Wildlife Acoustics, Inc., a privately held Massachusetts corporation, is the leading provider of bioacoustics monitoring technology for scientists, researchers, and government agencies worldwide. Our customers monitor birds, frogs, bats, insects, fish, whales, elephants, rhinos and other wildlife.
We Listen
Our customers are our most important asset. We embody our commitment to customer service everyday through our business practices. We take pride in being a reliable supplier by designing solid products with meaningful features offered at a value price point. We thrive on user input to continuously innovate and produce the most sophisticated, flexible and reliable solutions to meet the broad and divers needs of our customer base……WE LISTEN!
Management Team
Ian Agranat, President and CEO
Back in the dark ages before personal computers, Ian was an engineer for Prime Computer. When the minicomputer industry crashed, he 
started his first company, Agranat Systems. For nine years, he enjoyed an amazing ride building a team of superheroes, developing best-in-class technology, and ultimately selling the business to Virata in 2000. As the Vice President of a public company on NASDAQ, Ian quickly realized he preferred to be the entrepreneur driving a small nimble business. He left Virata in 2002 and started Wildlife Acoustics in 2003. At Wildlife Acoustics, Ian says his job is a perfect cross section of two passions – high technology and nature. “Once again, I have surrounded myself with an amazing team of talented individuals, I enjoy applying my technical expertise to new and challenging problems, and feel great knowing that we are delivering the best products and service to the world’s caretakers of our threatened natural resources.” After business hours, Ian enjoys drifting in a kayak on a still lake as the morning mist gives way to clear skies and the dawn chorus welcomes the day. Being in the acoustic business, his favorite sounds are the song of a wood thrush, a lively saxophone in a blues band and the sound of silence.
Mona Doss, Director of Sales and Marketing
Originally trained as an electrical engineer, Mona quickly decided hardware design was not her path. With over a decade of sales and marketing experience, Mona enjoys working for small but growing companies in which her skills can help create and influence their success. Working at Wildlife Acoustics, “Customers are our number one priority and I’m proud to say this isn’t just a slogan….we practice this every day.” Outside of work, Mona enjoys biking and listening to her iPod (The #1 most played song on her iPod is Jon Bon Jovi’s Blaze of Glory—“it’s truly poetry to music”). Her favorite sound is that of her daughter extending her arms and saying “Hug!”
Pete Mellor, Operations Manager
Pete brings to Wildlife Acoustics 18 years of operations management at high growth, technology oriented start-ups. He is our all-around go to guy that keeps the machine running. Wildlife Acoustics provides him “the unique opportunity to use my techie business background to help support innovative wildlife conservation efforts”. Outside of work he enjoys cooking big meals for his family, running, and hiking (usually not in that order). His favorite sounds are those of the forest, in all kinds of weather and throughout every season.
Sherwood Snyder, Product Manager
Sherwood started out as an electrical and mechanical engineer. After some very boring engineering jobs, he found new interests at Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology Bioacoustics Research Program. At Wildlife Acoustics, he says, “having a job you love is one of the greatest and rarest of occurrences and I count myself blessed to be so privileged. I get to interact daily with my extraordinarily brilliant coworkers and an ever growing number of talented and interesting biologists. I get to be immersed in biology, while still enjoying the challenge of engineering.” After work, he enjoys playing the guitar and being outdoors absorbing nature by hiking or kayaking. While he loves a million sounds, his favorite is his daughter laughing. It takes the cake!
Our Board of Directors and Advisors
Michael Gonnerman, Board of Directors
Mike is a financial guru. He has 37 years experience as a Director, Advisor, financial consultant, CFO and auditor. Mike has helped companies with issues involving corporate oversight, financial management, financial reporting, forecasting and financing. His financial tools have been adopted by hundreds of companies, and he speaks frequently on finance and entrepreneurship.
Peter Schmidt, Board of Directors
Peter H. Schmidt is a serial entrepreneur, having co-founded more than ten companies and non-profits and is a co- inventor on five networking patents. Teradyne acquired his company Midnight Networks for cash in 1996, and since then he has been involved as an angel or Director in an additional 19 start-ups. He flies aerobatics for fun. He earned degrees in computer science and in management from MIT.
Stuart Nixdorff, Board of Directors
Stuart Nixdorff is co-founder and VP of Sales and Marketing at RedShift Systems. Stuart is a seasoned, start-up executive with over 18 years of experience launching new products, technologies and companies. Stuart has a deep background as a leading pioneer in global and imaging technologies. Stuart’s specific area of expertise is early market development and strategic customer acquisition. He has launched 15 new category products and technologies that have sold over 10M units generating revenues in excess of $100M.
Jean Hammond, Advisor
Jean Hammond is an active angel investor usually focusing on early stage high tech start-ups. Jean is a co-leader of Golden Seeds – Boston (focused on investing in women-managed businesses) and member of Launchpad and Hub Angels. Jean is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years experience in the high-tech industry. She managed JAM Technologies, was the founding CEO of Quarry Technologies and also co-founded AXON Networks.
Paul Edelman, Advisor
Paul Edelman is Managing Director of Edelman & Associates, an executive search and technical recruiting firm serving software, biotech, and other high technology companies. Previously, Paul was VP of Staff and Organization Development for MicroE Systems, a successful high technology startup. Paul currently serves on the board of the Greater Boston Chapter of the Society for Concurrent Product Development and is a member of the Hub Angels Investment group. Paul earned his SB in Physics at MIT and a Ph.D. in Psychology at Harvard.
David Sibley, Advisor
David Sibley is renowned in the birding world as the most gifted contemporary painter of birds and one of the country’s foremost authorities. David Sibley’s monumental Guide to Birds, a work 10 years in the making, secured his place in the birding world. The authoritative guidebook, published in 2000, contains 6,600 beautiful, detailed watercolor illustrations and covers 810 North American species and 310 regional populations.