Automator and UNIX Binaries

I'm planning to use my Mac Mini media center to replace an old Ventrilo/TeamSpeak server (Winblows). Since I do not plan to have keyboard/mouse access to the Mini, I need to find an easy way to launch the TeamSpeak and Vent server binaries on boot.

Since the media center is set to auto-login and run an Automator workflow that mounts 3 AFP volumes and opens Plex, I would like to add upon my script to launch TeamSpeak and Ventrilo server. However, this becomes problematic when I add a Shell Script action. The script keeps running because it is looking for Terminal to complete its action and quit so it can move on to the next process. If I terminate the script, it kills the Ventrilo Server application.

How should I write my Automator workflow? Should I be calling an AppleScript instead? What about possibly creating two Automator Shell Script workflows and calling them both with the main Automator workflow?

To all the Automator / Shell Scripting / AppleScripting gurus out there, I sure could use (and would greatly appreciate) your help and guidance.