Advisory Board

     Matt Blanton
     Founder & CEO, STARTech Early Ventures

 

Matt Blanton has over 35 years of experience as a business executive in the telecommunications and computer industry. Prior to joining STARTech, Blanton was a Research and Development Lab Manager for Hewlett Packard’s High End Server Division, and prior to that, Vice President of Engineering at Convex Computer Corporation. He was President of Vadis, Inc., a venture capital based telecommunications start-up company. Prior to this, Blanton held various positions in Product Management, Marketing and Engineering at Siemens, IBM, Rolm, Data General and NASA manned Spacecraft Center at Houston. Blanton holds a Master of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University.

     Amy Brown
     Partner, Geode Partners

Amy Brown heads Geode Partners, Inc., a worldwide business consulting firm specializing in early stage technology company strategy. Amy brings to the Advisory Board 19 years of experience in management of entrepreneurial interests in both small and large corporations. Her efforts have focused on large scale divestitures, go-to-market strategy, public offerings and private capital raises, technology pricing strategy, board creation, and growth strategies for software and services companies. She has held positions from floor plan engineer, budget manager, division vice president, general counsel, CFO, COO, and general manager. In 2001, she joined Geode Partners.

Amy currently serves on the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas, is a partner in RiverRock Partners (an equity firm specializing in the acquisition and growth of technology companies), a judge and sponsor of the Texas Youth Entrepreneur Program, mentor for Menttium (the nation’s leader in workplace mentoring), a mentor for StarTech, and a Dallas Social Ventures partner. Amy received her Bachelor of Science from the Colorado Women’s College; Juris Doctorate from the University of Denver; and an Executive MBA from the University of Denver, Daniels School of Business and speaks regularly on emerging company issues.

 

David Burton
Partner, Haynes and Boone, LLP

David Burton concentrates his practice in the areas of general corporate and securities laws matters, principally for privately held, emerging technology companies.  He has a broad based corporate and securities law experience, including corporate and partnership planning, mergers and acquisitions, and public and private securities transactions. He has represented numerous emerging technology companies and investors in such companies, in seed capital and venture capital transactions, initial public offerings, preferred stock and convertible debt financings, and merger and acquisition transactions. Mr. Burton holds a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin, an MBA from Southern Methodist University, and a JD from the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, the Dallas Bar Association, the American Bar Association and the Computer Law Association. 

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     Charles W. (Chuck) Eisemann
     Director, Bank of Texas

 

Chuck Eisemann is a member of the Board of Directors of Bank of Texas, He also serves on the Richardson Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, the UTD President’s Development Advisory Board, the UTD Executive Education Advisory Council, the Stakeholder Advisory Board of STARTech, the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Advisory Board, and Chairman of the Major Gifts Committee for the Eiseman Center for Performing Arts. He is a long time supporter of the arts in North Texas ans serves as a Principal Director on the Board of the Richardson Symphony and has organized, produced and directed the first three “Sounds of Freedom” patriotic Flag Day concerts in Richardson. Mr Eisemann was employed by Texas Instruments from 1966 to 1974. He founded Industrial Relations International, Inc., a management consulting firm and served as its Chairman and President from 1974-2000. He served on the Board of Canyon Creek National Bank from 1977-1999, and served as Chairman of the Board from 1986-1999, when the bank was acquired by the Bank of Texas.

 

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     Stephen L. Fluckiger
      Partner, Jones Day

Steve Fluckiger practices in the areas of Private Equity, Mergers and Acquisitions and Life Sciences and the Biotech Practices. During his 25-year career with Jones Day, Steve has assisted in numerous domestic and international mergers, acquisitions, and dispositions, as well as Special Board Committee representations, for clients in the technology, financial services, manufacturing, retail, and oil and gas industries. He has represented issuers and institutional and venture capital investors in over $1.3 billion of private and public equity and debt securities transactions and advised issuers, investors, and investment advisors on a wide variety of securities compliance matters. Steve also has substantial experience in representing emerging growth and middle market companies in the life sciences, information technology, outsourcing, software, and manufacturing industries in their day-to-day general corporate matters. Mr. Fluckiger is a graduate of Princeton University (Phi Beta Kappa: A.B. with highest honors, 1977) and received his law degree from Brigham Young University (Law Review; J.D. cum laude, 1980).

