Mentors Program
Team Mentors Sign-up Page
| Entrepreneur Challenge participants: The importance of mentorship cannot be exaggerated! We have worked hard to reach out to many experienced CEOs and company founders in the San Diego area, and many have graciously volunteered to mentor one or more teams. Mentorship means they will be willing to meet with you a few times a quarter, review your plan, and get you on track based on the myriad tidbits of wisdom they have accumulated over their successful years. Don't underestimate the importance of this! So, please review the biographies below provided by the mentors, and click on the one(s) where you feel there is a good match. The links will auto-generate email messages to the Mentorship director and team, which you should customize (it will be apparent) and then send. We will then do the matchmaking. Pay attention to the wording of the email as it contains further guidelines. You may choose up to three potential mentors. If you choose more than one, please indicate the rank of your choices in your emails - this information will not be transmitted to the mentors themselves. Deadline: Make your selection by January 25th. On January 25th everyone who has responded thus far will be assigned, fairly. You may not get your first choice, but you will get a mentor. Those who sign up after the 25th will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis and cannot be guaranteed their top choices. |
Mentor Overview (Click to jump to detailed descriptions) | |
Mentor | Sectors of Experience/ Interest |
| life sciences, biotech | |
| healthcare, biotech, medtech | |
| biotech, medtech | |
| IT / IS, high tech | |
| healthcare, IT | |
| biotech, VC / investing | |
| high tech, IT | |
| diverse industries - C-level mngmt | |
| IT / IS, telecom, | |
| IT, software | |
| biotech, medtech | |
| high tech, IT / IS | |
| diverse industries - marketing | |
| software, IT | |
| high tech, IT | |
| IT / IS, software | |
Curt Becker | Academically a scientist, Curt Becker was in the forefront of developing the enabling tools for the biotechnology industry, most notably, DNA synthesis, DNA Sequencing, and Genetic Analysis. Mr. Becker was a founder of Applied Biosystems which commercialized these and other technologies. After introduction he spent his career learning to market, sell, manage and finally develop and execute strategy as Applied Biosystems grew to a Fortune 1,000 company.
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Mark Casner | Mark Casner:
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William Gerhart | Mr. Gerhart is an experienced Founder/CEO with 15 years experience starting and building companies based on promising technologies. He is currently the founder and CEO of Elevation Pharmaceuticals, a start-up biotechnology company focused on developing new aerosol therapies for patients with COPD. Mr. Gerhart was most recently the President and CEO of Mpex Pharmaceuticals, a company he founded that is discovering and developing new antibacterials for the treatment of serious infections. Prior to Mpex, he was the CEO of Medlyte Therapeutics (now publicly-held Lpath Therapeutics), a biotechnology company focused on the discovery of novel anti-cancer and cardiovascular drugs. Mr. Gerhart is also a co-founder of Vaxiion Therapeutics, a company focused on developing intelligent vaccines using highly antigenic bacterial minicells as vectors. Mr. Gerhart is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at CONNECT and is a Lecturer in the Bioengineering Department at UCSD. He received a B.A. in Finance from Baylor University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
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Ronald Bruce Hawkins | Ron Hawkins is currently the director of industry relations at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Ron is a technology industry veteran with over 25 years of experience in fields including consumer electronics, defense/industrial electronics, telecommunications, and IT. He has led businesses and engineering groups in companies such as SONY, SAIC, and the Titan Corporation. Some of Ron’s notable accomplishments include managing the launch of a new portable media device for SONY, deploying systems for one of the pioneering ventures in video-on-demand, and developing innovative video/imaging products based on reconfigurable logic architectures. Ron began his career in the U.S. Navy, where he was trained as a nuclear engineer and served as a submarine officer. Ron was awarded the Master of Information Systems degree from Virginia Tech and the BSEE degree from the U.S. Naval Academy.
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Stanley Kim | Stanley Kim is currently an executive and founder for several start-ups in the healthcare industry. Prior to this, he was with one of the principles at a software company sold to a Fortune 500 telecom. His background is in the legal field, particularly in the exploitation of intellectual property, and in the life sciences. He's worked for renowned entities such as The Salk Institute, UCSD, DLA Piper, Cooley Godward, SAIC and LG.
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Dr. Bob Kupor | Bob Kupor has had a career as a Wall St. biotechnology analyst, with a Ph.D. in Microbiology (Harvard) and MBA in Finance (U. Washington). After a brief academic stint at the University of Tennessee, he became a sell-side biotech stock analyst at Kidder, Peabody & Co. (NYC) and McKenzie & Ragen (Seattle). He then worked at late-stage biomedical (therapeutics/devices) venture capital firms, at Frazier & Co. (Seattle) and MDS Capital Corp (Toronto). He was also briefly in charge of business development for medical device company NeoPath Inc. (Bothell, WA.).
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Mark Lovett | Mark Lovett has spent over 25 years working within with local high technology companies, specializing in the design, manufacture and integration of advanced computer systems. These computing platforms are used in industries such as factory automation, telecommunications, transportation and a wide variety of defense and homeland security applications. Mr. Lovett's expertise covers operations management, information systems, sales & marketing, and executive management, including president & CEO.
