Meet the Autograff Team
A Focused Team of Media and Business Professionals
Our team members bring years of experience in diverse fields to each project. Meet our team:
Autograff Founder Richard Merrill
Originally from the high desert cattle country of Oregon, Richard Merrill moved to the east coast as a Mechanical Design Engineer in Boston's high-tech belt. In this role, Richard was responsible for distilling complex aerospace assemblies into a few parts in a process he has termed "simplicity engineering." Richard later headed north to Maine in the 80s to raise his family, establishing an energy-efficient home design/build company founded on these same principles. In the 90s he transferred these skills to the graphics and web development industries.
Merrill designed award-winning advertising art and informational graphics for The Ellsworth American newspaper, was the art director for Downeast Graphics & Printing and Maine Camp Outfitters, and has designed print materials and websites for clients throughout the US.
Richard currently serves as the Development Director for Autograff, designing and producing graphics, identity and web sites for startups and multi-million-dollar companies.
Autograff was launched in 2003 as an "extended studio" built on collaborations with highly-skilled associates. In 2005, Richard joined with partner Kurt Stoll to incorporate as Autograff, Inc.
Richard is also an accomplished puppeteer and storyteller. His character Nasruddin may be seen at Nasruddin.org.
Autograff President Kurt Stoll
Kurt Stoll, Autograff's President and CEO, is a FAA-licensed flight dispatcher with 28 years' experience in commercial aviation. Before moving to the United States, Kurt managed BalAir's ground services worldwide, and was the Deputy VP of Operations (BalAir was Swissair's charter subsidiary).
After falling in love with Buck's Harbor in Brooksville, Maine, he and his wife owned and ran a successful restaurant, The Landing Restaurant at Buck's Harbor, for three years. Subsequently he was the Executive Director of the Bagaduce Music Lending Library, a non-profit organization in Blue Hill. He is also Treasurer and and a board member of Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and is a member of the Steering Committe and serves as Administrator for Colloquy Downeast.
Kurt is an implementer at heart, a perfect match for Autograff. Kurt is a master of Excel, and has developed several calculator tools for business.
Kurt sails his sloop "Sonata" out of Bucks Harbor in Brooksville.
Programmer Bob Merrill
Bob Merrill programmed Autograff Navigator CMS™ from the ground up.
Bob has extensive experience in software development, including technical writing, interface design, product development and management, testing, and customer support since 1987.
Bob has developed database management applications since 1982 (the earliest days of desktops). He has broad experience in a wide variety of computing functions, such as data management and processing, desktop publishing, web development, help systems, digital audio manipulation, and programming in scripted, interpreted and compiled environments on Unix/Linux, Macintosh and Windows platforms.
Bob built Autograff Navigator CMS™ on the industry-standard LAMP platform (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP).
Bob is also an accomplished jazz keyboard player, composer, and audio engineer. Visit his studio online at BobMerrill.com
PERL/Javascript Programmer Dave Merrill
It's a family affair! Dave builds web applications using popular cgi languages. Perhaps Dave Merrill's greatest strength is his dedication to lean, stable code. He subjects everything to rigorous testing, and is our favorite code debugger. Dave's efficient and secure Perl coding is used in virtually all of Autograff's web forms. Dave's skills extend to visual design; he has designed websites for several Autograff clients. Dave is a meticulous programmer who is naturally suspicious of technology for its own sake, making him a champion of stability and utility over novelty. We like that kind of conservatism!
Dave is also a top-notch piano tuner and technician, and plays jazz on drums, vibes and sax.
