexing technology and implementation services.  As CEO/President, he has successfully led the company to prominence and expanded the offerings to accommodate other critical healthcare indexing applications, as well as solutions in the broader Master Data Management marketplace.

With over 25 years of industry experience, Mr. Aroditis is adept at streamlining and improving productivity for healthcare institutions through information technology.  Prior to NextGate, Mr. Aroditis managed healthcare implementations as the Director of Professional Services for Sun Microsystems (formerly SeeBeyond). Mr. Aroditis and his team successfully implemented eIndex/eView, eGate and the Java CAPS Suite at over 200 payer and provider locations. While at SeeBeyond, he was one of the original architects of the Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) and he contributed significantly to the adoption of this revolutionary technology.

Additionally, Mr. Aroditis worked as Programming Manager for UniHealth, an Integrated Delivery System based in Southern California, served as Chief Technology Officer and Vice-President for Smartcard Technology, and contributed as Senior Manager at the consulting firm Ernst and Young.

Mr. Aroditis received a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Sciences with Business Orientation from South Bank University in London.

Edward Yang (Chief Operating Officer)

As co-founder and COO of NextGate, Edy Yang ensures the company vision becomes a reality. With years of experience as a product architect and a lead implementer, Mr. Yang knows what customers expect and he is diligent about delivering practical products and solutions.

Mr. Yang has spent the majority of his career in healthcare technology, designing and deploying elegant solutions to complex challenges. His ability to understand the breadth of a situation and devise tactical resolutions lead to sturdy implementations and satisfied customers. Mr. Yang has created solutions for IBM, SeeBeyond and STC, and EFI Services, Inc., a consulting firm. While at SeeBeyond, he participated in the development of the eIndex EMPI and pioneered the installation of the application in a multi-vendor, integrated environment.

Mr. Yang has a Computer Engineering degree from University of California, San Diego and a Masters Degree in Computer Engineering from University of California, Irvine.

Dan Cidon (Chief Technology Officer)

As a noted thought leader in the intricate domain of pattern analysis and probabilistic matching algorithms, Dan Cidon brings innovative and pragmatic solutions to NextGate’s product portfolio. As co-founder and CTO, Mr. Cidon tracks current technology trends and evaluates components appropriate for the company’s solutions.
From his years of experience fine-tuning enterprise indexing technology, Mr. Cidon created many of the add-ons that went into making the MatchMetrix Suite the industry’s fastest to implement EMPI. His optimizations improve the accuracy and speed of matching objects as well as enhance the productivity of users through well organized GUIs and reports. He has overseen the successful implementation of numerous healthcare and commercial EMPI accounts in the United States and Europe.

Prior to NextGate, Mr. Cidon worked as a lead software engineer for the eIndex/eView EMPI product of the Sun Microsystems Java CAPS suite. In addition to his software development experience, Mr. Cidon worked as a Sun implementation consultant for several years where he was responsible for major healthcare EMPI rollouts for payers, hospitals, and IPA’s.

Mr. Cidon has a Masters of Computer Science degree from the University of California, Davis.

Les Marcum (Chief Innovation Officer & Solutions Architect)

As Chief Innovation Officer & Solutions Architect, Les Marcum is responsible for developing the solutions that solve customer issues. His comprehensive knowledge of systems combined with his artistic design concepts create elegant, flexible offerings that unlock the power of customer information.

Mr. Marcum comes to NextGate with over 30 years of software and hardware design, implementation, and deployment experience. As a technical leader for STC, SeeBeyond, and Sun Microsystems’ Integration Practice, he devised solutions for many complex initiatives. In the Healthcare domain these initiatives have included: HIPAA transaction processing, national Patient and Provider Identifiers, multi-facility and multi-domain indexing, and Provider-Payor-Pharmacy networks. He spent 3 years crafting the British Columbia Provincial Laboratory Information System (PLIS), which included the underlying infrastructure for an Electronic Healthcare Record based on the Canada Health Infoways EHR Blueprint, and has consulted on many other national and state-wide integration projects. Additionally he has designed software solutions for the Finance, Retail, Military, Manufacturing, and Utility industries.

