SumGrowth Inc.^® Background

Company Mission:
The mission of SumGrowth Inc.^®, LLC is to provide a fully automated, subscription-based, Web-delivered, investment modeling/signaling service for individuals and advisors that delivers returns substantially higher than the S&P 500 with meaningfully lower market volatility risk to enable our customers to achieve an earlier retirement and/or higher standard of retirement living without the burdensome time, discipline, and training required of market analysts and day traders.

Large corporations, hedge funds, and other professional financial managers have long held a distinct advantage over the average citizen by utilizing proprietary complex financial analysis algorithms coupled with main frame computers and streaming market data to achieve investment results far superior to the "diversify and rebalance" strategies they sell to the public. We at SumGrowth Inc. say: Its not just for the big boys anymore, our servers will do the hard work for you while you go have a life. We intend to level the playing field by making our SectorSurfer and AlphaDroid online services available to everyone without the need to interrupt their life pursuits to become an analyst, and without the need to pay an arm and a leg for the service. 

What We Do:
We provide ready-made momentum strategies and momentum modeling tools for you to configure your own models based on market momentum in both bull and bear markets. Following the close of each market day, our server performs an algorithmic analysis of every subscriber's strategies to determine if any have a new momentum leader. A trade signal is texted or emailed to subscribers with a new momentum leader in any of their strategies. SumGrowth, Inc. is not a registered investment advisor and does not provide professional financial investment advice specific to your life situation. SectorSurfer and AlphaDroid arsolelysolely algorithmic strategy analysis tools that produce trade signals according to the set of funds you provide for analysis. Strategy performance is hypothetical, based on trading at the market close of trade dates, and does not include associated trading fees or subscription fees.

Scott Juds, President and CEO
Scott has over 30 years' experience in both hands-on and executive-level positions. Scott is the Founder and President of piTech Engineering, a Seattle electronics and software engineering consulting engineering firm. He was a Founder and Vice President of Engineering for IDX Incorporated, an El Dorado, Arkansas, company which develops and markets optically encoded security tokens, coin acceptors and RFID cashless payment systems. He was a Founder and Vice President of Business Development for MobilServ Technologies Corp., a San Diego, California, company which developed wireless mobile-commerce systems. He was also formerly the Vice President of Advanced Engineering at EATON Corporation, Opcon Division, Everett, Washington, which develops advanced industrial photoelectric sensors and controls.  

Scott is the named inventor on over 40 U.S. and foreign patents and is a published author of Photoelectric Sensors and Controls: Selection & Application (Marcel Dekker, New York, 1988), and Conquering the Seven Faces of Risk (FinTech Press 2017). He holds a BSEE from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and an MSEE from Stanford University and is a Registered Professional Engineer in the state of Washington.  

Scott is an avid snow skier, water skier, and windsurfer... and as Chief SectorSurfer does "surf his sector of the lake."  He also finds great joy in baking Grandma Juds' World Famous Blackberry Crisp for his friends using the delicious blackberries picked along the shoreline of Lake Washington where he resides.

Jim Gamache, Chief Technology Officer
Jim has over 30 years' in both hands-on and executive-level positions. Jim was a Founder and Vice President of Observational Systems, formed in 1977 to develop and market portable data collection systems for researchers in the behavioural sciences. The company was later re-named GageTalker when it moved into the field of, and set new standards for how industrial statistical process control was done. The company was again later re-named as Cimworks and eventually sold in 2000 to GE Fanuc. Jim was also a Founder and CTO of Zorch Software in the field of life science project management. Jim holds a BSEE from the University of Washington.

Jim is an avid snow skier, water skier, and windsurfer. He has climbed Mt. Rainier multiple times, and has seen the curvature of the earth from atop Mt. Kilimanjaro. Jim is well calibrated in the operation of his outdoor grill, pours a mean Martini, and loves to bake in the Lake Chelan sun with his wife Laura. 

Bryan Sullivan, Founder and Strategic Business Adviser
Bryan graduated from Oregon State University in 1991 and spent 17 years working at a number of large Wall Street firms such as UBS, Merrill Lynch, and Edward Jones learning industry best practices. After the 2008 market collapse, Bryan wanted to build something different from the complexity and opacity of these traditional firms. In 2009, he founded his own RIA platform for financial advisors where Bryan now serves as the firm's Chief Executive Officer.

In 2014 Bryan partnered with Scott & Jim to build a platform for Financial Advisors to create automated quant-based portfolio construction and trade signals that would be competitive in any market environment. Bryan is the author of the book, "Protecting Your Money From Yourself: A Retiree's Guide to Insuring You Have Enough Money to Enjoy Your Retirement." He has also been featured in multiple media outlets, including USA Today, CNBC, The Boston Globe, The Miami Herald, Yahoo Finance, and The Wall Street Journal Online. Bryan is married and has four children. He is a former president of the Morro Bay Lions Club and remains active as a member. In his free time, he enjoys camping and skiing.

