E/ME 103: Management of Technology

Guest Bios

Kent Kresa

Kent Kresa is chairman emeritus of Northrop Grumman Corporation. He was chairman of the board from September 1990 until October 2003 and served as chief executive officer from January 1990 until March 2003, and president from 1987 until September 2001.

Kresa serves on the Boards of Avery Dennison Corporation; Eclipse Aviation Corporation; Fluor Corporation; General Motors Corporation; MannKind Corporation; Trust Company of the West; and several non-profit organizations and universities. He is a senior advisor for The Carlyle Group.

Mr. Kresa’s prestigious awards for leadership include Forbes magazine’s “Company of the Year” recognition in December 2002; Aviation Week magazine’s 2002 Laurel Citation for achievements in aeronautics/propulsion; California Institute of Technology's Management Association's Excellence in Management Award for demonstrating extraordinary vision and leadership; the Ellis Island Medal of Honor for his significant contributions to our nation's heritage; the Howard Hughes Memorial Award for his contributions to the advancement of aviation and space technology; and his selection by Business Week magazine as one of the nation’s Top 25 managers for 2001.

As a graduate of M.I.T., he received a B.S. in 1959, an M.S. in 1961, and an E.A.A. in 1966, all in Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Henry Kressel

Dr. Henry Kressel is a Managing Director and partner at Warburg Pincus LLC, a global private equity firm which he joined in 1983, where he is responsible for investments in high technology companies. Over the past five years, he has been closely involved with the firm’s international investments.

He was with RCA from 1959 to 1983 where he occupied positions of increasing responsibilities at the RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey. In 1979 he became Staff Vice President responsible for solid-state research and development. He led the development of many semiconductor devices, accomplishing a succession of breakthroughs, most notably in technologies bearing on new integrated circuits, power transistors, and optoelectronics. Notable achievements include pioneering the development and commercial introduction of the first practical semiconductor lasers, which are the key elements in optical communications. He holds 31 US patents covering various aspects of electronic and optic-electronic devices. He is the co-author of a text with J. K. Butler, "Semiconductor Lasers and Heterojunction LEDs," Academic Press, 1977, editor of another book, "Semiconductor Devices for Optical Communications," Springer-Verlag, 1987, author with T.V. Lento of “Competing for the Future: How Digital Technologies are Changing the World,” Cambridge University Press, 2007, and has published over 120 technical and scientific papers.

Dr. Kressel was the founding President of the IEEE Laser and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS) and co-founded the Journal of Lightwave Technology. He served as Chairman of the IEEE New Technology Directions Committee and also chaired a National Academy of Engineering study of "Technology, Management and Capital in Smaller Companies." He was a member of the Advisory Committee for Engineering of the National Science Foundation from 1996 to 1999, and is currently a Trustee of Yeshiva University and also serves on the board of its Sy Syms School of Business.

He was the recipient of the RCA David Sarnoff Award (1976), the Bernard Revel Award from Yeshiva University (1983), the IEEE Centennial Medal (1984), the IEEE David Sarnoff Award (1985), and the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Distinguished Service Award (1992), and the IEEE Millennium Medal (1999). He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the American Physical Society, and was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering.

A graduate and honorary doctor of Yeshiva College in Physics, Dr. Kressel received an MS degree (Applied Physics) from Harvard University, an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in Material Science from the same university.

Dr. Kressel serves on the Board of Directors of Ness Technologies, Telcordia Technologies, Inc., RMI Corporation, SRI International and the Sarnoff Corporation. He formerly was on the board of directors of several public companies including: Zilog, Inc., a semiconductor company; Maxis Inc., a consumer software company (now part of Electronic Arts); TresCom International, a long distance telephone company (now part of Primus Telecommunications group); Level One Communications (now part of Intel Corporation); Covad Communication, a data communications company; Alysis Technology Corporation, a software company (now part of Pitney Bowes); Nova Corporation, a credit card services company (now part of U.S. Bancorp); and Neustar, a telecommunications services company.

David Baltimore

Caltech’s seventh president, David Baltimore is perhaps the most influential biologist of his generation. Awarded the Nobel Prize at the age of 37 for his work in virology, Baltimore has also had a profound influence on national science policy regarding such issues as recombinant DNA research and the AIDS epidemic.

After receiving his Ph.D. in 1964, Baltimore held postdoctoral positions at MIT and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, followed by a three-year appointment at the Salk Institute. He returned to MIT as an associate professor in 1968 and was named full professor in 1972. At MIT, Baltimore’s early investigations focused on questions about the relationship between DNA and RNA in a cell’s internal functions—specifically, on how cancer-causing RNA viruses manage to infect a healthy cell. One result of this research was the identification of the enzyme reverse transcriptase. Baltimore shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for this discovery, which has greatly expanded scientists’ understanding of retroviruses like HIV.

In the mid-1970s, Baltimore played an important role in creating a consensus on national science policy regarding recombinant DNA research. He served as founding director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT from 1982 until 1990. An early advocate of federal AIDS research, Baltimore was appointed in 1996 to head the National Institutes of Health AIDS Vaccine Research Committee. He was also a professor at Rockefeller University from 1990 to 1994, and Rockefeller’s president in 1990-91.

Steve O'Connor

Steve O'Connor has been involved with numerous start-up technology companies over the past 15 years. He has co-founded 7 different companies in a variety of sectors including diagnostics, pharmaceutical research, laser optics, energy conservation and education. He has played a variety of different roles with this new-co's including CEO, CSO and Board Member. Steve graduated from Caltech in 1995 with a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry. He is experienced with Venture Capital, Product Marketing, Technology Development and IP (http://www.patentgenius.com/inventor/OConnorStephenD.html).