Mr. Marcum graduated from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona with a degree in Physics, and he enjoys working in wood, metal, and glass in his free time.

Gevik Nalbandian (Vice President of Software Engineering)

Mr. Nalbandian has more than 17 years of technology, enterprise integration and management experience and provides the strategic technology and software engineering leadership for NextGate Solutions. As the Vice President of Software Engineering, he is ultimately responsible for conceptualizing and delivering timely and high quality products matching the needs of NextGate’s existing and future customer base.

Prior to NextGate Solutions, Mr. Nalbandian co-founded RedSeal Solutions immediately after leaving Sun Microsystems where he held several senior and executive positions. As Senior Director and Vice President of Sustaining Engineering and the Rapid Response Teams, Nalbandian lead and grew teams of skilled software engineers and field specialists capable of delivering complex solutions and addressing customer escalations. As Vice President of the Americas Sales Engineering and Rapid Response Teams, Nalbandian created programs to enable and grow the teams with the latest groundbreaking technologies and product suites from SeeBeyond to drive new business across the Americas for SeeBeyond.

Mr. Nalbandian received his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from California State University, Northridge.

Heinz Jörg Schwarz (Vice President of Business Development)

With more than 20 years of experience in high technology sales and business development, Jörg directs all partner related activities for NextGate. He brings international experience, a passion for technology and Information Systems science, and an excellent ability to identify strategic opportunities with companies of all sizes, from F100 to start-ups, so that everyone involved benefits.

As a core member of GE Healthcare IT, he was responsible for eHealth, Image Exchange, and Population Health Management partnerships. He assembled the partner ecosystem that resulted in GE’s largest HIE project: the State of Connecticut. At Sun Microsystems, he launched the “Centers of Excellence” program in conjunction with leading academic institutions, and built a global sales practice for scientific and technical HPC, which remains a thriving community to this day.

Joerg completed post-graduate coursework in Information Systems from Nova Southeastern University, and he develops and teaches graduate classes in Business Intelligence, Information Technology Management, IT Governance, and Healthcare IT Infrastructure as an Adjunct Professor at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. Additionally, he is an advisory board member and founding faculty member of a graduate program in Healthcare IT Management at the Ageno School of Business.

Richard Garcia (Vice President of Marketing)

Rich is responsible for communicating the NextGate message, developing the NextGate community, fostering the NextGate experience, and infusing the environment with enthusiasm.

At SeeBeyond and Sun Microsystems, Rich was involved with various aspects of healthcare information technology promotion, including sales, marketing, account management, end-user training, and speaking engagements at user groups and conferences. He nurtures lasting customer relationships and promotes the positive exchange of ideas for mutual benefit.

Rich graduated with a degree in Literature and Philosophy from Wesleyan University, Connecticut, and resides in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Kevin Schmidt (Director, Product Marketing / Management)

Mr. Schmidt has more than 20 years of experience in software development and enterprise integration software product management and marketing at Fortune 100 and startup companies.

Prior to NextGate, Mr. Schmidt founded Teravation where he provided product management and marketing services to integration and database companies. Prior to that, he served in several director level product management and marketing positions at Sun Microsystems and SeeBeyond where he led the development, release, and marketing of integration, application platform, identity management, and database software including ICAN, Java CAPS, Java EE 6, and GlassFish. Prior to SeeBeyond, Mr. Schmidt held senior positions at Enterworks, a data and process integration software vendor, in professional services and customer service, and served as technical lead with Telos on several NASA projects at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Goddard Space Flight Center.

Kevin’s combination of technical and product knowledge together with an understanding of the market and customer needs enables him to see trends and apply them to product strategy and then communicate that strategy along with current product capabilities to the market, customers, press, and analysts through traditional and emerging channels.

Kevin holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering with Cum Laude honors from Walla Walla College.