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Mike Miller | Mike Miller has held positions as CFO, COO, and CEO of public and private companies. The range represents the opportunistic marketplace of Arizona: from a cleantech start-up to a turnaround of a public company, and in diverse industries from fresh and processed food to aerospace and automotive. Common to all of Mr. Miller’s positions was a leadership role seeking financial and operations excellence. Mr. Miller began his career with KPMG. He is a Texas CPA and former member of the New Mexico Bar. Mr. Miller and his wife, Jennifer, have recently completed a long-standing personal goal of relocating to San Diego and are excited about becoming fully entrenched San Diegans.
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Carlton O'Neal | Carlton O’Neal is Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Proximetry, Inc. and a WiMAX pioneer. Previously he was VP Marketing for Alvarion and before that VP of Marketing & Sales for Ensemble Communications, where he helped build the WiMAX market from its very beginnings going back to 1995 starting with Texas Instruments and Bosch Telecom. With over 20 years experience in telecom marketing and operations, O’Neal began his career with Southwestern Bell and Octel. O’Neal holds a JD and MBA (Summa Cum Laude) from SMU and a BSEE from Rose-Hulman IT.
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Gary Pritchett | Software Development Executive: 30+ years experience in all facets of software product development including the management of product development, quality assurance, customer support, and information technology organizations. Most recently I was Vice President of Technical Operations at St. Bernard Software, overseeing their entire technical organization. My key skills include: Strategic Planning, Product & Technology R & D, product acquisitions, and P&L Responsibility. I have a B.S. Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
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Dr. John Ransom | Dr. Ransom has worked primarily in the drug discovery industry (pharma/biotech) for over 20 years and has also been involved with research and medical device development for 10 years. For the past 15 months he has committed to a desire to remain in the biotech entrepreneurial space by serving as Founder and CSO for Advanced Molecular Design (GPCR allosteric modulator drug discovery), a consultant for early instrument and drug discovery companies and an Entrepreneur in Residence for CONNECT to enhance his business/finance skills. After receiving his Ph.D. in Physiology from UT Southwestern (Dallas, TX), he became an expert in cellular and molecular Immunology through post-doctoral work at National Jewish (Denver) and DNAX (Palo Alto). He transitioned to corporate research management at Syntex Research (Immunology/Inflammation drug discovery), Cadus Pharmaceuticals (yeast and mammalian system GPCR drug discovery), Axiom Biotechnologies (instrument development), Novasite Pharmaceuticals (VP, advanced flow cytometry for drug discovery) and Cytori Therapeutics (VP, adipose cell regenerative medicine). He looks forward to working with and helping future entrepreneurs position for success through this program.
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Clay Shinn | Clay Shinn is the VP of engineering and CTO at neubloc, where he is responsible for overseeing all the product development efforts for our clients and global technology operations. He brings 19 years of experience in designing and delivering over 200 custom engineering products and solutions for many different sized companies and industries. The products and solutions he has worked on ranged from enterprise applications; web portals; mobile & wireless products; video on demand systems; ecommerce systems; imaging systems; and embedded software products. Prior to joining Neubloc, Mr. Shinn was Sr. Vice President at CalAmp's Solution Division, running the software applications division. He holds Bachelor degrees in Mathematics/Computer Science and Economics from the University of California at San Diego.
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Michael Sick | Michael Sick is a nationally recognized, innovative management consultant specializing in strategic marketing, advertising and business development. He spent 25 years in corporate marketing and was a Marketing Vice President for Jack In The Box, Pearle Vision, Arby’s and others. Currently he serves as the part time Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for a number of clients around the US. He has provided positioning, competitive strategy, branding, product development, product management, packaging, advertising, media planning, PR, business development, channel strategy to the software, wireless, e-commerce, publishing, pet supply, restaurant, hotel, web services, defense, financial services, and customer satisfaction market segments.
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Bill Taylor | I am a Software Industry Executive with 28 years experience in companies ranging from startups to IBM. I have a very broad background including engineering (yes I'm a geek) product management, project management, marketing, sales, business development, and strategy. My real passion is strategy and marketing. I've worked in a number of industries including telecom (Mitel), software engineering tools (ObjecTime / Rational/IBM), molecular modeling and simulations software (Accelrys) and business intelligence data mining (Accelrys). On the business development side I have experience in licensing technologies from academia, as well and mergers and acquisitions, and building presentations for investors.
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Dan Trudo | Dan Trudo highlights:
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Armando Viteri | Armando Viteri has more than 25 years of executive management and expertise in the enterprise computing, software, networks and services market. Primary areas of interest are software and web companies. He has worked with and for a variety of startup companies through all phases – from startup through IPO or acquisition – and in various roles from CEO through sales and technical executive management. Mr. Viteri has been involved in a variety of public and private equity financing events which resulted in over $150m+ raised. He has served on boards for a variety of technical companies. Mr. Viteri is a graduate in Electrical Engineering from MIT.
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