 

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     Sydney Smith Hicks

     Consultant and Professional Director

Sydney Smith Hicks is a consultant and professional director. She is Chairman of the Board of DeviceFidelity, a payment software and services company, and serves on the board of Smart Start, Inc, an ignition interlock company.  Prior to her current focus, she was CEO of VECTORsgi, Inc. and Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy, for Metavante Corporation.   VECTORsgi is a financial technology software and services company which Hicks sold to Metavante in November 2004.  Its products and services are sold primarily to the top 125 banks in the U.S.  Metavante is a $1.6B company delivering banking and payments technologies to financial services firms and businesses worldwide. 

 

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     Kingdon R. Hughes

     President and CEO, Hughes Ventures

Hughes Ventures is an early stage investment firm with diverse investments

in oil and gas and technology-based ventures.  Mr. Hughes started out in the

oil and gas business in the 1950s as a trainee in the department of the Stanolind Oil & Gas Company (now BP Amoco) in Fort Worth.  In 1960, he became an independent oil and gas land man and broker, putting oil and gas drilling deals together to sell to investors.  In 1962, he cofounded The Subsurface Library which he now owns entirely. The library is a geological data center that collects the key subsurface data that geologists, petroleum engineers and land men use to find oil and gas.  It is the largest library of its kind in the country.

In 1988, Mr. Hughes acquired a cellular telephone license located on the New Jersey shore through an FCC lottery.  He subsequently moved to Toms River, NJ to build and operate the system and eventually sold it to Comcast/AT&T.  Shortly thereafter, he moved to Richardson, Texas so he and his son Brad could better manage their other various wireless licenses.  One of those was a nationwide 220 MHz license which he ultimately sold to the railroad industry which is now deployed all across the country.

 

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Jackie Kimzey

Partner, Sevin Rosen Funds

Jackie Kimzey joined Sevin Rosen Funds in 1999 after nearly 20 years as an executive at wireless carrier and service provider companies.  He brings a keen understanding of what it takes for a promising venture to evolve into a successful business and company.  He has held management positions at the semiconductor manufacturer Mostek and was also co-founder and CEO of wireless provider ProNet.  He helped develop proprietary products, generated "turn-around" strategies, recruited top executives, and played both key roles in mergers and acquisitions. At SRF, Jackie applies his experience and entrepreneurial perspective to young companies in the wireless and software arena, including airBand, GlobeRanger, Inner Wireless, Itzbig, MetroFi, Verified Person and Wayport.

 

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      Jim Lafferty
      President, Genesis Biosystems

 

Jim Lafferty is Chairman, CEO and co-founder of Genesis Biosystems, a medical device manufacturing and distribution company serving the plastic surgery, dermatology and aesthetic medicine markets, and is a Director of LingualCare, a specialty orthodontic manufacturing and distribution company. Mr. Lafferty co-founded Osteomed Corporation in 1989. Osteomed, which manufactures and distributes small bone reconstruction implants and electro-mechanical instrumentation used in the operating room was sold to The Marmon Group in 1999. Mr. Lafferty is an active investor and a member of the Eyes of Texas Partners, a group of 14 private investors from Dallas, Houston and Austin. The EOTP invests in a broad range of companies, including companies in the medical technology sector. Mr. Lafferty is a graduate of Gannon University, where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1982. He holds four U.S. patents.

 

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     George Michael

     Consultant, Michael Partners

George Michael is an independent consultant, assisting companies in corporate strategy and business development. Previously, George worked on the agency side of the advertising and public relations business. George founded Michael & Partners, a public relations agency, in 1998. The agency grew to be among the top ten in D/FW before he sold it to the employees in 2004; it now operates under the name HCK2. Before that, George started MBRK, growing that agency to be among the top ten in D/FW advertising with more than 50 people, and selling the company in 1997. MBRK is now part of Publicis, the third largest agency in the world. Prior to MBRK, he held the position of General Manager at Temerlin-McClain (then Bozell & Jacobs).

George has experience working with leading companies spanning numerous industries, including Advanced Neuromodulation Systems, American Airlines, Dr Pepper, EDS, Ernst & Young, Frito-Lay, Johnson & Johnson, Nationwide Insurance, NEC, Neiman Marcus, Strasburger & Price and Zale Corporation.

George has served as adjunct professor at Loyola and Southern Methodist Universities, and review editor of the Journal of Marketing Research. He has been a contributor to the Handbook of Modern Marketing and published a number of articles in management and marketing journals. George holds a doctorate and a master's degree in marketing and a bachelor's degree in engineering, all from Northwestern University.

