Dr. Robert (Bob) R. Maxfield

An American engineer, he co-founded ROLM with three other Rice graduates (Gene Richeson ?62, Ken Oshman ?62, and Walter Loewenstern ?59), and served as Executive Vice-President and Director. ROLM Corporation (named after the initials of the last names of its founders), started operation on June 1, 1969 in Santa Clara, California. The company which originally made flight computers for the military and heavy commercial industries was purchased by IBM in 1984. Born about three months before Pearl Harbor in Detroit, Michigan; he grew up in Wichita Falls, Texas, the son of an orthopedic surgeon. He graduated from public high school in 1959, and then went to Rice University, undergraduate school. He received his B.A. (magna cum laude, 1963) and B.S. (1964) in Electrical Engineering from Rice University. He worked for IBM as a computer systems engineer from 1964 to 1966, after which he received his M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1966 and 1969, respectively. Through the 1980s and 1990s, he served as Director to Software Publishing Corporation (1980-1994), Saratoga National Bank (1982-1986), Vadis Corporation (1989-1991), Knowledge Revolution (1992-1998), and Fogdog Sports (1996-2000). He was also a venture partner with Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, and Byers (1989-1992). He was a consulting Professor in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University from 1988 to 2007. He served on the Board of Trustees of the Sante Fe Institute (since 1992), and as President of the Maxfield Foundation (since 1985) ? which supports scientific research. At Rice, he serves on the Computational Engineering Campaign Leadership Committee (since 1998), the Technology Transfer Committee (since 1998), and the External Board of the Rice Alliance for Technology & Entrepreneurship (since 1999), as well as on the Board of Governors for the University. He is a lifetime member ? and served as an Advisory Council Member (1990-1999) ? of the Rice Engineering Alumni Association, as well as being a member of the Rice Associates (since 1988). On April 30, 2008, he joined Echelon Corporation in the interim role of Senior Vice President, Products. In this new role, he led all of Echelon?s product management, hardware, software, and mechanical engineering teams. He also served as a member of Echelon?s Board of Directors, a position he has held since 1989. His many awards include being named Entrepreneur of the Year by Harvard Business School (1980) and Outstanding Engineering Alumnus by Rice University (1999). He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Tau, and IEEE, and has authored or co-authored numerous articles in his field. He resides in California with his wife, Kathie.