Stephen Gower, Senior Software and Systems Architect
Stephen has 30 years of development experience, holding project leadership and senior software design positions at numerous companies, including: Amdocs Ltd., Deere & Company, and Marsh McLennan. Stephen also formerly developed and operated an online algorithmic investment service called TrendTimer.com from about 2007 to 2015. He first joined us as a part time contractor to help us create our active JavaScript charts in 2016, and then later joined us full time in 2019.

Stephen's responsibilities include serving on the SumGrowth Index Management Committee, providing monthly Index rebalancing reports to our trading partners, websites development and maintenance, Index and indicator modelling/design, and serving on the Merlyn.AI Quant Team. Stephen holds BAs in Mathematics and Economics from St. Olaf College.

Gary Millhollen, Tech Support Ambassador to Financial Advisors
Gary has over 30 years' experience trading his own accounts in the markets; from stocks and options to futures, and commodities, and finally ETFs. He studied architecture at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo for 3 years and graduated from Sacramento State University eventually spending his adult career up and down the West Coast from Southern California to Seattle, Washington in commercial construction, including apartments, commercial buildings, school construction, and finally 10 years in his Hotel Construction and Renovation Consulting business.

His life's training and experience in the physical real-world of exact numbers and engineering was a perfect incubator for his mindset of precision and detail in the markets. His market pursuits and interests kept him in the hunt for the science of financial understanding and finally to the doorstep of AlphaDroid and the AI algorithms of Scott Juds. Gary's research into wall street and technical analysis lead to the accumulation of his financial Library dating from the late 1970s and numbers over 100. His books on fly fishing and sailing are next in quantity along with a smattering of horse husbandry, fine art, and philosophy. Gary has been married for 40 years and has 3 adult children and 4 grandchildren. He and his wife enjoy skiing, fly-fishing, horse riding together.  Gary pretends to be semi-retired.

Stewart Wilson Ph.D., AI Science Advisor
Stewart's research career commenced at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he received an S.B. degree in physics and S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering. After having completed his formal education, research work at the Polaroid Corporation (starting 1962) and the Rowland Institute for Science (starting 1983) led him to the development of practically useful, yet highly complex, biologically-inspired systems and machine learning architectures. In 1998 he founded the research and consultancy company Prediction Dynamics. Since 1999 he has been an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL. Stewart's research and numerous professional papers have focused on Artificial Intelligence, Learning Classifier Systems. In April of 2012,  Stewart discovered SectorSurfer and found a compelling new hobby. In late 2015 Stewart approached us to collaborate on an experiment to employ a genetic algorithm to select Fidelity sector funds for use in SectorSurfer Strategies. Within a year, proof of concept was established. The evolution of high-performance strategies became a reality, resulting in this posted Strategy-of-Strategies. In 2018 when the company embarked on the development of its Merlyn.AI technology employing genetic algorithms, Stewart accepted a formal position with us as our AI Science Advisor to assist with its design, test, and further improvement.

Carl Fricke, Senior Advisor
Carl has more than 30 years of success as a CxO and senior executive in finance, engineering, science and technology, corporate and business development, and strategic planning. For SumGrowth Inc. and Merlyn AI, Carl identifies and assesses new product and service opportunities, advantageous strategic partnerships, and advises on capital market conditions. He is Chairman of the Investment Committee for the Geological Society of American and the GSA Foundation, consistently performing for more than 10 years in the top half when compared to its peer group. As an LP, Carl provided multiple strategic industry relationships and market intelligence for a Silicon Valley VC firm, Acuity Ventures, focusing on commercial and industrial products using software applications. Carl co-founded and grew a two-person start-up, Levine Fricke Inc (LF), into profitable $36mm+ national environmental engineering firm with nine US offices and 250 staff, becoming one of Engineering News Record's top-rated firms. He also co-founded & lead international trade finance business, CIMA Capital, in Mexico & South America that produced > $200 million in ExIm Bank loans with < 1% default rate before it was acquired by UPS Capital. Carl earned his B.A. from Augustana College, and two M.S. degrees from the University of Wisconsin- Madison, with post-graduate business studies at the University of California at Berkeley.

Erin Condit-Juds, Marketing Communications
Erin is an award-winning author, writer, editor and journalist with more than 20 years of bilingual print and broadcast editorial, marketing and Fortune 100 executive management experience at the local, state, national and international level. A former foreign correspondent, anchor and network affiliate news director, Condit covered economics, finance and politics in Central and Eastern Europe from 1989-1996 before becoming a vice president at Merrill Lynch & Co. on Wall Street and in Tokyo, where she was part of the team that built ML Japan Securities and 33 branch offices from scratch. Condit is a winner of the prestigious John J. McCloy and Robert Bosch Foundation fellowships in journalism, the author of a biography on Haitian presidents Jean Claude and Francois Duvalier [Chelsea House, 1989], the winner of a silver medal at the 1992 New York International Film & Television Festivals for her documentary "Ireland at the Crossroads," an editor of "Born to Steal: When the Mafia Hit Wall Street" [Warner Books 2004] and other books. Erin is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Jan Hendrickson, Advisor, Member
Jan Hendrickson is the Regional Managing Director for Ascent Private Capital Management of U.S. Bank in Seattle, offering wealth management and wealth impact services to ultra high net worth families and individuals throughout the Pacific Northwest. She was named a "Woman of Influence" by the Puget Sound Business Journal. Jan was the Managing Partner and Founder at Denny Hill Capital, an early-stage high-growth venture capital firm with a consumer-focus investment approach. She drove portfolio companies' success through roles as board director, interim executive, strategist and investor. Current and prior directorships include chairman and found board member of investor of global beauty brand butter LONDON, director of the Commerce Bank of Washington, and chairman of Tully's Coffee.  

