Adam McCombs, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Adam, a former Cisco Systems veteran who spent most of his career improving the
way Fortune 500 companies communicated with each other leveraging voice over ip
(voip) technologies. Adam is one of only 300 people in the world that has obtained
two CCIEs, a designation that is essentially a PhD in the internet. Adam realized
that the same technologies he used to help Fortune 500 companies could be used to
help college athletic departments communicate better.
He spent the next few years researching the market and building JumpForward’s patent-pending
mobile application which has revolutionized the way college coaches recruit. It
didn’t take long to see the potential this application would have in the compliance
industry and JumpForward quickly worked to build the best and proven compliance
product available in the market.
Adam and the rest of the JumpForward Technology Team spend their time finding and
building the best technologies available so college athletic departments can rest
assured JumpForward always has the best product.
Brad Niedermaier, President
Brad played baseball at Northwestern University before spending six years playing
professionally for the Twins, Yankees, and Rockies. During Brad’s last year of his
baseball career, he co-founded a recruiting service and social networking site that
helped put high school athlete’s resumes together with college coaches.
He spent the next 8 years working for two Fortune 500 companies in roles that involved
growing and managing corporate relationships. During that time, Niedermaier also
earned a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in Marketing and Strategy from
Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
In 2009, Niedermaier joined JumpForward and has immediately taken JumpForward to
the next level with his business expertise, entrepreneurial passion, and knowledge
of college and professional sports. Among other things, Brad heads up the Sales
and Marketing teams and, with his emphasis on customer service and support, JumpForward
will always go the extra mile to make sure their customers are treated well.
Jodi Murphy, Director of Coach Solutions
Jodi brings over 25 years of technology experience to JumpForward, including over
10 years in the collegiate athletics arena. Jodi started in college athletics with
one of the pioneers in bringing technology to the recruiting process for coaches
and student athletes. Spending several years on the road training coaching staffs
and administrators, Jodi also was able to bring new and original development ideas
to her team, and see those projects and technologies come to the marketplace.
Jodi then went to work at Arizona State University as their first Recruiting Technology
Coordinator. Her work with recruiting and compliance at all levels of an athletic
department gave her a valuable perspective to the inner workings of college athletics.
Jodi’s unique combination of experience, technical expertise, and knowledge of the
marketplace have been a valuable addition to the JumpForward team.
Bill Shults, Vice President for Compliance Sales
Bill has been involved with collegiate athletics since 1976 as a coach and administrator.
He coached swimming/water-polo/softball at Trinity College while also serving as
an athletic trainer (1976-77), then coached swimming at his alma mater, the University
of New Hampshire (1978-79) before completing his swim coaching career at Florida
State University (1979-1990).
Shults was then asked by the Athletic Director to help his fellow coaches in the
Compliance and Student Services office and remained until 1997. While in compliance
at FSU he was credited with creating the first computer system to share data with
others in the department and also started a users group for the NCAA software (Compliance
Assistant). In the spring of 1997, he was called home to Connecticut to direct the
Compliance Office at UConn as an Associate AD with oversight for several varsity
sports as well as all compliance related operations. Again, Bill helped the university
to develop a system to share student-athlete data with campus constituents such
as the Registrar’s Office, Academic Support, Financial Aid, Sports Medicine and
Admissions. He was instrumental in creating the Student-Athlete Academic & Welfare
Team (SWAT) that brought these groups together to help make the student-athlete
experience more progressive.
In the fall of 2007, Shults was hired as the Special Assistant to the General Counsel
at Florida International University to help them make corrective actions following
a major infractions case involving student-athlete eligibility & financial aid.
Most recently, Shults was asked to return to Florida State (2008) to Direct the
Athletic Academic Support Services department following a major infractions case
involving academic fraud in that office. Now at JumpForward, Bill brings a wealth
of experience to the team and hopes to help his former colleagues avoid NCAA violations.