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May 3, 2004, Vol.
74, No. 15S
Alum and entrepreneur Floyd Kvamme speaks at graduation This year's commencement
speaker, electrical engineering alum Floyd Kvamme (BS ’59), was
appointed by President Bush to co-chair the President's Committee of
Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) as a cap to an illustrious
career as a semiconductor magnate and successful venture capitalist.
On May 22, he will share his wisdom and vision of success to guide engineering
graduates who hope to make their own fortunes and marks on the world. A recent study
of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, conducted by the Kvamme-led PCAST,
found that 55 percent of CEOs have engineering backgrounds. “This underscores
the message that I want to impart to graduates, that engineering is
not a narrow field at all. There are many professional possibilities
that an engineering degree can lead to,” he says. The versatility
of an engineering education comes from its solid base in analytical
ability, a valuable skill that can be used to succeed in any field,
especially entrepreneurial ventures, according to Kvamme. “Things are
always changing, and you must be capable of analyzing the situation
and moving variables around to make something work. As an entrepreneur
you need to know how to analyze the market for your product,” says
Kvamme. The first person
to go to college from his Norwegian immigrant family, Kvamme wanted
to study his favorite subject, math. He chose engineering on the advice
of his high school English teacher, who said that engineering was mostly
applied mathematics. To pay his tuition,
Kvamme worked his way through college in construction jobs. Despite
his heavy school and workload, he found time for fun by playing intermural
football at Cal, a memory he will always cherish. One afternoon,
he dropped in on a graduate-level colloquium on the semiconductor field.
He understood only about 10 percent of the lecture, but it was enough
to peak his interest. That day set the course for Kvamme’s career.
After getting his master’s from Syracuse University in semiconductor-focused
EE, he worked as a product marketing manager for a semiconductor firm,
where he met a group of men who became his business partners. The team
relaunched the bankrupt firm National Semiconductor, which subsequently
became a billion dollar business. "There was
enormous promise in the semiconductor field. We knew it was an emerging
market but we didn't know that it was going to become a $200 billion
field. Our company motto was, ‘Anything using springs, levers,
stepping motors, and/or gears is performing logic, and that could be
done better with silicon’,” he says. National Semiconductor
was the first company to hold conferences to promote its products. Kvamme
traveled the world educating people about how semiconductors work and
what could be done with them. Currently Kvamme
is a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield &
Byers and an advisor to President Bush on technology issues. He describes
advising one of the most powerful men in the world as ‘sobering.’ “It’s an incredible responsibility. You don't want to be wrong,” he says. |
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