 

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     Ron Nash
     Partner, InterWest Partners

Ron Nash focuses on venture capital investments in the software and services sector. He brings 25 years of experience as a business executive in the technology industry, and has worked with both large multinational corporations and entrepreneurial startup firms.

Nash's international experience includes overseas assignments and business operations management in Europe and Asia. Corporate executive positions include vice president of Perot Systems, president of Advanced Telemarketing (Aegis Communications), president of Rubicon Corp. (Cerner Corp.), and business manager for EDS. Mr. Nash holds a master's degree in management from the University of Texas at Dallas and a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

 

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     Paul Pandian

     President, Tech Mahindra (R&D Services), Inc.

Paul Pandian holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Annamalai University, a Master of Engineering degree from Syracuse University and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was employed by Rockwell International for 12 years, most recently as Director of Strategic Planning for Electronics Operations at Dallas, Texas.

In 1990, he founded Axes Technologies, a provider of telecommunications products and services for multinational companies and telecom service providers. In 2005, he merged Axes with Tech Mahindra, an Indian joint venture between Tech Mahindra and British Telecom. He also founded Transglobal Technologies, a holding company with investments in telecom, media and international trading activities and has established a joint venture with Government of Tamilnadu and Venture Lighting in Cleveland to manufacture Metal Halide Lamps in Chennai. Paul Pandian is very active in national and local community organizations. He serves on the Advisory Board of the University of Texas at Dallas School of Management. He is currently the President of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneur), an organization founded in 1999 for promoting entrepreneurship. He also serves on the Board of Greater Dallas Indo-American Chamber of Commerce.

 

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     Madison F. Pedigo
     Manager, TI Venture Capital Program
     Texas Instruments, Incorporated

Madison Pedigo is the Manager of TI’s Venture Capital Program. He was instrumental in establishing TI’s Venture Capital Program in 1996, and has been active with the fund since inception. His responsibilities include managing investments in early stage companies of strategic interest to TI, investments in external venture capital funds, and coordination of the TI Ventures Partnership with Granite Ventures in San Francisco. He has also made significant contributions to several TI strategic analyses. In addition to his current responsibilities, Madison has played a key role in several TI acquisitions, divestitures, and business unit investments. Prior to joining the M&A team in 1994, Madison held a variety of positions in TI’s business units and corporate staff. He has a total of 26 years of experience with TI, and he has a degree in Biochemistry and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

 

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     Scott Ticer

     Lone Star Angels

Scott Ticer is a seasoned communications and digital media executive with extensive new business creation, development and operations expertise. He has served in key roles at Dow Jones, Computer Sciences, BellSouth, McGraw Hill, and as an entrepreneur at successful startups VentureWire and Covad, and airBand Communications, where he was a co-founder. He also co-founded and operates a small wireless ISP in Dallas called Tieless Communications. Ticer advises startups and provides management consulting services out of Dallas, Texas. He co-founded a non-profit angel capital association called Lone Star Angels to connect investors with startup opportunities in north Texas. Ticer began his career as a reporter and editor after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin’s Plan II honors program, working for Times Mirror, Tribune Co. and McGraw Hill’s Business Week magazine.

 

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      James F. (Jim) Young
      Chairman, Teleportec

 

Jim Young is a consultant and speaker, and serves as Chairman of Teleportec, the world's leader in human-centered distance communication. His focus is on business effectiveness and improvement and his areas of expertise include change, creativity, technology and leadership. He is Chairman of The Margate Group and a past member of the National Speakers Association.

After five years with IBM, Mr. Young joined EDS in 1965 as the company’s 40th employee. During his tenure, he worked in sales and marketing, managed corporate communications, managed strategic planning, and led numerous special projects for the corporation. He spent more than twelve years as Executive Assistant to the Chairman of EDS, and retired in 1999 after a thirty-four year career at the company. Mr.Young holds a BS in mathematics from Mississippi State University was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Public Service from Central Michigan University in 1998. He serves on the boards, advisory councils and/or executive councils of multiple organizations.

Jim Young serves or has served on the boards, advisory councils, and/or executive committees of nearly twenty organizations including the UT Southwestern Medical Center President’s Research Council, the Garvin School of International Management at Thunderbird, the Edwin L. Cox School of Business at SMU, the School of Management at the University of Texas at Dallas, and the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth.

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