SEA Activities: EAT

SEA Activities: Executive-at-the-Table (EAT) Series

The Executive at the Table luncheons provide a unique opportunity for a select group of SEA members to sit and have a casual lunch with an interesting and influential executive. Through the intimate setting, the excited mentors will provide useful knowledge and a positive connection for the future.

Want to sign up for an upcoming EAT?
Contact Adam Brener at abrener@umail.ucsb.edu.

Thanks to the Technology Management Program for their sponsorship of these great luncheons!

Meet the Upcoming EAT Executives

John Foster
Chairman, CEO, Innovative Micro Technology (IMT) Tuesday, October 24

Steve Golden
CTO, Co-Founder, Catalytic Solutions
Thursday, November 2

Dr. Golden is the developer of our technology and one of the founders of Catalytic Solutions. Dr. Golden provides overall leadership and specific direction for their product and process development and applications. Dr. Golden received his doctorate in Material Science at Imperial College in England and did extensive post-doctoral work at the University of California, Santa Barbara in ceramic oxide materials similar to those used by us. Dr. Golden founded CSI after several years of industry experience involving applications of these oxide materials in high-temperature superconductors and advanced batteries.

Gale Wilson-Steele
Chair & Co-Founder, MedSeek Inc.
Tuesday, November 7

Gale first entered Cyberspace when she helped establish Mortgage Online, a branch of Wilson Lewis, Inc. designed to quote interest rates and provide home loans on America Online. Prior to going online, Gale worked as a California licensed contractor managing custom residential projects in Santa Barbara. Her own "Internet career" began in early 1995 when she contracted through America Online to publish Fine Foods a la Modem, her "virtual farmer's market" of gourmet foods featuring over 30 food producers. MedSeek was built on her concept that the Internet puts computers to work doing what they do best: storing, sorting and delivering information; and can be used to answer the universal need of all people to confidently obtain competent medical care. A graduate of Stanford University, Gale holds a BS degree in Biology. She now resides in the beautiful Santa Ynez Valley with her husband and three of her five children, ages 10 to 29.

Byron Myers
Co-Founder and Product Manager
Tuesday, November 14

Fred Steck
Advisory Director of Private Wealth Management, Goldman Sachs
(Formerly Managing Director at GS)
Thursday, November 16

Fred Steck has recently returned to Santa Barbara, following a successful career in the investment banking industry. He is a third-generation Californian.
Currently, Mr. Steck is the Advisory Director of Private Wealth Management for Goldman Sachs, a leading global investment banking and securities firm. He previously held the position of Managing Director. Elected a partner of the firm in 1994, and then managing director in 1996, he served as head of the western region for the Fixed Income Division in San Francisco, and as head of sales for the US Fixed Income Division in New York.
Mr. Steck is a private investor with interests in entrepreneurship, education, and environment. He is a member of the advisory board of Endeavor, an international non-profit organization supporting entrepreneurial development in emerging markets. He serves on the National Council for the World Wildlife Fund. He is a partner in GBS Films, a company dedicated to independent films and filmmaking.
Mr. Steck owns and operates Rancho Latigo in Santa Ynez, raising and training cutting horses. He is a member of the National Cutting Horse Association. A father of five children, he is the sole donor and a trustee of the Fredric E. Steck Family Foundation in Santa Ynez, devoted primarily to education and environmental organizations.
Mr. Steck was born in Los Angeles and received a B.A. in history from UCSB. He is a member of the Chancellor’s council and has been a trustee of The UCSB Foundation since July, 2002.

Tom Hopkins
Partner, Corporate Practice Group, Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, LLP
Thursday, November 30

C. Thomas Hopkins is a partner in the Corporate Practice Group in the firm’s Santa Barbara office and is the leader of the firm's Mergers and Acquisitions Team.

Areas of Practice

Mr. Hopkins' areas of specialization include public and private securities offerings, securities, venture capital, finance, merger and acquisitions, restructuring and workouts, joint ventures, business start-ups, and representing clients with respect to general business matters. Mr. Hopkins represents clients ranging from individuals and privately held companies to large publicly-traded corporations in many diverse industries.

