The foundation of GMI's philosophy is to invest in your company, customers, and community. Investing in the company includes making an investment in employees, by providing training, building a diverse workforce, and fostering excellence. Meet a few of our team members:
Earl W. Overstreet II, President
Mount St. Helens erupted May 18, 1980. That same day, Earl W. Overstreet II headed to Seattle on a house-hunting trip. His flight went just west of the erupting volcano. Undeterred, Earl purchased a home and has been a Bellevue resident ever since.
Earl is president of General Microsystems Inc. (GMI), a company he founded in 1983. GMI specializes in high performance servers, workstations, storage, and storage management products. The company has been recognized as one of the top Sun Microsystems and StorageTek Value Added Resellers in the Pacific Northwest and one of the largest minority owned businesses in Washington. Their customers include Boeing, Expeditors International, the State of Washington, and Safeco.
His career started at the General Electric Miniature Lamp Department where he held positions in manufacturing, sales, and marketing. At Wyle Laboratories, Electronic Marketing Group his responsibilities included sales, sales management, and division management.
Earl has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Case Institute of Technology and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. He is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma honor society, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and Tabor 100.
He serves on the board of directors for the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce and the Case Western Reserve University Puget Sound Alumni Chapter.
Barbara L. Overstreet, Chief Financial Officer
After numerous conversations about the pros and cons of couples working together, Barb agreed to leave a successful real estate career to help GMI develop the necessary operational and financial disciplines.
Barb is responsible for all aspects of GMI financial performance including financial statements, accounting, taxes, and insurance. She helped automate and update accounting functions. She has also served GMI as director of operations.
Before coming to GMI, Barb was a real estate agent for Overlake Realty. A Bellevue native, Barb also worked at Eddie Bauer and CH2M Hill. She attended Western Washington University with a major in education.
P. J. Hunt, Vice President PNW Region
P.J. and Earl first met at a Boy Scout Charity Breakfast. At that time, P.J. was the Sun Microsystems Global Account Manager responsible for Boeing. His next encounter with GMI was as the Sun Account Manager for Expeditors International. Working together, Sun and GMI won the Expeditors contract.
P.J. started his tour with GMI as sales manager in 2004. Currently as Vice President of the PNW Region for GMI, P.J. has responsibility for sales, technical sales, marketing, operations and IT.
In addition to six years at Sun Microsystems, he held sales, finance and/or managment positions at ADP, Amdahl, Alcatel Friden, Highline Financial Services, Burroughs/Unisys Finance, and Memorex. P.J. has a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration from the University of Idaho, an MBA from the University of Oregon and he recently completed the Executive Development Program at the Universtity of Washington.
Daniel Miller, Vice President SW Region
As Vice President Southwest Region, Mr. Miller is responsible for strategic direction, portfolio development, and regional operations. He brings 20 years of sales and management experience to the position. Prior to founding and serving as President for RockFish Tek, Inc. in 2009, Mr. Miller founded another Bay Area reseller in 2001 serving as its President until 2004. In 2008, prior to his departure the company was recognized as one of the fastest growing technology companies by Inc. Magazine. Mr. Miller has a strong IT background track record of growth. He attended San Jose State University, majoring in Information Technology and Business.
Paul L. Overstreet, Director of Operations
In 1985, Earl convinced his brother Paul to retire the snow shovel, leave Ann Arbor, Michigan, and join him at GMI. In November 1985, Paul and his family were welcomed to the Seattle area by one of the biggest snow storms in local history.
Paul oversees order processing, purchasing, shipping, receiving, and facilities. He has Sun and StorageTek sales certifications and was previously responsible for inside sales. Previously he was a sales agent for Allstate Insurance Company and was responsible for creating and maintaining client risk policies of life, IRA, health, and property and casualty.
Paul spent five years as Division Manager at Sears supervising and training sales staff, coordinating purchases, inventory control, and promotional campaigns.
He has a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration from Cleveland State University.
Diane Scott, Director of Engineering
In this role Diane is responsible for all technical and engineering services in the Southwest Region. Diane brings over 15 years of technology experience to GMI. She began her career at Sun Microsystems in 1995. During her tenure at Sun, she supported internal IT applications, desktops/servers for executives, and developed internal applications for Sun. She then accepted the position as the the Executive Briefing Manager a post that she held for 3 years. In 2001, she moved to the technical sales organization becoming a systems engineer; where she designed and developed tools that the Sun sales team utilized for 7 years. Diane was instrumental in upgrading this application to a newer version for the CDP and inside sales teams to utilize. In 2009, Ms. Scott co-founded RockFish Tek, Inc. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from San Jose State University.
Jim Lucas, Sales Manager
P.J. first met Jim when Jim's wife asked him to interview her husband for a sales position at Sun Microsystems. Shortly thereafter, P.J.hired Jim as GMI's first account executive in the new GMI sales team. Jim then took a three year hiatus with Dell before P.J. could convince him to come back to GMI to help get GMI's HP business off the ground. With the continuing growth in GMI, Jim was made sales manager early in 2011, with responsibility for managing GMI's PNW sales team.
Jim has over 30 years experience in selling, delivering and supporting Information Technology Solutions in various sales and pre-sales technical roles and as an end user and consumer of Independent Software Vendor (ISV) and Hardware Vendor technology. Jim has held positions with Dell, Sun Microsystems, The Odella Group, Talisma, Viasoft, IBM, and 14 years at Computer Associates. He holds a BS in Computer Science from Alameda University.
