Dr. Harry Sello

An American Chemist, he was born in Russia, but his family emigrated to the U.S. when he was a year and a half old. He received his A.B. Degree in Chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1942; his M.A. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Missouri in 1944 and applied his knowledge to his Ph.D. research on the rearrangement of single molecules at the University of Missouri earning his Ph.D. in 1948. After graduation, he joined Shell Development Company in 1948 as a Research Chemist, modeling scaling-up procedures of flammable compounds. He left in 1956 when he was recruited directly by Nobel Prize winner, William Shockley (for the discovery of the junction transistor) to work for him at Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory to work on silicon. Silicon had recently been evaluated by the Bell Telephone Laboratories, where Shockley originated, as an ideal semiconductor material. In 1959 he joined his former Shockley co-workers at Fairchild Semiconductor Research and Development in Palo Alto, California as Head of the pre-production engineering section, in the Semiconductor Research Laboratory. From 1962 to 1964 he was the Operations Manager, where he concentrated on the transfer of silicon transistor technology to Societa Generale Semiconduttore in Italy, negotiating cultural and industrial boundaries. From 1966 to 1967 he was Manager of Materials and Processes Department. In 1967 he became the Technical Planning Director, and in 1968 the Technical Director of the International Marketing Division. In 1980, after Fairchild Semiconductor was sold to Schlumberger Exploration, he formed Harry Sello Associates in Menlo Park, California, a consulting business, where he serves as President. The company has bases throughout the world, organizing and investing in international business ventures in microelectronics and related fields. In 1976 and 1982 he served as Chairman of the International Committee of the American Electronics Association and in 1990 he received the Export Executive of the Year, Northern California District Office, U.S. Department of Commerce.