Russ Garcia
CEO

Experience:
EVP Microsemi, CEO WiSpry, CEO uNav, TI, Silicon Systems, Hughes

BIO:
Russ has more than 30 years of experience in the electronic systems and semiconductor industries with a proven track record in executive leadership positions in both public and private companies.

As CEO of Menlo Micro, Russ oversees the corporate direction and strategy of the company, focusing on leadership, technology innovation and customers. Prior to Menlo Micro, Russ founded nGeniSys, an investment and consulting firm focused on the electronics, semiconductor and telecommunications industries.

He is also an Executive in Residence for GE Ventures and holds advisory and board of director positions at several venture-backed companies. Prior to Menlo and nGeniSys, he held the position of EVP of Marketing for Microsemi, where he led the integration of Actel, Zarlink and Symmetricom, representing over $700M USD of M&A over a 4-year period. His leadership of those acquisitions led to operating income improvements in each case from low single digits to all greater than 25% operating profit. One of those integrations resulted in greater 40% operating margin. Prior to Microsemi, he was the CEO of two start-ups, WiSpry, a RF MEMS company and uNav Microelectronics, a fabless semiconductor company, where under his leadership, u-Nav developed and introduced the first “single-chip” GPS semiconductor device. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Marketing for Silicon Systems and Texas Instruments Storage Product Division.

Chris Keimel​
Co-Founder, CTO

Experience:
Former Senior Research Scientist at GE Global Research Center

BIO:
Chris is a Co-Founder of Menlo Micro and has been at the heart of developing Menlo’s MEMS switch technology since its conception at GE Global Research.

He is responsible for Menlo’s technical strategy and leading its R&D activities. Prior to joining Menlo, Chris was a Senior Engineer at GE Global Research where he led its Metal MEMS Technology development for more than 12 years. ​He also has published more than 15 journal articles (Nature, APL, etc.), been granted more than 25 patents, organized symposiums on MEMS as part of the Materials Research Society conferences, given numerous invited talks on MEMS technologies and is a reviewer for technical journals. Chris holds a BS in Material Science from Cornell and a MSEE from Princeton.

Yalcin Bulut
COO

Experience:
Former Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at United Silicon Carbide (UnitedSiC, now Qorvo), Vice President of Power Product Lines at Vishay, Inc

BIO: 
Yalcin has over twenty-five years of semiconductor experience, as the Chief Operating Officer, he manages sales, marketing, quality assurance and product areas at Menlo Microsystems.

Yalcin joins Menlo Micro after serving the role of Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at United Silicon Carbide (UnitedSiC, now Qorvo). Prior to that his leadership experience included Vishay, Inc. where he was the Vice President of Power Product Lines, along with Alpha and Omega Semiconductor where he guided the company’s strategic direction as Vice President of Discrete Product Lines.

Yalcin holds a Bachelor of Material Science Engineering from Middle East Technical University, and subsequently earned his Master of Business at Iowa State University.

Mark Czepiel
CFO

Experience:
Former CFO at Wispry Inc

BIO:
As Menlo Micro’s first CFO, Mark is responsible for building-out and managing Menlo Micro’s corporate infrastructure consisting of its finance, accounting, legal, and IT functions.

Mark has over 20 years of experience managing, advising and investing in public and venture-backed technology companies across the hardware and enterprise software segments including RF MEMS (WiSpry) and next-generation semiconductor packaging (INCEP). In addition to his operational experience, Mark has experience in the private equity and investment banking industries. Mark earned his MBA in finance from USC’s Marshall School of Business and holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Loyola University of Chicago.

Chris Giovanniello
Co-Founder, SVP of RF Business Unit

Experience:
Former Vice President, Business Development for GE Ventures

BIO:
Chris has more than 20 years of experience in electronic systems and semiconductor industries.

