Acorn's Executive Leadership
Acorn's management team represents significant diversity and long-term experience in research, technology development, and business including general management, venture capital and finance.
Tom L. Horgan
Tom joined Acorn as CEO in September 2000. Earlier, Tom was CEO of Maxwell Technologies, a 35 year-old San Diego company listed on Nasdaq. He joined Maxwell in 1996 as Vice President for Business Development, and became a board member in 1997. As CEO he led the company to a record revenue and profit performance in fiscal 99. Barrons described Maxwell Technologies' transformation from a defense technology company into a commercial one as one of the best in America under new management for 1996. The company has businesses in computers, power and satellite components, and pulsed systems for medical and sterilization processes.
Previously, Tom was a Vice President for Conner Peripherals, a multi-billion dollar disk drive manufacturer, which was acquired by Seagate in 1996. He has held senior management positions at Quantum and Digital Equipment Corporation where he was involved in establishing the company's Information Security service and product initiative in Europe. Tom is involved in the investment community in San Diego as a member of Aztec Venture Networks, and holds several board positions with hi-tech start ups including San Diego based Land-5.
He holds an M.I.E. and B.E. from University College Dublin, Ireland.
Dr. R. Stockton Gaines
Dr. R. Stockton Gaines founded the company and is Executive Vice President, Technology. He has had a distinguished 40-year career in research, industry and investments. Until 1995, Dr. Gaines directed a research program at the Information Sciences Institute of USC, addressing issues in parallel computing system architectures, software operating systems and support. He managed the FAST Electronic Broker project, a successful demonstration of electronic commerce using a novel approach to brokered purchasing using E-Mail.
His work in industry has included consulting on general corporate issues, strategic planning, and management of specific hardware and software projects for numerous high technology companies such as IBM, EMC, Storage Technology, Silicon Graphics, Honeywell, Unisys, Olivetti, Control Data, Philips Data Systems, Northrop among many others. He has also consulted to a number of venture capital companies including Paragon Venture Partners and Brentwood Associates.
Dr. Gaines holds a B.S. in Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University.
Dr. Alvin M. Despain
Dr. Alvin M. Despain is the Chief Technology Officer of Acorn Technologies. He co-founded Acorn Technologies while on leave from the University of Southern California. At USC, he was Powell Professor of Computer Engineering. In 2001 he become Professor Emeritus at USC.
In 1996, he became a Fellow of the I.E.E.E., the major professional society in the electronics and computer field, for his work in computer architecture. He has also been a Professor at U.C. Berkeley, Stanford University, Utah State University and the University of Utah. He has founded three enterprises to develop basic university research into commercial products.
Dr. Despain has a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Utah.
Dr. Joe J. Daniele
Joe joined Acorn in June 2001 as Chief Operating Officer. An expert in Intellectual Property (IP) and technology commercialization, he has led R&D efforts and completed more than 350 IP arrangements over the years.
Previously, he served as Senior Vice President of Intellectual Property and Technology Commercialization at SAIC, a $6 billion San Diego-based Company. At SAIC, Joe was responsible for establishing the technology commercialization function and for generating significant revenue and equity through mining and commercializing the company's patent and know-how portfolio.
Before joining SAIC in 1998, Joe held senior positions at Xerox Corporation in IP commercialization as well as product development, corporate strategy and new ventures. There, he established and headed Xerox' Intellectual Capital Business Unit and Corporate Office for Management of Intellectual Property (COMIP). In all, Joe's teams were responsible for management, licensing and commercialization of Xerox' portfolio of more than 8,000 patents and associated know-how.
He holds an MBA from the University of Rochester, and a BSEE and Ph. D. in Physics of Solids from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).