Professional Qualifications and Activities

Mr. Hopkins is a member of the State Bar of California (Business Section) and the Santa Barbara County Bar Association. Mr. Hopkins graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Southern California Law Center and was a member and Notes Editor of the University of Southern California Law Review. He lectures frequently to both business and professional groups as well as at the University of California, Santa Barbara on a variety of corporate and securities issues. Mr. Hopkins has recently been recognized as "Dealmaker of the Year" by the Pacific Coast Business Times.

Upcoming EAT Executives - Full Descriptions:

Fred Steck is the Former Managing Director of Private Wealth Management, Goldman Sachs. Fredric Steck has recently returned to Santa Barbara, following a successful career in the investment banking industry. He is a third-generation Californian. For the past two years, Mr. Steck has been the Managing Director of Private Wealth Management for Goldman Sachs, a leading global investment banking and securities firm. Elected a partner of the firm in 1994, and a managing director in 1996, he served as head of the western region for the Fixed Income Division in San Francisco, and as head of sales for the US Fixed Income Division in New York.

Mr. Steck is a private investor with interests in entrepreneurship, education, and environment. He is a member of the advisory board of Endeavor, an international non-profit organization supporting entrepreneurial development in emerging markets. He serves on the National Council for the World Wildlife Fund. He is a partner in GBS Films, a company dedicated to independent films and filmmaking.

Mr. Steck owns and operates Rancho Latigo in Santa Ynez, raising and training cutting horses. He is a member of the National Cutting Horse Association. A father of five children, he is the sole donor and a trustee of the Fredric E. Steck Family Foundation in Santa Ynez, devoted primarily to education and environmental organizations.

Mr. Steck was born in Los Angeles and received a B.A. in history from UCSB. He is a member of the Chancellor’s council and has been a trustee of The UCSB Foundation since July, 2002.

Past EAT Executives - Full Descriptions:

John Foster is the Chairman and CEO of Innovative Micro Technology (IMT).

Ms. Dorothy Pavloff is a Managing Director with California Technology Ventures, LLC (CTV) and brings operational experience from information technology and communications companies. She has been involved in venture capital for the last five years and has played key roles in deal sourcing, selection, and managing the fund's information technology investments.

Dorothy was previously a manager of business development at Conexant Systems Inc., a leading manufacturer of semiconductors focused on communications applications. Her responsibilities included business development and strategic planning for Conexant's largest product division. She was also part of the team that spun Conexant out from the Rockwell Corporation. Prior to Conexant, Dorothy held various positions at Hughes Electronics in it's New Ventures Organization, and at the MITRE Corporation, a research and development corporation focused on systems engineering for military applications.

Dorothy has taught venture investing to MBA candidates at USC's Marshall School of Business. She is a member of several Southern California networking groups and has appeared as a panelist at conferences focused on venture investing.

Dorothy received her Master of Business Administration from the Boston University Graduate School of Business, and an undergraduate degree in Economics from Boston College.

Alison Perry is the financial development officer on the founding team that makes up Inogen Corp. Byron Myers, Ali Perry and Brenton Taylor began their entrepreneurial careers while students at the University of California at Santa Barbara. A personal connection to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) led to a desire to improve patient's lives and the establishment of Inogen. They founded Inogen in 2001 after winning First Place honors in the Center for Entrepreneurship and Engineering Management's (now TMP) 2001 Business Plan Competition. The founders collaborated to build a solid foundation for the business, recruited an experienced management and technical team and secured seed funding.

Mr. Steck was born in Los Angeles and received a B.A. in history from UCSB. He is a member of the Chancellor’s council and has been a trustee of The UCSB Foundation since July, 2002.

Mark Turk is a Senior Vice President at Silicon Valley Bank and manages its Westlake Village regional office. Mark has 12 years of commercial banking experience in southern California and is actively involved in financing start-up and emerging growth technology and life sciences companies located in the central coast region. He has also worked with a number of middle market and Fortune 500 corporations in a wide range of industries.

Prior to joining Silicon Valley Bank, Mark was Chief Credit Officer at Pacific Century Bank, a $1.3 billion bank headquartered in Los Angeles, and has also worked at Wells Fargo Bank and Bank of America. Prior to banking, Mark was an engineer at Allied-Signal Corporation. As a result, he has a good understanding of the unique challenges that his high tech clients face in launching and growing their businesses.