A native Seattleite, Jan holds graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Washington. Community leadership is a passion for Jan, and she is current chair of the Community Development Roundtable, and is a current board member for Forterra and the Virginia Mason Foundation. She is past chairman of the Woodland Park Zoo, current trustee and past president of the Frye Art Museum, past chairman of Wellsprings Family Services, and a graduate of Leadership Tomorrow.

Company History:
SumGrowth Inc.^®, LLC was formed in Seattle, WA on February 17, 2009 by Scott Juds, Jim Gamache, and Mimi Berger  for the purpose outlined in the Company Mission statement with the primary objective of converting the advanced momentum algorithms developed by Scott (in the form of a desktop software application, called ProfiTaker, for mutual fund investment analysis) into an online delivered service to be shared with everyone. ProfiTaker was developed in Scott's "spare time" during evenings and weekends over 15 years, and was re-named SectorSurfer for online markets. On December 7th, 2010 we formally launched SectorSurfer. The development chronology and lessons learned follow below.
 

During Scott's first eight years of investing for retirement, he invested his hard-earned IRA account money in mutual funds according to the advice of numerous subscription newsletters and financial news publications. At the eight year mark in 1991, much to his dismay, he found that he had achieved essentially flat and sub-market performance results even though it was the so-called "Go-Go 80's." How could such poor performance occur after diligently reading and following such expert advice?

To resolve this problem, Scott decided to accumulate newsletters from as many sources as possible, lay them out, and compare what each was saying about the future of the economy, oil prices, technology, healthcare, and  our financial system. Some months later when this was done, Scott found there really was very little consensus among them on any of the topics, buy yet each made a compelling argument as to why his projection was correct. Interestingly this suggested that one of the quotes on his favorite coffee cup was really true: If the nation's economists were laid end to end they would point in all directions. In fact, it turns out to be an intrinsic truth of a free market system. If there is not a balance between buyers and sellers, the price will adjust until there is a balance... and they will again point in all directions. 

Scott concluded that it would be impossible to know which of the plausible arguments being made by various newsletters, advisors, or talking heads was really the right one. As the consummate engineer he thought perhaps one could extract some clues from the market data itself to help improve one's investment decision batting average. Scott acquired access to a mutual fund database and applied the tools of his engineering specialty, digging electronic signals out of noise. With a few spreadsheet experiments Scott determined that in fact market prices are not a random walk through time and that one could indeed extract clues from past market data to improve the batting average of future investment decisions.

In 1992 Scott started writing his DOS based ProfiTaker software (remember DOS?) and put to work his mathematical and engineering skills of digging signals out of noise on the analysis of market data. After the first working graphical user interface platform became operational, numerous popular stock trading indicators were tested  --  most of which were quickly discarded as unreliable over long periods of time, and a set of proprietary indicator algorithms were selected. Interestingly the indicator algorithms selected for ProfiTaker also had roots of acceptance in the disciplines of communication receiver and seismic detector design, while the rejected indicator algorithms apparently have also been rejected by those disciplines as well.

Scott's study of market data further showed that there was a distinct difference in the character of funds that invest in companies producing tangible products for consumers as compared to funds that invest in commodities that literally blow in the wind with the weather or the hot air expelled by powerful rogue politicians. Additionally, funds that allow their character to change according to the whims of its fund manager have yet another character. Discovering the character of a fund is critical to its proper treatment by the indicator algorithm used by the strategy to direct an investment toward or away from that fund.

In the latter portion of the 00's decade Scott began directing the evolution of the software toward taking it to market, and that meant it would have to be seriously re-designed to be intelligible and useful for the average person. How information was displayed, how strategies were built, and many other things had to change. Scott knew that his own mother would never use his desktop ProfiTaker application  --  she does not want to be an analyst, complex charts make her eyes glaze over, and she already has over-filled days with things to do.

To make the transition to an online marketable product, Scott enlisted the help of two long term friends who had become SectorSurfer believers: Jim Gamache, and Mimi Berger. Jim's superb development background with databases and modern .NET enterprise level software was a perfect match for migrating the desktop application to an online server-based application. Mimi's extensive background in administrative positions and marketing organizations are the primary reason the document quality looks much better than what one would expect from a couple of tech-nerds. After formally launching our online service in late 2010, Mimi swung into action using her prior marketing experience and contact list of  external professionals to begin our promotional campaigns... there are no shortage of people that SectorSurfer could help. What SectorSurfer has become today (2010) is the result of nearly two years of dedicated work by my dear partners, advice and feedback from many friends, and of course Mom (who in fact does manage her funds with SectorSurfer). We hope you will find it as useful as she does.