Meet the team

Jimmy Whalen, a graduate of USC’s Marshall School of Business, is the CEO and President, as well as a founding member, of Velasea. He and his team are leaders in providing tech products at competitive pricing, designing solutions for complex projects, and sourcing constrained items to support mission-critical systems. 

When Jimmy was an Account Executive for Arbitech, his team has consistently led the company, and the independent channel, in sales volume. An industry visionary, Jimmy is a member of Velasea’s board of directors, and he travels extensively to meet with tech business executives nationwide. 

When not on the road, Jimmy enjoys golfing at the country club adjacent to his home in Laguna Niguel, California, where he lives with his wife and three children.

Mr. Walker is Velasea’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and a key member of the executive team. He comes to Velasea with over 20 years of accounting, operations and corporate finance experience within distribution, software, consumer products, and professional services industries. He has been in an executive role for over 10 years.

David has had broad experience with companies in various stages of growth -- from start up, to middle market, to public companies -- and has been involved in numerous strategic initiatives, including more than 10 M&A transactions. He started his career at Deloitte, before eventually moving to middle market investment banking, where he served as Managing Director of Professional Services at RSM EquiCo. He then went on to various executive roles over the next 10 years, where he found great success in implementing financial controls and stimulating growth opportunities. 

David graduated from Brigham Young University (BYU) with a Masters of Accountancy, a Bachelor of Science degree in economics, and a minor in Spanish. David is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) as well as a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), speaks Spanish fluently, and is active in various professional organizations -- most recently serving as a board member of Orange County Chapter of Financial Executives International (FEI).

Doug Kari serves as Velasea’s Chief Legal Officer and is a principal in the company. Prior to becoming involved in the technology business, Doug was a partner at Orrick, one of the nation’s premier law firms, where he specialized in intellectual property and business litigation.

In 2012, a brief authored by Doug was cited in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case involving international trade in copyrighted products. In 2017, Doug represented several hundred technology companies as amici curiae in a patent law case before the Supreme Court.

Doug’s articles about law and technology have appeared in Ars Technica, LA Weekly, Las Vegas Review-Journal, SF Daily Journal, LA Lawyer, Nevada Appeal and San Diego Union-Tribune.

Doug has a B.A. in English from U.C. Berkeley and a J.D. magna cum laude from Hastings College of the Law. Doug is also an accomplished mountaineer who has scaled Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua, two of the world’s highest summits.

Rob Ruth serves as COO for Velasea, LLC where he brings 20+ year’s experience in operations, engineering and cloud services.

Prior to Velasea, Mr. Ruth served as a Strategic Advisor to Western Digital where he helped with the overall direction of cloud enable services for both the Datacenter Systems and Client Solutions business units. 

Previous to Western Digital, Mr. Ruth served as VP of Operations for Hightail where he was responsible for all technical operations of its 100M+ user cloud storage service. Hightail’s clients included 98% of the Fortune 500.  

Before Hightail, Mr. Ruth was VP of Network Operations for Skinit where he helped scale the company from early stage startup through $100M+ valuation in under four years. This included reselling its technology platform to companies such as Microsoft, T-Mobile, HP, Verizon and Sprint.

Previous to Skinit, Mr. Ruth held leadership positions in several San Diego based startups including Lindows/Linspire, Praja and Com2001.

Mr. Ruth grew up in San Diego and attended SDSU. He is regularly sought to speak at industry events with an emphasis on scaling cloud teams/services, businesses intelligence and data warehouse.

In his spare time Rob enjoys mountain biking and traveling. Some of the more unique destinations include mountain biking Irazu Volcano in Costa Rica and hiking the historic Camino de Santiago trail in Spain.

Stuart brings over 25 years in vendor relations, inventory strategies and product lifecycle development to Velasea. 

“When we work together to understand the marketplace and maximize the opportunities, our vendors benefit by increasing their sales, Arbitech is able to continue its fast-paced growth, and our customers make more profits and gain a competitive edge. It’s a win-win and I love it!”

Stuart loves to be outdoors; hiking trails, bagging peaks, slacklining in the park or cruising the boardwalk on his red beach cruiser with his puppy LeeLoo.

Jamie Carwana is Velasea’s Sr. Controller. Jamie has been in the industry since 2001, originally joining the company in February 2003. Jamie has held numerous positions for Velasea’s sister company, including Accounts Payable Manager and Assistant Controller. 

In her role, Jamie is responsible for the maintenance and auditing of financial assets by establishing financial policies, procedures, controls, and reporting systems. She is also an invaluable member of the company’s human resource and compliance departments. 

Jamie earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Cal State Fullerton, with an emphasis in American Studies in 2001. She is also a certified professional of human resources (PHR).

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Jeremy has been a Member of the Board of Velasea since its inception in 2019 and currently serves as the Director of Sales (Security Integrators).

Prior to Velasea, Jeremy started his career at Arbitech in Business Development as a cold caller, then slowly climbed the ladder from Inside Sales to Account Executive to Partner. 

Jeremy grew up in Bend, Oregon and graduated from Long Beach State with a B.S. in International Business and Finance. In his spare time, he enjoys travel, golf, Netflix, Call of Duty, trying to surf, and playing semi-professional hockey. Above all else, he loves spending time with his wife, Adri, and their two little boys, Charlie and David.  He also has two dogs, if anyone is in the market.

Jason McCarty is Velasea’s Director of Information Systems. Jason manages all of Velasea’s IT staff and leads in the development and maintenance of internal and external IT needs. Jason’s enthusiasm and commitment to the company’s strategic IT goals helps the company maintain a balance of operational excellence and innovation.

Previously, Jason has held IT Management positions with New Millennium Financial and First Appraisal Network. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems from DeVry Institute of Technology and embraces continual education as a natural part of his career.