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Our Principals > John R. Cracken
Mr. Cracken was raised in San Antonio, Texas, and attended the University of Texas at Austin where he obtained a BBA and JD and represented the university in national interscholastic trial and appellate advocacy competitions.
From 1987 though 1996, Mr. Cracken achieved national acclaim as a litigator in the area of complex litigation. He was featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Dallas Morning News, San Antonio Express News, Texas Lawyer, American Bar Association's Barrister magazine and other publications. Between 1987 and 1996, he recovered more than $100 million on behalf of clients.
Since 1997, Mr. Cracken has focused exclusively on private equity investing. Between 1997 and 1999, he and John Harkey led the acquisition and combination of two public (NASDAQ:ELCH and NYSE:SWH) and five private restaurant companies, presenting consolidated system-wide sales totaling more than $240 million with operations in 16 states and Canada and 6,000 full and part-time employees. Mr. Cracken is today Vice Chairman of the resulting holding company, Consolidated Restaurant Companies, Inc. (www.croinc.com).
Messrs. Cracken and Harkey co-founded RLX Technologies, Inc. (RLX - www.rlx.com) in 1999 to design, patent, manufacture, and launch the first "server blade" computing system. Mr. Cracken served as RLX's Chairman, President and CEO from RLX's inception until December 2000. As CEO, he led RLX in (1) recruiting its founding technical staff, (2) raising $60 million in private equity, (3) designing, developing, prototyping, and testing its ALPHA platform, (4) forging key strategic technology alliances with such companies as Transmeta Corporation (NASDAQ:TMTA) and IBM (NYSE:IBM), (5) forging key strategic venture alliances with such firms as Soros Private Equity Partners, ComVentures, Sternhill Partners and Authentic Ventures and (6) recruiting RLX's permanent management team led by CEO Gary Stimac (who built Compaq's Systems Division into Compaq's most profitable division, generating $4 billion in annual revenue).
Messrs. Cracken and Harkey co-founded CriticaLogix, Inc. (CLX) in 2001 to design, patent, manufacture, and launch the first server blade computing system based upon a solid-state InfiniBand backplane and optimized to serve as a Beowulf cluster. Mr. Cracken served as CLX's Chairman, President and CEO from CLX's inception until September 2001, when CLX's COO, CTO, and product vision became a permanent part of RLX. Mr. Cracken led CLX in (1) recruiting its founding technical staff, (2) raising private equity, (3) designing its proposed technology and (4) working with the venture community.