BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Bob Conn
Managing Director
Enterprise Partners Venture Capital

Robert W. Conn is a managing director at Enterprise Partners Venture Capital. At Enterprise, Bob leads investments in semiconductors, systems and computing, in technologies that enable wireless connectivity and mobility, and in specialized materials and energy solutions. Bob serves on the boards of Enterprise portfolio companies including: 3Leaf Networks, NEXX Systems, Nuelight, Pivotal Systems, Quorum Systems,  Scoperta and Tarari. In early 2006, two of Bob’s portfolio companies experienced successful exits - PathScale was acquired by Qlogic and Ascendent was bought by RIM, the maker of the Blackberry.

Prior to joining Enterprise Partners in 2002, Bob was the Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California San Diego from 1994 to 2002 where he led the Jacobs School through an unprecedented period of growth. UCSD’s Engineering School is now ranked by U.S. News and World Report among the top 10 engineering schools in the US. Bob led efforts to establish major enterprises in key technical areas, including the Center for Wireless Communications, the Whitaker Institute for Biomedical Engineering and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology. Bob worked with UCSD and the San Diego Supercomputer Center to win the highly competitive National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure and the Distributed Terascale Facility. He helped build partnerships between the university, industry, and the venture capital community by establishing the von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement.

Prior to joining UCSD, Bob served as professor of engineering and applied sciences and founding director of the Institute of Plasma and Fusion Research at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to UCLA, he served on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, where he held the Romnes Faculty Professorial Chair.

Bob co-founded Plasma & Materials Technologies, a venture backed company spun out of UCLA that had a successful IPO in 1995. He served as board chairman and chief technologist until 1994. PMT merged with Electrotech to become Trikon Technologies in 1998 and Trikon merged with Avisa Technologies (Nasdaq: AVZA) in 2005.

Bob is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, ,and over the years has received numerous awards including the E. O. Lawrence Memorial Award, presented on behalf of the President of the U.S., the Curtis W. McGraw Research Award of the American Assoc. of Engineering Education, and the Distinguished Alumni Award from the California Institute of Technology.

Bob has served on numerous advisory committees for the Federal Government, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and others, including the Energy Subcommittee of the President Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, the Department of Energy’s Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Physics Division Advisory Committee.

Bob received his B.S. in chemical engineering and physics from Pratt Institute and his M.S. and Ph.D. in engineering science and applied physics from the California Institute of Technology.