Acorn's Board of Directors
Acorn's management team represents significant diversity and long-term experience in research, technology development, and business including general management, venture capital and finance.
Dennis J. Cagan
Dennis Cagan has been in the high technology industry as an active and successful entrepreneur for over 35 years, having founded a dozen different companies.
Dennis has been an investor, professional board member (over 36 boards) and consultant for over 20 years. Most recently as the founder, Chairman and CEO of the Santa Barbara Technology Group, LLC, Dennis oversees all activities including monitoring portfolio investments, consulting to early-stage technology companies, and selecting new investments.
Santa Barbara Technology Group, LLC is a private investment and consulting firm engaged primarily in working with, and investing in early-stage technology companies. The firm has become an important connection for any high-tech start-up on the California Central Coast. They provide world-class management assistance, strategic guidance, and valuable connections for entrepreneurs. They provide young companies access to financing and operational and technological infrastructure.
Dennis is a nationally recognized authority on information technology, including: Internet, software, hardware, and communications, in the disciplines of strategy, sales, marketing, services, and distribution channels. He has authored dozens of articles and has spoken widely at industry conferences and to paying corporate audiences such as Microsoft.
In 1979 Dennis was the keynote speaker at the first COMDEX Show, in Las Vegas. Between 1981 and 2000 Dennis served as an investor and management consultant. Among the companies he has been involved with have been some of Santa Barbara's best-known technology enterprises including Wavefront Technologies (then Alias/Wavefront - NASDAQ, acquired by SGI), Software.com (NASDAQ, merged with Phone.com, now OpenWave: OPWV), Somera Communications (SMRA, founding investor only), Supply Solution, Commission Junction, and Bargain Network.
Dennis was previously on the board of a number of other public technology firms including The David Jamison Carlyle Corp. (he was the founder), ISOCOR (acquired by Critical Path: CPTH), MessageMedia, Inc. (acquired by DoubleClick: DCLK, he was the interim CEO), Great Bear Technologies, StarPress and Sanctuary Woods Multimedia.
Dennis is currently on the Boards of Directors of Acorn Technologies, Inc. (co-founder and former Chairman), Bargain Network, Inc., InTouch Healthcare, Inc., InQ, Inc. (Chairman), Unified Dispatch, Inc., California Coast Venure Forum (Executive Board), and several other local non-profit organizations. He is a member of UCSB's Lancaster Society, Santa Barbara City College President's Council, Santa Barbara County's United Way CEO Club, and United Way's Alexis de Tocqueville Society (Membres de la Societe).
Dennis, 60 years old, is a native Californian, and attended the University of California at Los Angeles where he majored in economics. He has an honorable discharge from the USMC. Dennis and his wife Angelia live in downtown Santa Barbara.
Peter Norton
Retired computer software entrepreneur Peter Norton is active in civic and philanthropic affairs and is a collector of contemporary art. He serves on the boards of several scholastic and cultural institutions and currently devotes his time to philanthropy as President of the Peter Norton Family Foundation.
Raised in Seattle, Washington, Mr. Norton made his mark in the computer industry as a programmer, businessman and author. He is best known for the computer programs and books that bear his name.
Mr. Norton sold his PC-Software business to Symantec Corporation in 1990 to devote time to his family, civic affairs, philanthropy and art collecting. In 1989, he and Eileen Harris Norton established the Peter Norton Family Foundation to provide increased financial support for the arts and humanities community.
Mr. Norton serves on the board of directors of California Institute for the Arts, Reed College, Crossroads School, Signature Theatre Company, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.
Dr. Thomas E. Everhart
After serving as Caltech's president and as professor of electrical engineering and applied physics for 10 years, Everhart stepped down to pursue other interests in 1997. During his tenure, Everhart oversaw the construction of the Beckman Institute, the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the Moore Laboratory of Engineering, Avery House, and the Fairchild Library, and the successful completion of the $350 million Campaign for Caltech.
In November of 1998, Everhart was elected to the Caltech Board of Trustees.
Everhart has received numerous honors and awards and has been a member of various national and international societies. He was elected to the Council of the National Academy of Engineering in 1988, and he served as chairman of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board from 1990 to 1993. From 1990 to 1996 he served as vice chairman of the Council on Competitiveness - a private, nonprofit group of prominent leaders that addresses growth and the competitive position of U.S. corporations in global markets - and he continues to serve on its executive committee. He has also conducted continuing dialogues with federal agencies concerning their support of research and teaching on campus, and with NASA in support of JPL. In addition, he sits on the boards of several large corporations including General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, and Raytheon Company.
Everhart came to Caltech from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was chancellor and professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1984 to 1987. From 1979 to 1984 he served as dean of the College of Engineering and professor of Electrical Engineering at Cornell University. After earning his PhD in 1958, Everhart spent 20 years on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.
Professor Everhart's research has concentrated on the generation and application of very-small-diameter electron beams, first to scanning electron microscopy and later to microfabrication. Research conducted with graduate students explored the spatial extent of electron energy dissipation in matter, secondary electron emission, electron backscattering, computer-controlled scanning electron microscopy, and other topics. He is one of the pioneers in the fabrication of electronic devices using electron beam lithography. Building on his early work in the field of scanning electron microscopy, his research provided much of the basis for forming microstructures using scanning electron beams to form desired patterns on substrates. Everhart-Thornley detectors are still used in scanning electron microscopes even though the first one was used in 1956.
In 1978, Dr. Everhart was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the electron optics of the scanning electron microscope and to its uses in electronics and biology. In further recognition of his scientific work he has also been elected a member of the Böhmische Physikalische Gesellschaft. He is a Fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He received the IEEE Centennial Medal in 1984, and the ASEE Benjamin Garver Lamme Award in 1989. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1990.