Mark has an MBA from UCLA's Anderson Graduate School of Management and a BS from Purdue University. He is on the Board of the UCSB Center for Entrepreneurial and Engineering Management, the Central Coast MIT Forum, and is on the Board of Advisors of the Central Coast Venture Forum. Silicon Valley Bank is the nation's leading bank that specializes in providing a range of financial services to emerging growth technology and life sciences companies. The bank is headquartered in Silicon Valley and serves more than 9,500 clients from 26 offices across the country. SVB is widely recognized for its ability to provide innovative approaches to meet clients' financial challenges and it offers an array of products, services, experience and expertise that clients need throughout the complete entrepreneurial life cycle.

Andreas von Blottnitz assumed the role of Venture Partner for BV Capital in August of 2004. Prior to this, he was president of Citrix Online, following its acquisition of Expertcity, where he had served as the latter company's president and CEO. At Expertcity, von Blottnitz successfully grew the company from a start-up to a leader in Web-based remote access and customer support technology, with its market-leading GoToMyPC remote access, GoToAssist remote support and GoToMeeting collaboration solutions. Previously, von Blottnitz served in senior management capacities with several online media companies and launched AOL Germany in his role as its president and CEO.

David Cremin is a founder and Managing Director of DFJ Frontier, a Draper Fisher Jurvetson affiliate and venture capital fund focused on seed and early stage technology companies in California . At Frontier, he leads fund management, fundraising and portfolio management efforts. Mr. Cremin has significant entrepreneurial and venture capital experience. He was a founding partner of Zone Ventures in Los Angeles. Before Zone Ventures, he served as Founder and CEO of Vis-?-Vis Entertainment, a music publishing and digital media company. Mr. Cremin worked for a short period in strategic planning at Citicorp Credit Services. He also spent several years touring as a professional musician and recording artist for RCA Records, Atlantic Records, Elektra Records and EastWest Records. Mr. Cremin is currently a board director of OnTech, ProLacta Bioscience, Digital Campaigns, vMusicSystems and The BizWorld Foundation. He holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University.

Bob Duggan was born and raised in California. He attended UCSB with the class of 1966, majoring in economics. Subsequently, he studied business management at UCLA. Bob is the founding principal of a securities investment and venture capital firm, Robert Duggan & Associates. Three of his many successful venture capital companies have become publicly traded securities; one is listed on the NYSE and the others on NASDAQ. Three additional ventures have been sold to Fortune
500 companies.
Mr. Duggan is currently chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Computer Motion, Inc., the world's leader in medical robotic operating systems. Computer Motion was started by an engineering Ph.D. graduate of UCSB, and 80 percent of the firm's elite engineering team
have advanced degrees from UCSB. Mr. Duggan has served as a director of the Santa Barbara Symphony, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the UCSB College of Engineering Advisory Committee. He and his wife, Trish, have supported the College of Engineering and the UCSB athletics program.
The Duggans are members of the Chancellor's Council. Bob Duggan has been a trustee of The UCSB Foundation since 1989.

Henry Dubroff is editor, chairmen and founder of the Pacific Coast Business Times. He is responsible for the newspaper's weekly content, for community relations and for overall management of the company. Before moving to California in 1999, he spent 10 years at. The Denver Post as a reporter and subsequently business editor. From 1995 until 1999 he was editor of The Denver Business Journal. He is a past president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers Inc. and is actively involved with a number of community organizations including Junior Achievement, United Way and the Santa Barbara Jewish Federation.

Virgil Elings, Ph.D., is the founder of Digital Instruments (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Veeco Corporation [Nasdaq: VECO]). He served as the company's president and chairman of the board until his retirement in 1999. Digital Instruments remains the global leader in the design and manufacture of scanning probe microscopes, including scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopes. Dr. Elings is currently Chairman of the Board at NanoDevices and is actively involved in several philanthropic organizations. Dr. Elings earned his Ph.D. in Physics from MIT, was a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and holds 42 patents.

