Jim Grinsfelder, Chief Executive Officer

Jim excels at creating groundbreaking computer-based education, data mining and reporting tools. He’s been doing it for over 22 years – as a programmer, manager, and consulting-firm CEO – for clients as diverse as Ralston Purina, Medtronic, American Express Bank, Traveler’s Insurance, and 3M and GM.

That takes a special talent for complex data-manipulation – fitting the messy stuff of reality to the tightly defined structures of computer systems and databases. And it takes an intuitive understanding of how people actually learn and use computers. Jim also knows what he loves. Wine. Not just drinking it, but learning all about it. It took a long period of talking with wine merchants, learning their business and identifying their needs, for Jim to discover how he could combine his talents with his passions to fill a unique niche.

Wine merchants each have their own approach to the business of wine. And their customers come with a broad range of wine knowledge and wine-buying priorities. That “messiness” of wine information and complexity of customer needs had stymied others who tried to create computer-based wine merchant marketing and management tools. But it was exactly the kind of terrain in which Jim had honed his professional skills. The result is WineConnect: a flexible, user-friendly information link between wine merchants, their customers and their inventory.

Paul Leska, Chief Technology Officer

To help make WineConnect a reality, Jim recruited software architect and systems integrator Paul Leska. Paul brings over 25 years’ experience in every facet of software development, from requirements analysis and project management, to deployment and maintenance. Paul’s talent for elegantly integrating varied databases into a single smoothly-efficient system perfectly complements Jim’s design and management skills. An avowed “white Zin kinda guy,” Paul also offers a wine neophyte’s perspective, making him a perfect guinea pig for the WineConnect program.

Gary Deaner, Chief Marketing Officer

Turning “WineConnect, the unique product,” into “WineConnect, the successful company,” is the aim of Gary Deaner. Gary brings over 30 years’ experience planning, developing, and marketing technology-based products and services, and managing the multi-million-dollar organizations behind them. Gary was Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Planning for J. River, Inc. And he was a key member of the team that took Digi International public and grew it to over $200 million in revenues. While there, Gary served as Vice President of Marketing, President of Arnet Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary, and VP and General Manager of the LAN Connect Group.

Gary’s wine expertise fits neatly between Jim’s and Paul’s. "I love wine but when I am confronted with all the wine choices I’m a bit at sea. I knew I’d love to have something like WineConnect available to me and that I wanted to get involved in making it happen."

Our Mission

Our mission at WineConnect is to provide the most effective wine information tools and an outstanding level of service for our wine merchant clients and their customers.

What's Behind Us?

Backing us is a committed group of systems developers, programmers, designers, and customer service people that make WineConnect the great product that it is today.