CommNexus San Diego

Beth Altman
Board Advisor
Elizabeth Altman is an Audit Partner in KPMG LLP's San Diego Technology practice. Beth's experience over the past 13 years served a variety of clients in both the public and private sector. Beth does the majority of her engagement work with life science and technology-based companies, and currently serves predominately multinational public clients. Beth also has many years of engagement work experience with manufacturing, retailing, and distribution companies. Beth also has substantial experience in assisting companies in various SEC registration statements, acquisitions and mergers, debt and equity offerings, and internal control reviews. Beth is a member of the AICPA as well as being a member of the California Society of Certified Public Accountants. Beth holds a BS degree in accounting from Indiana University.

Lance Bridges
Board Advisor
Lance Bridges is VP of Corporate Development and General Counsel of Entropic Communications. Mr. Bridges has over 16 years of experience in general business and corporate law matters, with particular emphasis in mergers and acquisitions, financing transactions and working with technology companies. Prior to joining Entropic, he was a partner at Cooley Godward Kronish LLP, where he practiced law since 1991. Mr. Bridges received a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and earned an M.B.A., concentrating in finance and strategic planning, from the Walter A. Haas School of Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley. Prior to attending law school, Mr. Bridges worked for a regional investment banking firm as a financial analyst specializing in business valuations and M&A advisory services.

Lindsey Burroughs
Board Advisor
Lindsey Burroughs, Vice President/General Manager-Time Warner Telecom San Diego, is responsible for sales, support, and delivery of voice and data products and services to commercial customers in San Diego.  Lindsey has more than 24 years of experience in the telecommunications field.  Prior to joining Time Warner Telecom in August, 2006, she served as Vice President/General Manager of Cox Business Services in San Diego.  Before that, she served as President and CEO of a start-up company in the e-health space and also served in a variety of senior management roles at GTE Wireless and GTE Corporation, including assignments as President of the San Diego and Hawaii markets, Vice President of Program Management, Asst. Vice President of Marketing Communications, General Manager-Middle Tennessee Area, and Director of Regulatory & Legislative Affairs.  Before that, Burroughs worked for a local telephone company in Anchorage, Alaska and spent time as a staff member of the Washington State Public Utilities Commission. Lindsey has a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the same university. She resides in Carmel Valley with her husband, Don.

Kevin Cahill
Board Advisor
Biography coming soon.

Barry M. Clarkson
Board Advisor
Barry M. Clarkson is a partner in the Corporate Department of the firm's San Diego North County office. Mr. Clarkson is listed in the "Best Lawyers in America" in the area of corporate law. He has significant experience in transactional matters involving public and private companies, primarily in mergers and acquisitions, public and private equity and debt offerings, venture capital and general corporate matters. He serves as regular M&A and securities counsel for local public and private companies, including wireless, telecommunications and energy companies. Mr. Clarkson serves on the Board of Advisors for CommNexus (formerly the San Diego Telecom Council). Mr. Clarkson also is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Pacific South Coast Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, which serves San Diego, Orange and Imperial Counties. Mr. Clarkson is admitted to practice in California and is a member of the State of California and San Diego County Bar Associations. Prior to entering the practice of law, Mr. Clarkson was employed as a marketing representative selling voice and data networking products for a subsidiary of the IBM Corporation.

Raquel Cunningham
Board Advisor
Raquel Cunningham is a Senior Vice President with Comerica Bank’s Technology & Life Sciences Division.  Comerica Bank is one of the largest commercial banks in the country with more than $55 billion in assets.  The Technology & Life Sciences Division is a specialty lending practice focused on providing innovative financing solutions for technology and life science companies in every stage of their life cycle; from venture-backed start-ups to their large publicly traded counterparts. Raquel has over 15 years of experience working with early and later stage Technology companies and has been a part of the San Diego Technology and Venture community for more than 10 years.   Prior to joining Comerica Bank in 2005 she was Senior Vice President with Silicon Valley Bank’s San Diego office. Raquel has a B.S. in Finance, Real Estate and Law from California Polytechnic University.

Martha Dennis
Board Advisor
Dr. Martha Dennis has been a telecommunications entrepreneur, technologist, venture capitalist, and corporate director during her 35 year career.  Currently she is Principal at Gordian Knot and serves as a director on the boards of Netsapiens, Citiwink and SpaceMicro.  She also  serves on the advisory boards of several San Diego companies.  Most recently she was a Venture Partner with Windward Ventures.  She co-founded Pacific Communications Sciences, Inc. and Waveware Communications after leading software development at Linkabit Corp.  She chairs the San Diego Commission on Science and Technology and she is Past Board President of CommNexus, the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, the Bishops School, and UCSD Athena.  She currently serves on the boards of Harvey Mudd College, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, and the Triton Innovation Network as well as on the advisory boards of the UCSD Rady School of Management, the SDSU College of Engineering, and the Smith College Picker Engineering Program.  She also serves as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at CONNECT’s Springboard Program and a member of the Chairmen’s Roundtable.   Her doctorate is in Applied Mathematics (Computer Science) from Harvard University.

