The Cobalt Group, a provider of e-business products and services to the automotive industry, has announced the expansion of its executive team to include three new vice presidents.

James Frentress has joined Cobalt as vice president and chief architect; Kevin Root has been promoted to vice president of Dealer Advisory Services; and David Cronk has been promoted to vice president of operations.

"These new members of Cobalt's executive team have both the experience and the leadership skills to help the company continue on its path to success and further cement our leading position in the automotive industry," said John Holt, president and CEO of The Cobalt Group. "James Frentress has a rich and accomplished technology background that will help drive Cobalt's technical strategy going forward. Kevin Root has done exceptional work building our Dealer Advisory Services business unit, and we look forward to its continued growth under his guidance. As vice president of operations, David Cronk will use his experience managing our sophisticated IT infrastructure to lead our order fulfillment team and improve operations throughout Cobalt."

James Frentress, vice president and chief architect

As head of Cobalt's enterprise architecture group, which includes the data architecture and systems architecture teams, James Frentress is responsible for developing and executing Cobalt's technical strategy as well as application and infrastructure architecture. Frentress reports to Rajan Krishnamurty, Cobalt's executive vice president and chief technology officer.

Frentress brings an accomplished background of more than 15 years of technology leadership to Cobalt. Prior to Cobalt, Frentress was vice president of technology and chief technical architect at Network Commerce, chief architect at nPassage.com, lead developer/architect at the Frank Russell Company, chief consultant with metrokc.gov and lead developer/architect at Microsoft.

He is an invited contributing author by Sun Microsystems to the J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) architecture and has three patents pending related to Internet and computing technologies. Frentress holds bachelor's degrees in quantitative methods/management information systems, finance, and operations management from the University of Washington in Seattle.

Kevin Root, vice president of Dealer Advisory Services

Kevin Root has been promoted to vice president of Dealer Advisory Services, Cobalt's automotive e-business training and consulting division. Since joining Cobalt in September 1999 as director of Dealer Advisory Services, Root has successfully developed this division into a thriving business, and has built a team that is recognized in the automotive industry for its best practices e-business training, thought leadership and content delivery. Root reports to Terry Smail, Cobalt's executive vice president of sales and account services.

Root has more than 12 years of experience in the automotive industry, including managing one of the nation's first dealer Internet sales departments. Root also served as product planner and product manager at Microsoft CarPoint and led the product planning efforts for Microsoft's DealerPoint inventory and prospect management tool. Root has a bachelor's degree in visual communication technology from Western Washington University.

David Cronk, vice president of operations

David Cronk has been promoted to vice president of operations. Cronk will be responsible for the company's Web production team, order management, and the management of Cobalt's digital assets.

Cronk joined Cobalt in November of 1999 as director of information technology (IT), and was instrumental in establishing and organizing a sophisticated IT infrastructure that services Cobalt's customers and employees. Cronk also made significant contributions to Cobalt's success while serving as director of the development services, project office, and quality assurance groups. Cronk reports to David Snyder, Cobalt's executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Cronk's background includes serving as engineering group manager for the iCat division of Intel, vice president of development for Intermind Corporation, and general manager and principal engineer for PRB Associates, Inc, a developer of defense-related systems and software. Cronk holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and a master's degree in systems management from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

About The Cobalt Group

The Cobalt Group(TM), headquartered in Seattle, is a provider of e-business products and services designed to help automotive dealers and manufacturers manage their businesses online.

Cobalt's suite of e-business solutions includes Web services, Web site hosting, e-commerce applications, Internet-based customer relationship management applications, data management, and best practices training and consulting.

Nearly half of the nation's auto dealers use Cobalt's technology, including 8,900 Web services clients, and approximately 8,700 PartsVoice® (www.partsvoice.com) clients. Cobalt's e-business products and services are endorsed by 14 automotive manufacturers and more than 50 of the 100 largest dealer groups in the United States. Cobalt is the only e-business provider endorsed by the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA).

Cobalt operates MotorPlace.com(TM) (www.MotorPlace.com), an online business management and industry information resource for auto dealers. At MotorPlace.com, dealers utilize Cobalt tools to manage their Web sites, buy wholesale used vehicles through MotorPlace Auto Exchange, locate and market OEM parts through PartsVoice, purchase leads through Pick-or-Pass, and access industry information, news, events, and stock quotes.

Cobalt also operates DealerNet® (www.dealernet.com), one of the most widely visited consumer automotive information portals on the Web.

IntegraLink Corporation, a Cobalt company, is the a provider of automotive data collection and reporting services.

Cobalt has offices in Seattle, Wash.; Portland, Ore.; Detroit, Mich.; Columbus, Ohio; and Austin, Texas.

For more information, visit www.cobaltgroup.com or call (800) 909-8244.