Remembering Dick Couron
It with sadness that we learned this week of the unexpected passing of Richard (Dick) Couron, CEO of Trilogy Effective Solutions, this last Saturday. Dick was truly one of the pioneers of the ETRM software category and we at ComTech have known him for many, many years. Just last week, he emailed us to tell us excitedly about how well his cloud version of TIES was being taken up by customers and to arrange a briefing with us to get us up to date on his company’s recent wins and other developments.
For those that competed with Dick (as he preferred to be called) and his businesses, he was a dynamic force to be reckoned with. For those that knew him more personally, he was a decent man who took great pride in his work and his deep roots in this industry which spanned more than three decades, starting with the founding of DC Systems, one of the earliest ETRM vendors in North America, in 1988.
His biography from his company’s site covers his history in the space as follows:
Dick’s extensive Management, Consulting and Technology background spans several decades and industries, on a national and international scale. As CEO and Founder of DC Systems Dick, orchestrated the development and successful deployment of Gas*Master, an ETRM industry leading product for the Natural Gas Industry. Later, as CEO and Founder of Trinity Apex Solutions Inc., Dick developed the next generation of enterprise ETRM software to handle multiple energy commodities. This software was branded The Integrated Energy System (TIES). Dick was successful in selling the company to both Caminus, SunGard Energy, and SolArc, Inc. before buying the product back from Openlink in 2014.
More recently as CEO and Co-founder of Trilogy Effective Software,Dick is leading the effort to expand TIES beyond its current market footprint to become the “market leader” in enterprise software solutions relative to Natural Gas, Crude Oil, and NGLs, for the Energy Midstream Sector.
He holds BS degrees in Math and Physics, as well as an MS degree in Management Science/Statistics from Texas Christian University.
When Dick founded DC Systems and created the GasMaster software product, he and his company became a direct competitor with us at TransEnergy Management; and as TransEnergy was acquired by Altra, DC Systems was acquired by Caminus where Dick continued to champion his product. In 2002, Dick started Trinity Apex and created the TIES product, ultimately selling that business to SolArc…and again Dick went with his software and spent a couple of years further developing SolArc Natural Gas. In 2009, he had a third go at running his own company creating Trilogy Energy Services and in 2014 he created Trilogy Effective Solutions to develop and market software and Cloud/SaaS services to the oil & natural gas producer and midstream energy sector. At that point, Trilogy acquired the SolArc Natural Gas software and associated enterprise from OpenLink Software completing the circle.
For the last 30 years, Dick Couron has been a constant innovator and entrepreneur in the ETRM software arena helping to shape and define it in the process. He will be missed.
RIP Richard Coroun.
Keep in touch and sign up to our Newsletter