Our Founders
Nate Barber
Nate is a man of faith and family and a serial entrepreneur. Whenever a problem presents itself, his solution is often to start another business. A life-long learner, Nate enjoys leaping up new learning curves and finding creative solutions to challenging problems. An unabashed engineer and businessman, he is always on the lookout for practical ways to improve people, performance and profits. His core values are to put others first, to live genuinely, to strive for perfection, to be entrepreneurial and to seek and apply wisdom. Living out these values is his daily challenge. Nate is also very involved in his church and community, often finding himself in teaching and mentorship roles wherever he becomes engaged.
John Thornton
"Helping people and organizations grow is a hallmark of my professional life. From my work at MDS, helping the family business increase by an order of magnitude in revenues within 7 years (from $2.3 to $23 million) while keeping staffing levels flat, to my current work at Opgrade, assisting companies in fixing their limits to growth, my career has been dedicated to this principle.
In our personal lives, service to others is important. My wife and I have one daughter, Sophia, and our entire family is very volunteer and service oriented. From organizing hundreds of students who created over 5,000 cards sent to U.S. troops stationed in 3 continents, to fund-raising for the San Antonio Food Bank, we do what we can to give back to our community."