Tom Jackson

President Datacor, Inc.

Last Reviewed: September 28, 2026

Executive Summary

Tom Jackson is President of Datacor, Inc., a Florham Park, New Jersey company whose software is used by process manufacturers, chemical distributors and process engineers. He came to the business through the search-fund route, backed by Pacific Lake Partners, and Datacor dates his appointment as President to 2016. He has since grown the company largely by acquisition, adding engineering simulation, food labelling and formulation software to a product line that started with ERP for chemical companies.

Career Highlights

• Appointed President of Datacor in 2016, the third leader in the company’s history after founder Dave Rosenthal and Sean O’Donnell.
• Backed by Pacific Lake Partners as a solo search-fund entrepreneur; Pacific Lake records his search as launched in 2014.
• Oversaw Datacor’s acquisitions of Chemstations (2021), Applied Flow Technology (completed August 2023), LabelCalc (announced October 2023) and the Global Directions TriFoil System (announced June 2024).
• Built out the executive team with a Chief Technology Officer (2020), a Chief Operating Officer (2024) and Datacor’s first Chief AI Officer (May 2025).

Professional Journey

Jackson took the search-fund route to running a company: an entrepreneur raises money from investors to find and buy one established business and then runs it. Pacific Lake Partners, one of his backers, lists him as a solo searcher who launched his search in 2014, and says it chose him partly because of his background in finance.

The company he ended up running was Datacor. Programmer Dave Rosenthal founded it in 1981, writing its first software for a small New Jersey chemical company. Sean O’Donnell, the company’s first sales representative, took over in 1987. In 2016 Datacor appointed Jackson President. He has described the company’s approach this way: “Our customers know better than us how to run a process manufacturing or chemical company, but they rely on us to know how software and data can improve their operations.”

Under Jackson, Datacor grew by acquisition. It bought Chemstations, maker of the CHEMCAD process simulation software, in 2021 and added Applied Flow Technology, a pipe-flow simulation company, in a deal completed in August 2023. Jackson said AFT had been “a trailblazer and technology leader since 1993”. LabelCalc followed in October 2023, adding nutrition-labelling software for food and beverage makers, and the Global Directions TriFoil System in June 2024, adding flavour and fragrance formulation software. The company has also acquired TrackAbout, which tracks returnable containers, and Format Solutions, which makes formulation software for animal feed and pet food.

He also expanded the leadership team. Doug Salas joined as Chief Technology Officer in 2020. Barry Vandevier, who had been on Datacor’s board for seven years, became Chief Operating Officer in September 2024. In May 2025 Sundar Kuppuswamy, formerly Chief Data Scientist at Asurion, became Datacor’s first Chief AI Officer. Jackson said at the time that AI would be critical to helping customers “use software and data as a competitive advantage”.

Education

No education record was found in any source read for this profile.