Steve Domenik
Board Advisor
Steve Domenik joined Sevin Rosen Funds in 1995, bringing considerable technical expertise to the firm’s semiconductor and communications ventures. He is currently focused on emerging photonics technologies and serves on the boards of OMM, Silicon Wave, LightConnect, and LightPointe. In the early 1990s, Mr. Domenik was the vice president of marketing at Cyrix Corporation, a SRF portfolio company. Before this, he was CEO at two other startups and vice president of marketing at another. Early in his career, Mr. Domenik worked at Intel in marketing and engineering positions and, finally, as a manager of Intel’s microprocessor design centers in California and Japan. Mr. Domenik holds a BA and a MSEE from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mike Krenn
Board Advisor
Mike Krenn is the Founder of the Venture Pipeline. This DLA Piper subsidiary is specifically focused on enhancing the funding prospects of early stage ventures. Led by business professionals with experience in technology, start-ups and capital markets, the Venture Pipeline actively advises on strategic business issues that are critical to funding. The group also works directly with the investment community, screening and scrubbing deal flow to match investors' specific needs with targeted companies. Krenn works directly with the Corporate Securities group to leverage the firm's experience in the emerging growth and venture capital sectors on a global level. Krenn has advised hundreds of emerging growth technology companies on various aspects of their business plans, including management and recruiting issues, market development, strategic partnerships and financing strategies. He has also helped more than 30 firms raise start-up capital. Previously, Krenn served a one-year term as Vice President of Business Development with a start-up technology company, Grip Inc., where he negotiated numerous strategic partnerships with leading industry players. Krenn was also a founding board member and executive director for the San Diego Band of Angels and the CommNexus San Diego (formerly San Diego Telecom Council).

Larry Smarr
Board Advisor
Larry Smarr is the Director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology and Harry E. Gruber professor in the Jacobs School's Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UCSD. As founding director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (1985) and the National Computational Science Alliance (1997), Smarr has driven major contributions to the development of the national information infrastructure: the Internet, the Web, the emerging Grid, collaboratories, and scientific visualization. His views have been quoted in Science, Nature, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, Fortune, and Business Week, and he gives frequent keynote addresses at professional conferences and to popular audiences. Smarr received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and conducted observational, theoretical, and computational based astrophysical sciences research for fifteen years before becoming Director of NCSA. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1990 he received the Franklin Institute's Delmer S. Fahrney Gold Medal for Leadership in Science or Technology. He was a member of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee and serves on the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health and the NASA Advisory Council. He served as chair of NASA's Earth System Science and Applications Advisory Committee and was the first chair of the newly formed NASA Science Advisory Council.

Jim Takach
Board Advisor
Jim Takach is a Director with PRTM, a global management consulting firm to the technology-driven industry. Jim's telecommunications experience includes go-to-market strategy formulation, technology strategy development, program management, standards strategy and quality assurance. Prior to joining PRTM, Jim worked in both operations and marketing for an industrial supply company.

Malcolm Wood
Board Advisor
Malcolm Wood former CEO of Littlefeet, a San Diego-based communications company; and Senior VP of Wireless Facilities, Inc. (WFI), returned to his native country England after eight years in the US.  Malcolm joined a UK venture firm Create Partners, and was subsequently appointed as CEO with one of their portfolio companies, Camrivox. This compliments his work on behalf of CommNexus to establish relationships with European communications companies. Malcolm is also on the board of Cambridge Wireless and has formed an alliance with CommNexus to promote international cooperation.

Julie Meier Wright
Board Advisor 
Julie Wright is President and Chief Executive Officer of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation. She previously served as California's first Secretary of Trade and Commerce and was a member of Governor Wilson's cabinet. Before entering public service, she spent 25 years in executive marketing and public affairs posts in the private sector, including 14 years with TRW Inc. Ms. Wright serves on the boards of California Institute for Federal Policy Research, the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau, the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, BIOCOM, the San Diego Science & Technology Council, San Diego Workforce Partnership and the San Diego Dialogue. A former chair of the California Economics Strategy Panel and the Governor's Advisory Council on Biotechnology, she earlier served on the California World Trade Commission, the advisory committee of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, and the boards of the California State University Institute, Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation and Bay Area Economic Forum.