Feb 25 2007
Silicon Forest’s High-Tech Community
Would you like to meet the real people behind many of the EDA and semiconductor-related companies located in Oregon’s “Silicon Forest?” If so, you might want to attend the monthly meeting of the Portland High Technology Networking group.
This popular get together started sometime in 2004, according to Steve Sapiro, well known technology entrepreneur. “Ian Getreu, Dennis Brophy and I decided that, although we met often in San Jose, we never had time to meet in Portland,” recalls Steve. “Further, we knew that there was a good sized community of EDA, ASIC design, venture people and other technical folks in Portland … that might want to meet and network. So we started the group with about 15 members. I took over organizing monthly lunches while the list grew quickly to over 75 people - of which maybe 15 or so attend the regular monthly luncheons.”
The Portland meetings are pleasantly informal and always entertaining (see photo of most recent meeting). Anyone interested in attending future get togethers need only contact the current organizer; Ken Moffat at kent@kentmoffat.com. Or visit the Google Groups page, portland-high-technology-networking@googlegroups.com.
Special thanks to Steve Sapiro, David DiNucci, Robert Grossman, Daniel Payne (for the group photo) and Andrew Levy for background material on this story.
Bottom row, L to R: Rick Leatherman (FS2), Chuck McIntyre, Eric Cigan (MathStar), Alan Coppola (Optngn)
Middle row, L to R: Daniel Payne (Consultant), Abbie Kendall (Armstrong Kendall, Inc), Kent Moffat (Site9), Bob Ross (Teraspeed), Charlie Rosenthal (retired)
Top row, L to R: John Blyler (Chip Design magazine), Andrew Levy (Lynguent), Harold Cook (MathStar), Richard Yates (Gigabit Café)
There are 13 heads and 12 names. The 13th name is me (David DiNucci, Elepar) between Harold and Richard, ducking down in the back row, though it’s a little small to see faces anyway.
And although Steve Sapiro’s description is generally correct, I know that the first of these lunches I attended was on April 17, 2003, at Steve’s invitation, and Steve, Ian, Charlie, and eight others were there, too. Maybe Steve didn’t consider the group as formed yet, but it has met quite regularly since then, as verified by my email archive.
Thanks for the article!