Patrick Spain
Patrick J. Spain (born 1952) is the co-founder of Hoover's, founder of HighBeam Research and is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of news curation site Newser.[1]
His father was a career foreign service officer James W. Spain who was a U.S. ambassador to Tanzania, Turkey and Sri Lanka. Spain was born in Pakistan and grew up Turkey and Washington, DC.
He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1974 with a bachelor's in Ancient Roman history. He graduated from Boston University law school in 1979 and went to work as an associate counsel for Extel a telex manufacturer.[2] Spain worked for Extel for ten years in various positions including General Counsel, VP of Administration and VP, Mergers & Acquisitions.
In 1990 he moved to Austin, Texas where he and University of Chicago friends Gary Hoover and Alan Chai, Along with Alta Campbell, founded Hoover's, starting out with a profile of 500 companies in a printed almanac. In 1993 America Online began publishing the profiles online and the company took off.[2] Spain was CEO from 1992 to 2001 and chairman from 2001 to 2002.
He left as chairman of Hoover's in 2002, remaining on the Board until Hoover's was sold to Dun & Bradstreet in 2003. In 2002, Spain started what would become HighBeam Research, which was an online subscription research service that allowed users access to tens of millions of articles from thousands of newspapers, magazines, and journals. He sold HighBeam in December 2008 to Cengage Learning. Spain created Newser within HighBeam and spun it off prior to the sale of HighBeam. Newser is an online news site that curates and summarizes news in a highly visual format. His partner at Newser is Michael Wolff.
Spain sits on the boards of GuideStar, the leading supplier of data about the non-profit industry, and SmartAnalyst, a company that provides customized analyses and superior strategic insights for the life sciences industry.
[edit] References
- ^ Patrick Spain, Newser.com, 2010, http://www.newser.com/bio/patrick-spain.html
- ^ a b Howard Wolinsky. "Chicago keeps calling to Spain." Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago Sun Times. 2004. Retrieved January 27, 2009 from HighBeam Research: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1541928.html
[edit] Further reading
- Kaiser, Nathan (2001), Interview w/ Patrick Spain, Chairman of Hoovers, Inc., NPOST.com, http://www.npost.com/blog/2001/05/19/interview-w-patrick-spain-chairman-of-hoovers-inc/
- Haley, Colin C. (February, 20 2004), Q&A: Patrick Spain, Founder HighBeam, InternetNews.com, http://www.internetnews.com/fina-news/article.php/3315981/QA-Patrick-Spain-Founder-HighBeam.htm