Dr. John S. Foster is the Chief Executive Officer of Innovative Micro Technology (a MEMS manufacturing partner), a developer and manufacturer of micromachines (MEMS) which serve diverse industries including Bio-medical, Inertial Navigation, OpticalTelecommunications, and Bio-metrics.
He was the COO of Applied Magnetics Corporation and Plant General Manager of Applied Magnetics Malaysia. He has also served as IBM R&D manager, IBM product manager, and on the Stanford University faculty in Applied Physics. Dr. Foster holds 13 U.S. patents, and is the co-inventor of near-contact recording for storage disk drives. He made the first real-space observation of individual molecules and the first measurement of zero-point motion amplification in superfluid helium-4.

David A. Giannini is Vice President of Engineering at CallWave. Prior to joining CallWave, Giannini spent 15 years with Digital Sound Corporation as a technical lead managing the design and development of fault tolerant voice and fax messaging services platforms that are deployed in several telco environments world-wide. Giannini has a BS and MS degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has also worked closely with the university in Internet telephony security research and as a visiting lecturer in the Computer Science department.

C. Thomas Hopkins is a partner in the Corporate Practice Group in the firm's Santa Barbara office.
Mr. Hopkins' areas of specialization include securities, venture capital, finance, merger and acquisitions, restructuring and workouts, joint ventures, business start-ups, and representing clients with respect to general business matters. Mr. Hopkins represents clients ranging from individuals and privately held companies to large publicly-traded corporations in many diverse industries.

Mr. Hopkins is a member of the State Bar of California (Business Section) and the Santa Barbara County Bar Association. Mr. Hopkins graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Southern California Law Center and was a member and Notes Editor of the University of Southern California Law Review. He lectures frequently to both business and professional groups as well as at the University of California, Santa Barbara on a variety of corporate and securities issues. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Central Coast Venture Forum and Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) and previously served on the boards of La Brea Bakery, Semana Nautica and the Santa Barbara County Legal Aid Foundation. Mr. Hopkins also serves as a member of the Business Forum Advisory Board.

Lisa Kaz is considered one of the nation's leading wealth building strategists and holds the coveted "Multi-Millionaire's Quadruple Crown" a title only given to multi-millionaires who have made over $1,000,000 in each of four areas. Lisa broke in to the "Quadruple Crown Club" as a real estate investor, a stock trader, an entrepreneur, and an infopreneur. However, the true meaning of wealth to Lisa is the freedom to spend time with her twin two year old daughters.

Lisa "Got in the game" at the age of 16 when she took her first course in real estate. After graduating from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a degree in engineering, Ms. Kaz went on to create a production company specializing in auto shows including the legendary Los Angeles Auto Show.

As the owner of the Los Angeles Auto Show, Ms. Kaz catapulted it from a small regional event into one of the largest, most prestigious auto shows in the world with over 1 million visitors annually.

Celebrating its 100th anniversary next year marks a century that the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show has been a Los Angeles icon regularly hosting media from 30 nations, including heavy coverage on CNN, ABC network news, CBS network news, NBC network news, CNBC, as well as many others.

Under Lisa's direction the L.A. Auto Show has hosted a special "Sneak Preview Night" since 1994 which has raised over $1,000,000 for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles.

James J. Knight is the Founder & Vice President-Operations Indigo Systems. James J. Knight is a cofounder of Indigo Systems Corporation and is Vice President of Enterprise Services and sits on Indigo”s Board of Directors. Mr. Knight spent 12 years with Santa Barbara Research Center (SBRC) involved with project engineering and process development and later focused mainly on the DSU15 Sidewinder Fuse Development Program. He left SBRC in 1981 and was a cofounder of Amber Engineering, Inc. with Bill Parrish. The main products were infra-red cameras and components mainly to support defense programs. Over the next eleven years Amber grew to over 150 employees and $10 million in sales before being sold to Raytheon in late 1992. Mr. Knight left Amber as Senior Vice president in June of 1994. Indigo was incorporated in March of 1996.

Mr. Knight has served as board member on the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce and is active on the current Government Relations Committee. He also serves as a board member on UCSB's Center for Entrepreneurship & Engineering Management (CEEM).

