PASADENA—The California Institute of Technology is pleased to announce the election of Patrick H. Nettles Jr. to its Board of Trustees.
Nettles's career spans more than 20 years in telecommunications and computer networking. For the past 12 years, he has primarily focused on smaller, venture-funded, growth-oriented enterprises. His knowledge of all aspects of high-technology start-up operations including engineering, marketing, finances, and general management has been instrumental to the success of all ventures with which he has been associated. His most recent entrepreneurial success is CIENA Corporation, a company he took public in one of the industry's most successful initial public offerings.
Nettles has served as CIENA's president and chief executive officer since April 1994. From 1992 until 1994, Nettles served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Blyth Holdings, a publicly held supplier of client/server software. From late 1990 through 1992, he was president and chief executive officer of Protocol Engines, Inc., a development-stage enterprise formed as an outgrowth of Silicon Graphics. The company targeted very large-scale integration solutions for high-performance computer networking. From 1989 to 1990, Nettles served as chief financial officer to Optilink, a venture start-up that focused on optical digital loop carrier products for the public telephone network's "last mile." Optilink was acquired by DSC Communications.
In November 1997, Nettles was named Ernst & Young's 1997 national Entrepreneur of the Year in the Emerging Entrepreneur category.
Nettles received his BS from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his PhD from Caltech. He is a member of the Georgia Institute of Technology Advisory Board. He and his wife live in Annapolis, Maryland.
Founded in 1891, Caltech has an enrollment of some 2,000 students, and a faculty of about 280 professorial faculty and 130 research faculty. The Institute has more than 19,000 alumni. Caltech employs a staff of more than 1,700 on campus and 5,300 at JPL.
Over the years, 27 Nobel Prizes and four Crafoord Prizes have been awarded to faculty members and alumni. Forty-three Caltech faculty members and alumni have received the National Medal of Science; and eight alumni (two of whom are also trustees), two additional trustees, and one faculty member have won the National Medal of Technology. Since 1958, 13 faculty members have received the annual California Scientist of the Year award. On the Caltech faculty there are 75 fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and on the faculty and Board of Trustees, 68 members of the National Academy of Sciences and 46 members of the National Academy of Engineering.
Written by Sue McHugh