[February 22, 2005]

Know Thy Keynoters -- William Tauscher of The Tauscher Groupe

By David Sims, TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist

Wednesday, February 23 rd at 4:30 p.m. William Tauscher, founder of The Tauscher Group, will present his keynote address.

William Tauscher is the founder of The Tauscher Group, which invests and assists in the management of enterprises in various industries. Before founding The Tauscher Group, Mr. Tauscher served as chairman and CEO of Vanstar Corporation, formerly ComputerLand Corporation, having led the group that acquired ComputerLand in 1987.

(1987? Why couldn’t they have bought it by 1986, when this reporter had a terrible customer experience at ComputerLand? Hopefully that salesperson is now in the Malbowges where he so richly belongs.)

Under Mr. Tauscher's guidance, Vanstar grew to be the largest PC sales and service company in the world, and was sold to Inacom in 1999. Prior to Vanstar, he was the chairman and CEO of FoxMeyer Corporation, a wholesale pharmaceutical and beauty-aid distributor, from 1977 until its sale to National Intergroup in 1986.

Mr. Tauscher also helped engineer the leveraged buyout of Household Merchandising, the retail subsidiary of Household Finance. He subsequently acquired Coast to Coast from Household, engineering its IPO and subsequent sale.

Exactly one year ago from his keynote address, on February 23, 2004 he was named the chairman of Artisoft Inc.’s Board of Directors. Artisoft provides open systems IP-PBX and call center products. Tauscher succeeded Michael Downey.

David Sims is contributing editor and CRM Alert columnist for TMCnet.