Paula Long is an American

software engineer Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining software applications. It involves applying engineering principles and computer programming expertise to develop ...

and entrepreneur. She was

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

and co-founder of DataGravity and in 2001, she co-founded

EqualLogic EqualLogic, Inc. was an American computer data storage company based in Nashua, New Hampshire, active from 2001 to 2007. In 2008, the company was merged into Dell Inc. Dell-branded EqualLogic products are iSCSI-based storage area network (SAN) sy ...

, which was later sold to

Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...

Biography

Born in Methuen,

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, Paula Long grew up in Enfield,

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

. She received her

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

from

Westfield State University Westfield State University (commonly known as Westfield State) is a public university in Westfield, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1839 by Horace Mann as the first public coeducational college in America. History In 1839, Horace Mann founded ...

in Westfield, Massachusetts. Long began her career as a software engineer. She was a consulting software engineer in the

UNIX Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

operating system group at

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until ...

before her move to the startup community. She worked at Bright Tiger Technologies in Acton, Massachusetts, where she was responsible for the ClusterCATS product line, a web management clustering product. In 1999, Bright Tiger was acquired by

Allaire Corporation Allaire Corporation was a computer software company founded by Jeremy and JJ Allaire in Minnesota, later headquartered in Cambridge, then Newton, Massachusetts. It commenced operations in May 1995, had its initial public offering on NASDAQ (tradi ...

, and Long went on to work at Allaire in several engineering leadership positions. Long was the director of software at Iron Stream, seed funded in 2000 and closed during the dot-com meltdown. In 2001, Long co-founded storage provider EqualLogic in Nashua,

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

alongside Peter Hayden and Paul Koning. She was responsible for development of the EqualLogic product lines. In 2008, EqualLogic was acquired by Dell for $1.4 billion. Long remained at Dell as vice president of storage until 2010. After leaving Dell, Long worked as vice president of product development at Heartland Robotics for 9 months between 2010 and 2011. In 2012, Long and John Joseph co-founded DataGravity, where she served as CEO. Located in Nashua, New Hampshire, the company produced security and

data protection Data protection may refer to: * Information privacy, also known as data privacy * Data security {{Authority control ...

software for data storage systems. Long left DataGravity around June 2017. The assets of DataGravity were acquired by

HyTrust HyTrust, an Entrust company, is an American company. It specialized in security, compliance and control software for the virtualization of information technology infrastructure. The company was founded in 2007 and is based in Mountain View, Cali ...

in July 2017. Long has served on several boards, including

SugarSync SugarSync is a cloud service that enables active synchronization of files across computers and other devices for file backup, access, syncing, and sharing from a variety of operating systems, such as Android, iOS, Mac OS X, and Windows devices. ...

and ClearSky Data. She hold patents in

data storage Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are con ...

data analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data, which also falls under and directly relates to the umbrella term, data sci ...

, data protection,

data security Data security or data protection means protecting digital data, such as those in a database, from destructive forces and from the unwanted actions of unauthorized users, such as a cyberattack or a data breach. Technologies Disk encryption ...

and file systems. She's spoken at conferences such as Structure,

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high tech, high-tech and Startup company, startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. I ...

Disrupt, Collision,

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

Start6, and RSA Conference.

Awards

Long won the New Hampshire High Tech Council's Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2008. That same year, Long won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the northeast region, and was also a national finalist for the same award. In 2015 she received the “Women 2.0 Impact Builder Award” award for her work helping women in technology.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Long, Paula Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American software engineers Westfield State University alumni Engineers from Massachusetts American women chief executives American women company founders American company founders 21st-century American women