Lifetime Achievement Recipient
Gerry Langeler, OVP Venture Partners – www.ovp.com – Portland, OR
Managing Director
For almost 20 years, Gerry has served as a Managing Director with OVP Venture Partners, the most experienced venture capital firm in the Pacific Northwest. OVP was formed in 1983, and has raised seven venture capital funds, the most recent at $250 million. The firm has over $750 million of capital under management and focuses on early-stage companies in clean tech, digital biology, and information technology. Since its founding, OVP has backed over 125 start-ups – and seen 53 liquidity events including 23 IPOs, and 30 others being acquired by public companies.
From 1981 to 1992, Gerry was co-founder of Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) where he served as President. He helped lead Mentor to over $400 million in sales and $1 billion in market capitalization, ranking it as one of the largest and most profitable of all U.S. companies founded in the 1980s. The company remains the fastest growing public software company to $200 million (in constant dollars) in US history. Currently at about $1 billion in revenues, Mentor continues to rank as the second largest software company in the Pacific Northwest, behind only Microsoft.
He started his career in Oregon in 1977 at Tektronix, initially as part of a group called “New Ventures” – an early player in corporate venture capital, and then later he became one of the founding team members for Tek’s printer division.
His service as a board member covers the range from digital media, energy, enterprise software, network security, and wireless communications to biotechnology. He is the author of Take the Money and Run! An Insider’s Guide to Venture Capital (Smashwords.com & Lulu.com, 2011) as well as The Vision Trap (Harvard Business Review, March 1992), which continues to be widely used in business schools and corporate training sessions. He also authored a chapter in Venture Capital Best Practices, Aspatore Books, 2005 and a chapter in Great Patents, Logos Books, 2011. His next book, The Success Matrix, is under development.
He has served on the Board of Directors of companies such as Captivate Network, Collaborative Software, Carbonflow, CradlePoint, Elekom, EnerG2, Foundstone, Max-Viz, Mentor Graphics, Preview Systems, Surplus Direct, Vascular Solutions, Viral Logic Systems and Webridge.
Gerry served in the US Air Force Reserves. He also was elected to and served as School Board Chair of the Riverdale Public School District. He previously chaired the Riverdale School Foundation. He served as Chair of the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry (OMSI) Board of Trustees, and Chair of the State of Oregon Facilities Authority – a bonding agency for not-for-profits.
He holds an AB, Chemistry from Cornell University, and a MBA from Harvard.
Individual Achievement Category
Sam Blackman, Elemental Technologies – www.elementaltechnologies.com – Portland, OR Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and Co-founder
Sam brings extensive management experience and video processing expertise to the Elemental team as chief executive officer. He has grown Elemental into the leading provider of video processing solutions that enable multi-screen content delivery, building innovative products used by leading video content owners and distributors. Prior to co-founding Elemental in 2006, Sam designed integrated circuit products for Pixelworks. Prior to joining Pixelworks in 2000, Sam held engineering positions at Silicon Graphics and Intel Corporation. He is a frequent presenter and source for leading trade and news organizations given his deep industry knowledge. Sam holds an M.B.A from University of Oregon, an M.S. in electrical engineering from University of California at Berkeley and a B.S in electrical engineering from Brown University. Sam is an avid Ultimate Frisbee player and passionate about protecting Oregon’s environment. For his work on this issue he has been recognized by the Oregon League of Conservation Voters as the 2006 Volunteer of the Year, by 1000 Friends of Oregon as one of “35 Innovators Under 35″ and by Portland Business Journal as one of forty outstanding leaders under forty.
Robert Judge, Wellpartner, Inc. – www.wellpartner.com – Portland, OR
Executive Vice President and General Manager, Wellpartner Contract Pharmacy Services
Robert Judge is a co-founder of Wellpartner, Inc. He oversees the Company’s Contract Pharmacy line of business. In less than 10 years, Wellpartner has grown into a $100 million Oregon-based business with over 100 new, high paying jobs, and serves as a major teaching point for Oregon’s schools of pharmacy.
Robert’s vision for Wellpartner was to create a company that is recognized for lowering the cost of pharmacy care without sacrificing the quality of that care. Wellpartner serves the most vulnerable patients, including a number of state Medicaid plans. The State of Oregon estimated that Wellpartner saves the State’s Medicaid programan average 10% on the cost of medication for its most needy patients.
Through Wellpartner, Robert is also an active member in a number of professional and industry organizations that share his goal of providing a better patient experience and greater access to quality cared for the underserved. Affiliations include: Safety Net Hospitals for Pharcay Access (SNHPA): National Council for Prescription Drug Policies (NCPDP), Oregon State Pharmacy Association (OSPA), and Oregon Primary care Association (OPCA).
Previously, Robert served in senior positions at several high technology companies. He was Director of Product management at InFocus Systems, an Oregon-based manufacturer of digital and liquid crystal projection technology. Additionally, he spent 13 years at IBM Corporation serving in a variety of sales and product management executive positions. Robert’s last 5 years with IBM included running IBM’s product management efforts in IBM’s Commercial Desktop and Wide Area Networking Divisions.
Robert received B.A. degrees in Political Science and Economics from California State University San Bernardino.
Chris Marsh, Pulse Health LLC – www.myrevelar.com – Portland, OR
CEO and co-founder
Chris Marsh is the CEO and co-founder of Pulse Health LLC, a pioneer in delivering breath technologies that can measure several key human biomarkers that provide early detection of a variety of diseases. Pulse’s flagship product, Revelar™ is the first non-invasive device that measures aldehydes, known indicators of free radical damage.
Chris actively serves on the board of three companies where he has been involved since their early formation: Hubcast, Boston; Aisle 7, Portland; and I4CP, Seattle. He is also the cofounder and Board Chairman of Auctionpay which sold successfully two years ago. Chris also shares his time supporting entrepreneurs via Oregon Entrepreneurs Network, Oregon Bioscience Association and YPO.
Prior to Pulse Health, Chris was Chief Executive Officer at Unicru. He joined Unicru in April 2001 and under Chris’ leadership, Unicru grew from 40 to 350 employees and was recognized in three of the last four years as one of the 500 fastest growing and most successful companies in the U.S. by Inc. Magazine and Deloitte & Touche.
In July 2006, Unicru was sold to Kronos, Inc. for $170 million, a four-times revenue multiple. Thereafter, Chris was appointed President of Kronos’s Talent Management Division, where within 10 months Kronos sold to a private equity fund for $1.8 billion.
Prior to Unicru, Chris was the EVP of E*Trade, the leading online financial brokerage firm and independent provider of ATMs. Prior to E*Trade, he was a CFO and COO for Card Capture Services (CCS) where he played an instrumental role in the sale of CCS to E*Trade. Prior to CCS, he was CEO of Superior Transportation Logistics, a company with over $75M in revenues, which he sold to The Greenbrier Companies. After the acquisition, he served as the EVP and Director of Greenbrier Logistic Companies until he left to join CCS.
