We’ve assembled a team of experienced leaders, skilled developers and creative designers. With unique and extensive expertise in our individual fields, we’ve combined industry experience, talents, and backgrounds to create a solution that addresses the overlooked needs of small businesses. The Appward product reflects not only our knowledge, but us as people. Let us introduce ourselves!
Leadership
Dave Mason
Founder & CEO
Dave is a multi-discipline engineer, software developer, inventor and entrepreneur who, not only runs Appward, but is also President and owner of our sister company ASC Process Systems. Dave built ASC over 30+ years to be the leading manufacturer of aerospace autoclaves in the US. Since the early days, Dave has designed and developed most…
Raffi Dér Khorenian
Co-Founder & COO
Raffi got a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the American University of Beirut, his hometown. He got the software bug back in those early days infusing intelligence into electro-mechanical systems. He pursued that passion further with a Masters degree from Clemson University, and from there landed his first software engineering job in Los Angeles with…
Gudrun Mason
CFO
Gudrun is Dave’s wife and partner in crime in starting up Appward. She works full time at ASC as VP and CFO, and part time at Appward as she imparts wisdom from her significant experience in finance, accounting, contracts, strategy and administration matters. She hails from Innsbruck, Austria, and can speak multiple languages. She came…
App Development
Nico Martinez
App Development Manager
Nico received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. During school he fell in love with programming and automation while working with robots. Escaping the Minnesota winter, he moved to Santa Clarita, CA where he landed a job at ASC Process Systems as a Controls Engineer. There, Nico got experience in…
Becky Weiss
App Developer III
Becky is an App Developer responsible for building sales, analytics and a customer-facing suite of applications in the Appward ecosystem. She received her bachelor’s degree in Theater Arts from Hendrix College and her MFA in Theatrical Design from University of Florida. Becky loves telling stories, playing board games and used to host a ghost themed…
Erika Memije
App Developer II
Erika is an App Developer responsible for building HR-related and project management applications in Appward’s ecosystem. She received her bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Statistics from CSUN. She has great taste for excellent UI styles. In a previous life, she has modeled for products sold on Amazon.
Henry Parras
App Developer II
Henry joined us in November of 2021 after finishing up a coding bootcamp from UCLA. He is responsible for the development of business and productivity apps within our Platform. In his free time, Henry plays the piano and enjoys spending time with his daughter.
Cameron De Robertis
App Developer II
Cameron is one of our App Developers, joining us after graduating from Coding Dojo with top marks. He made a career switch after being an ICU nurse for 5 years. He has a knack for front end UI design and integrations. In his spare time, he loves collecting board games and movies … something about…
Paul Ko
App Developer I
Paul joined our App Development team after graduating from the Hack Reactor bootcamp. In his previous life, Paul was an IRS agent after graduating from USC with a master’s in business taxation. He’s done accounting too but decided to pursue his software passion fulltime. We are happy he made that decision! In his spare time,…
Brandon Taylor
App Developer I
Brandon comes from a technical and customer service background, studying computer science at school and working as customer support for a payment service provider. He has experience in web development after previously interning as a web developer and graduating from Coding Dojo with highest honors. One of his favorite early jobs was working as a…
Core Development
Vlad Grigoryan
Core Development Manager
Vlad received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from University of California, Berkeley, after which he joined a fin-tech company in San Francisco. After a brief exposure to working with developers there and providing business logic and specs for financial software, he decided to dive fully into tech and learn to code himself. He came back…
Vahag Sinanian
Core Developer II
Vahag is a Core developer working on building complex data storage structures for our Platform. He is our in-house expert on database related matters and secure content management handling. He’s one of the first hires at Appward and has done an amazing job building our own scripting engine. He graduated with a Master of Computer…
Jonathan Hong
Core Developer II
Jon is a Core developer working on building new visual widgets and features for the Platform. He has a knack for API integrations and zooms through finding and fixing bugs. He made a career switch from the insurance industry after graduating from Coding Dojo bootcamp. He has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from UC Irvine….
Jimmy Wang
Core Developer II
Jimmy is a Core developer working on building complex, data-intensive, high-performance widgets and has a general creativity for developing system-wide features for the Platform. He has a knack for data and how that needs to be handled for optimizing performance. He received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UC Irvine. When not thinking about…
Philip Bolin
Core Developer II
Philip is a Core developer working on building amazing new classes and features for Appward’s platform. Not to brag, but our own File Explorer interface is his handy work. He received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from CSUN. When needed, Philip can be a really good beat boxer.
Brandon Pacol
Core Developer I
Brandon is one of our Core Developers, joining us after graduating from CSUN in Computer Science, Magna Cum Laude. He loves exploring his creative design side, especially when it comes to making music. He created a Spotify “Clean Convertor” app, joining his two passions of sound and software. Now, he’s letting his creativity shine through…
Marketing, Sales & Support
Nick Mason
Product Sales Manager
After attending UC Santa Cruz for Computer Science, Nick worked at Appward’s sister company, ASC Process Systems, for five years in many capacities including Planner, Field Project Manager, and eventually Business Automation Manager. Nick oversaw new app development at ASC and the roll-out of Appward to the 300 employee manufacturer. Nick is adept at not…
Ahrin Meguerian
Technical Support Specialist I
Ahrin received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from CSUN. He made the switch from Chemistry to Computer Science after taking a summer class and finding his passion in Human Computer Interaction. Prior to joining Appward, Ahrin did an internship where he designed and developed the front end for a browser based educational game. Outside…
Alexander Chakhoyan
Graphic Designer
Alexander is our in-house all-things graphics and video guru. He joined Appward in January of 2022 and brings with him significant video production and animation design experience from working in the industry. His first graphic design was in 1986 on an Electronica BK-0010 model! He was born and raised in Armenia. In 2017 migrated to…