She fell into her success

Skydiving mishap set Palen's course to start software firm

Julie Palen is founder of Waltham's InterNoded Inc., a software company that manages more than 67,000 phone users. (Bobbi Bush)

Julie Palen's path to success in high tech started with a skydiving accident.

A gust of wind blew her off course as she drifted to earth above her native Kansas and she broke her leg. The injury changed the course of her life and brought her to Boston 23 years ago. There she met her mentor, a successful businesswoman, who taught her that anything is possible with hard work and focus.

Palen, a 43-year-old Weston resident, now runs InterNoded Inc., the software company she founded, which manages more than 67,000 "smartphone" users and has software that is used on about half a million phones.

"The thing that's really challenging about wireless versus a notebook or desktop computer is that there are so many moving parts," said Palen. "There can be a problem with the device itself, with the software that makes the device run, with the applications, with the e-mail or data sources that you're connecting to, or where everything is getting routed through." There can also be a problem with the carrier, like AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon, Palen said.

The InterNoded software application sits on a smartphone - a mobile device with advanced capabilities beyond a typical cellphone - and reports all of the information on the device either directly to a client, or to InterNoded's office in Waltham, where problems are often detected and repaired before a client is even aware that there was one.

Companies such as Wachovia Bank, Coca-Cola, and Raytheon only use InterNoded's software, while others, like Delta Airlines, use both the software and InterNoded's team of engineers to manage their servers and detect bugs or corruptions, Palen said.

The tech staff at InterNoded takes around 200 calls a week, and has an average resolution time of less than 15 minutes.

Palen would not provide specific revenue figures for the private company, but she said software revenue doubled in the first quarter of this year and is expected to have triple digit growth by the end of the year.

Her journey into high tech began in Scott City, Kan., where her father was a grain farmer, cattleman, and a pilot who managed and ran the local airport. She spent a lot of time at the airport watching her brother and father do aerial crop dusting.

The summer after her freshman year at Fort Hays State University, Palen landed what she said was the most lucrative job she'd ever had: loading trucks with anhydrous ammonia for Chevron. She decided to spend her money on skydiving lessons and after a one-day class took a jump.

"I was floating down thinking that this was the coolest thing ever," said Palen. "But as I got 100 feet from the target, a gust of wind picked me up and threw me to the ground."

Palen broke her leg and lost her college tennis scholarship, and her spirit.

By sophomore year Palen was miserable. An art major, she felt that she was not talented enough to make a living and feared she'd wind up a high school art teacher and tennis coach in western Kansas. Palen answered a newspaper ad in July 1985 and came to Boston to be a nanny.

"I absolutely adored the mother of the family, Joanne Moon, who was by far the most successful woman that I'd ever met," said Palen. "She was the director of manufacturing for C.R. Bard in Billerica, and took care of the children in the morning before she went to work, and as soon as she walked in the door," said Palen.

Moon said that the manufacturing management field was completely male dominated, and a pressure cooker. "I went into labor . . . on a Thursday during the night and returned to work part time on Monday," said Moon. "I think the message this sent to Julie is, 'No barriers to what you can become if you work hard and dream big.' "

On nights and weekends Palen officiated softball games in Salem. One player was the head of fiscal affairs at Salem State College and encouraged her to enroll there. She studied corporate recreation.

After graduation Palen's job hunt went into full swing. To pay the bills she worked managing a Richdale Convenience Store in Salem. A friend advised her to look into the Lotus Development Corp., as they ran corporate fitness programs. She learned that these jobs were run by the administrative assistants and landed a job at Lotus. Her first goal, she said, was to keep under wraps that she was not technologically savvy.

"Reading is not fun for me, as I am dyslexic, but I played with the technology and asked questions," Palen said. She created a niche for herself by figuring out a way to make overhead presentation sheets and became a liaison between marketing and sales, maintaining a book of all of the collateral. She began to travel around the country coordinating the installation of Lotus Notes.

A year and a half after arriving she was promoted to business systems analyst, but longed to work as a sales engineer, showing clients how to use the software.

"I began to feel that I had administrative assistant printed on my forehead," said Palen. By the middle of 1993 she decided that she needed to leave.

She was offered a job in Wakefield and persuaded the company to let her work as a contractor. She opened Palen Consulting Services.

Then one of the Lotus sales representatives asked Palen to go to St. Louis for two days to work on a project for MasterCard, showing them how to use Lotus Notes for elements beyond e-mail, like sales force automation, and contact management. At the end of two days MasterCard hired her to continue for six additional months to build the application for them. She also did work for Koch Industries in Wichita, Kan., creating a computerized repository of their locations and managers. For The New York Times, she built a digital bank where writers' stories could be submitted and archived.

In March 1995 she changed the name of her company to InterNoded, inspired by the Lotus program Internotes. She now has a staff of 30 and a sales VP in Atlanta.

Palen said that there are a number of companies providing products similar to those InterNoded offers.

But, she added: "We allow company employees to use their device of choice."

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