Our Leadership Team

Ira was raised in Rahway, New Jersey. He went to Rutgers University and Tufts Medical School. He did his psychiatric residency at New York Medical College, Metropolitan Hospital.

Over the course of his professional career Ira did many things, including a private, psychotherapy oriented private practice which slowly segued into a psychopharmacology practice, as the medications got better. Also, he was a consultant, at various times in his career, to nursing homes, schools, prisons and other such institutions in his area.

He was, for a number of years, the Medical Director of one of New Jersey’s State Psychiatric Hospitals where geropsychiatric patients were treated. Ira was an early computer enthusiast and bought a TRS80 in 1978. He deeply regrets throwing it away some years later. On it, he taught himself Basic. He still remembers that CLS= Clear the Screen.

Around 1995 Ira decided that writing the same phrases over and over was not how he wanted to spend his professional time, and that a computer could do it. Fortuitously, the salesperson at MacMall suggested he buy and teach himself FileMaker. Ira decided that if he could just push a button that put into his note, “Patient convincingly denies suicidal ideation or intent” he would be happy. ICANotes flowed from that desire. He considers the years spent using his own program during the day and adding new features or fixing bugs in the evening the best part of his career. However, an inexpertly written program and a business are two widely different things. ICANotes was a hobby until his brother Don Morgenstern and his daughter's friend Dave Fencik responded to Ira’s pleas for help. Without Don’s business savvy and Dave’s technical savvy it would still be a hobby. Without Mark Conrad the program would still look silly and run slowly. Without Courtney the company would grind to a halt.