Mr. Monte M. Toole

Founder of Novellus Surface Integrity Group (aka GaSonics International Corporation) in March 1971, he served as its Chairman until April 1998, Chief Executive Officer from March 1971 until December 31, 1994 and as its President from March 1971 to May 1993. Prior to founding GaSonics, he ran Monte Toole and Associates, a sales representative firm for semiconductor equipment. From October 1991 to June 1993, he served on the Board of Directors of Integrated Process Equipment Corporation, a semiconductor equipment company. He graduated from UCLA in 1960 as an industrial engineer with a degree in Business Administration, his main interest being electronics. He began his career as a Systems Analyst at IBM but left to work for Continental Device in Hawthorne, California, a company that made semiconductors. He worked first as a Systems Analyst and then moved to Quality Control and Reliability. After a couple of years, he joined Fairchild Semiconductor as a Manager in the diode operation. He built the device testing lab and spent time becoming involved in both the Department of Defense and NASA, providing the Fairchild diode plant with some 30 percent of its revenue and almost 70 percent of its profitability through the lab.