Jim Morouse is the Managing Director for The Satori Group; he is responsible for advising start-up companies and not-for-profits in brand strategy, marketing and new product development. As Vice President of Marketing for Infoseek Corporation, he was responsible for all marketing activities associated with the $40M launch of GO Network. This included... more info.inception of the product, brand name selection, advertising, public relations, promotions, and database marketing. Mr. Morouse has held executive positions with Paul Allen's Starwave Corporation in Seattle where he was responsible for brand marketing, e-commerce, public relations, customer service and online/offline advertising for ESPN.com. Before joining Starwave, Mr. Morouse was the Executive Vice President for Wolff New Media in New York, where he was involved in publishing and web development.

Dr. Ted Sargent holds the rank of Professor at the University of Toronto where he serves as Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology. He was named to the 2005 Scientific American 50 - an annual list "...recognizing outstanding leaders in science and technology from the past year" - for his contributions to flexible infrared solar cells. In 2004-5 he was Visiting Professor in Nanotechnology and Photonics at MIT. In 2003 he was named "one of the world's top young innovators" by MIT's
Technology Review. In 2002 he was honored by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research as one of Canada's top twenty researchers under age forty. He received the B.Sc.Eng. (Engineering Physics) from Queen's University in 1995 and the Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering
(Photonics) from the University of Toronto in 1998. His book "The Dance of Molecules: How Nanotechnology is Changing Our Lives" will be released in the United States in February 2006.

Dr. Geoffrey Slaff is currently Vice President, Global Process Development, at Amgen, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA., a position he has held for the last six years. Dr. Slaff was previously Amgen's Director of Capital Projects and Director of Microbial Manufacturing.

Prior to joining Amgen, Dr. Slaff was Executive R&D Director, Manufacturing Process Development, Ares Serono in Switzerland; Vice President, Manufacturing and Process Engineering of Synergen, Inc., Boulder, CO; Chemical Engineer, Center for Chemical Engineering, National Bureau of Standards, Boulder, CO; and Senior Scientist, Bioisolation Process Development Group, Schering Corp., Union, New Jersey.

Dr. Slaff holds a B.A. degree in Chemistry with a Biochemistry Concentrate from the University of Calif., San Diego; M.S.E. and a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Philip K. Smith has managed numerous strategic transactions for clients, employers or as a principal in the areas of real estate development, electric power generation, cable television and oil and gas exploration. Mr. Smith has held executive positions with American Energy, Capital Energy, Sage Capital and KN Energy. Mr. Smith sits on the boards of Lighting Technologies International, Ceyx, and Gump's, current portfolio investments of the Partnership. Mr. Smith holds a BS degree in finance from the University of Denver.

Dr. Larry Souza was previously Senior Vice President of Research at Amgen, where he led a
staff of more than 700 scientists. He built a fully integrated genomics program with a scientific staff of more than 200, leading to one of the first products of the genomics era to enter clinical testing,
osteoprotegerin. As a Director of Research at Amgen his department was responsible for the identification and characterization of Amgens first two blockbuster drugs, Epogen and Neupogen. The company was recognized for this achievement when it received the National Medal of Technology in 1994. In addition to discovering the blockbuster drug Neupogen, Larry led the development of the program through the initiation of phase III clinical testing. He also was named inventor of the year in 1992 by the IPO organization for the discovery and development of Neupogen. He has authored and co-authored more than 100 peer reviewed scientific publications and holds eight patents. Larry is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UCLA and former Chairman of Protein Pathways, a bioinformatics startup company in Los Angeles. He has an AB in microbiology from the University of California at Berkeley and a PhD in molecular biology from UCLA.

David Wong - Ph. D. EE , Chairman and CEO, Previously co-founder and CEO of Spectron Microsystems and Connected Systems, Vice President of Virata. Currently also serves on the board of Trellisware and Really Good Films. Key members of the management team of D2 have worked together and / or founded over 5 technology companies, including Digital Sound, a pioneer in Unix-based voice mail systems, Spectron Microsystems (now part of Texas Instruments), creator of the first DSP operating system, and Connected Systems, the leading manufacturer of solid state voice processing systems. Through the creation and management of a string of successful start-up's, our management team brings with it a proven management philosophy, culture, and discipline to the new D2, thus freeing the company from the demands of team and process formation, to focus on developing new products and engaging the market.