RAND MUELLER:
 
RAND MUELLER




 
 
 
 
 
Co-founder and CEO of Guidepoint Systems in Pontiac. Mueller is a pioneer in the vehicle security and convenience industry and the visionary who conceived Guidepoint. A college dropout, he quit engineering school at the University of Michigan in 1967 to start the first of several automotive electronics businesses. Three decades later, he‘s still creating black boxes that make life safe, secure, and convenient for drivers. He founded and ran Code-Alarm Inc., a public company that engineered vehicle security and convenience brands, including Code-Alarm and Chapman, and also built products for the majority of automakers. In 1988, Mueller developed Intercept, a vehicle tracking and recovery system based on cellular phones, and LORAN, a radio-navigation system that preceded the global positioning satellite (GPS) system. He stepped aside as Code-Alarm CEO in 2000 to become the company's chief entrepreneurial officer and spearhead the development of its telematics system, which is sold today as Guidepoint. Guidepoint uses a state-of-the-art computer module equipped with a GPS receiver, wireless data modem, and vehicle interface component that allows users to ‘talk and listen to the car.' Each unit's unique electronic serial number allows information to be sent back and forth between the vehicle and Guidepoint's Response Center over a nationwide wireless network.


WHERE BORN: "Toledo."

MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS: "Clearly my dad – an ‘entrepreneur's entrepreneur.' He started many businesses in many fields from commercial trading to sheet metal bending, all over the world, including agricultural business ventures in Egypt to Indonesia. I learned at the foot of the master. He taught me a bunch of valuable lessons. The most important task in business is to get the work order or sale done first and everything else will follow."

LAST BOOK READ: "Ford: The Men and the Machine by Robert Lacey. I found it very interesting."

WORDS THAT DESCRIBE ME: "Passionate, excitable, and animated."

WHERE MY FIELD/INDUSTRY IS HEADED: "Cars will be a mobile workspace and the capability of driving will be optional to the user. You'll get into your mobile workspace, tell it where you want it to go while you work – with cruise control, collision avoidance, and traffic beacons. Guidepoint will be in the mix as that develops."

FAVORITE TECHNOLOGICAL GADGET: "I just got the new iPhone. It's not the best phone, browser, or email, but it's pretty good at all three of those things. Steve Jobs is my hero – he can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

FAVORITE PLACE: "I own a condo in Naples on the Gulf. Watching the sun go down is perfect."

FAVORITE HOBBIES: "I play tennis a lot. I love it. The place in Florida has courts, and we play three or four times a week. I've been playing since I was 11."

FAVORITE FOOD: "French."

MY HIDDEN TALENT: "I'm a rock and roll guitar player and not all that bad. But not good enough to make money or a career out of it."

HOW I WANT TO BE REMEMBERED: "I had a great life, I've always done what I've enjoyed doing. I've never done something in my business or career that I didn't like. I genuinely enjoyed my life and that's what people take away from knowing me. I'm having a good time pretty much all the time."

Grant Thornton Website At the annual awards reception in April 2014, one Leader & Innovator from the previous 12 months will be selected as the Grant Thornton Leader & Innovator of the Year.