Fran Toolan is the founder and “Chief Igniter” of Firebrand Technologies. When he launched Firebrand in 1987, Fran saw that the generic systems being used by publishers were inefficient and underpowered for the work they were meant to accomplish. He knew that the key to creating helpful systems is understanding the industry you are serving and the problems you are solving. That vision has served as the foundation of Firebrand for more than 30 years and is still the key to our success.

While he is very unassuming, Fran is one of the most well-known faces in the publishing industry. He has cultivated relationships with people across the breadth of the community and finds a lot of satisfaction in making connections between the right people. He serves as Treasurer on the Board of Directors of the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), and was awarded BISG's Industry Champion Award in 2015 for his efforts to advance the publishing industry.

Apart from work, Fran loves to spend time with his wife, Catherine (who runs the Eloquence services team at Firebrand), and his six kids. He enjoys sailing and playing guitar, and even served as the lead singer in a short-lived family band called “The Duellin’ Toolans.” He has a strong DIY streak, and tends to tackle house and car repairs himself whenever the opportunity arises. He is engaging multiple business-related books at the moment, but he also enjoys reading a good (or not so good) spy novel.

Fran has been described as “an unrepentant publishing optimist.” He is convinced that the world needs well-written, curated, long-form writing, and that documenting our ideas and thoughts is important. However, he also believes that publishers need to stand up for themselves, now more than ever, and not rely on retailers or other third parties to stand up for them. This requires more proficiency in consumer marketing and a more concentrated effort to find, create, and communicate with reader communities.

Shane entered the Firebrand family in 2014 as NetGalley's Director of Technology, where he built and oversaw the team that delivered the next generation mobile-first NetGalley experience that we know and love today. As NetGalley continued to expand further into the global market, Shane's role eventually grew in 2017 to include all of Firebrand.

Prior to Firebrand, Shane led technology teams in the real estate and mobile gaming industries after working his way up from his first full time web engineering job in 2006. At the time that was a big career shift, as he had previously been a full time writer and editor for a radio controlled car hobbyist magazine.

A San Diego native and University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate, Shane has never been far from books. He grew up in the waning era of the bookmobile, one of which dutifully visited the school bus stop near his childhood home twice a week. From those early days onward, Shane devoured books from just about every genre, though he has always had a soft spot for fantasy and science fiction.

Besides reading, Shane is a frequent disc golfer, follows Dodgers baseball and Arsenal soccer, and spends a great deal of time hiking through California's backcountry.