Wells Fargo Accelerator Award Judges
Jim Anderson- Mr. Anderson has been a venture capitalist for over two decades with association to Netflix and is founder of several companies including: Foundation Capital, Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre, and Legacy Engines, Inc. He has held positions within Hewlett Packard and Beckman Instruments. Mr. Anderson holds a MBA from Stanford University and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University. He received the Outstanding Electrical & Computer Engineer Award from Purdue in 2002.
Stefano Foresti- Mr. Foresti is a Lecturer with UC Merced’s School of Engineering in Computer Science. He is the founder of Globidea, a startup company which is based in knowledge-capture and permission systems. He is a postdoctoral fellow at IBM and former director of the University of Utah’s Center for Representation of Multi-Dimensional Information. While at University of Utah, he was on the founding team for internet companies Kataweb and Xoopit, which sold to Yahoo in 2009. Mr. Foresti received a doctorate in mathematics from Universita’ di Pavia, Italy.
Lou Friedman- Mr. Friedman is a CPA and attorney at Gianelli & Associates. His practice focuses on Estate Planning, Finance, Business Organization, Succession Planning, and Asset Protection. He served as E&J Gallo Winery’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for 25 years. Mr. Friedman is currently involved with Stanislaus-Merced Angels, an angel group with interests in early stage businesses and startups in a range of industries. He holds a B.S. from Arizona State, an LLB from Loyola University, and an LLM in Taxation from New York University.
Art Kamangar – Dr. Kamangar is a founding member of the UC Merced Foundation Board of Trustees and serves on the Board of Directors for the Merced Theatre Foundation. As a leading orthopedic surgeon, he played a key role for innovations in materials and optimal sizing of prosthetic hips which led to breakthroughs in artificial hip replacement. He is currently retired and runs Kamangar Ranches- specializing in fruit orchards. Dr. Kamangar completed his internship and residency at the University of Pittsburgh.
Gary Kremen – Mr. Kremen is a leading Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has founded multiple companies, including Match.com. Most recently, he founded Clean Power Finance, the leading software and financing platform for solar installers. He has three patents, including the invention of dynamic web pages used by virtually all web sites. He is a current member of the UC Merced Foundation Board of Trustees. Mr. Kremen earned an MBA from Stanford University.
Mike Murphy - Mr. Murphy is a Merced City Councilman and a small-business attorney with focus in real estate, bankruptcy, and civil litigation. He has extensive experience working with founders of technology companies, including those in the clean-energy sector. Mr. Murphy is Senior Fellow with American Leadership Forum- a network dedicated to building stronger community ties and promoting diversity and collaboration. He received a B.A. in International Politics from Brigham Young University and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.
Erik Rolland- Dr. Roland is Professor of Management & Engineering within the Gallo Management Program and the School of Engineering at UC Merced. His research encompasses management and engineering, electronic commerce, service science, and modeling of complex technology and management problems and his research is utilized by major organization in the US, Canada, Asia and Europe. Dr. Rolland served as Director of the University of California’s Heckmann International Center of Entrepreneurial Management and as Associate Dean in the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UC Riverside. He is the recipient of the 2009 American Institute for Certified Public Accountant’s Management Accounting Research Fellowship and the 2011 IBM Faculty Award for his work in patent value studies.
Jack Oswald- Mr. Oswald is a current member of the UC Merced Foundation Board of Trustees. He is CEO of SynGest, Inc., a San Francisco based company using biomass gasification processes to produce fertilizers and energy. Currently, SynGest has two patents pending on their technology. Mr. Oswald serves as special delegate to the U.S. –China Clean Energy Forum and is a Founding Board Member of the Clean Economy Network Foundation. He earned a B.S. in Engineering from Dartmouth and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
