Dave started his career designing and developing software applications and information systems to carry sensitive data over both wired and wireless networks for clients such as the U.S. Army, the Treasury Department, the Secret Service, and the National Guard Bureau. For his work, Dave received a civilian commendation from the U.S. Army. In 1997, Dave founded one of the first business divisions in the U.S. to develop custom applications for the Palm. His success at developing a solution for synching data between handheld devices and corporate back-end systems led to the creation of RiverBed Technologies in 1998. Riverbed's ScoutA' software was eventually licensed to nearly every major manufacturer of handheld devices in the world. In 2000, Dave was named a Mobile Innovator of the Year by Mobile Computing Magazine.