As SVP of the RF Business Unit, Chris oversees all aspects of technology innovation and leads product development efforts. Prior to Menlo Micro, Chris was Vice President, Business Development for GE Ventures. At GE Ventures, Chris was responsible for developing new programs and monetization strategies for key technologies developed at General Electric’s R&D center in Schenectady, NY. He employed strategies such as licensing, joint ventures, acquisitions and spinouts for programs covering wireless, semiconductor, MEMS, and thermal management technology segments.

Prior to GE, Chris served in a variety of management and leadership positions over an 18-year career at Teradyne, world leader in semiconductor test equipment. In his most recent role at Teradyne, he was responsible for building a new Services Solutions Business for Teradyne’s Global Service Organization, a full-vertical supply-chain offering targeting emerging fabless semiconductor companies. Prior to that, Chris alternated between multiple assignments in Europe, where he managed large teams of field application engineers, and management positions within Teradyne’s product development organizations, defining and developing new product roadmaps. Chris holds a BSEE from Tufts University and an Executive MBA Certificate through Teradyne's Executive Leadership Program.

Rose Aebig
VP of Global Human Resources

Experience: Head of People Development (Americas) for Infineon Technologies, Director of Human Resources for International Rectifier

BIO:
Rose has more than 25 years of experience in the technology field.  As the Vice President of Global Human Resources, Rose oversees the strategy and implementation of programs and operations for Menlo Micro’s human resources department. While at Menlo Micro, Rose has led strategic and recruiting initiatives resulting in the company’s overall growth.

Prior to joining Menlo Micro, Rose was the Head of People Development (Americas) for Infineon Technologies, Director of Human Resources for International Rectifier, and held various Sr. Management and Sr. Business Partner roles at companies such as Trend Micro and Pioneer Electronics. Rose also consulted for companies in the technology field.

Rose holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Human Resources from the California State University, Fullerton and a Master’s degree from Claremont Graduate University in Human Resources Development, and has a Master’s degree from Fielding Graduate University in Organizational Development and Leadership. She also holds several certifications in her field including: GPHR, SPHR, CCP, and an Employment Law Certification. Rose believes in helping the community and has served as a Board Member for two non-profit organizations.

Lew Boore
SVP of Government Relations & Market Development

Experience:
Vice President of Sales for Silanna Semiconductor, Vice President of Sales at Cavendish Kinetics

BIO:
Lew brings more than thirty years of sales and business development experience in the semiconductor industry, with a strong focus on mobile communications and power.

Prior to Menlo Micro, Boore served as Vice President of Sales for Silanna Semiconductor, selling the company’s specialty RF switches for the telecom sector, resulting in a rapid and successful trade sale to Qualcomm. Boore also served as Vice President of Sales at Cavendish Kinetics where he helped pioneer the use of tunable capacitors as broadband antenna tuners in mobile phones. In addition, Boore also led the WiSpry sales team where he received the world’s first commercial orders for MEMS-based tuners.

Ajit Utagikar
SVP of Quality

Experience:
Former Global Quality for Zebra Technologies, Division Quality Manager at Samtec

BIO:
Ajit joined Menlo Micro team in May 2020. He brings over 30 years of hi-tech manufacturing industry experience and has held senior positions in quality, engineering and technology development.

Prior to Menlo Micro, Ajit led global quality for Zebra Technologies. Prior to that, his roles included Division Quality Manager at Samtec and Director of Engineering at Anaren. He has spoken at leading conferences on Quality and Customer Experience. He has published papers in technical journals and was awarded a patent relating to Flip Chip design. He is the author of a book titled “Customer Facing Processes and Customer Experience”. Ajit earned his Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering with a specialization in semiconductor processing from the University of Kansas.

Chris Umminger
VP of Power Products Business Unit

Experience:
Former Senior Director of Power Path Products at Linear Technology and Analog Devices

BIO:
Chris has over 20 years of experience creating integrated circuit products for power electronics. As VP of the Power Products Business Unit, he oversees the development and support for power products using Menlo Micro’s Ideal Switch® technology.

Before joining Menlo Micro, Chris led the product definition and integrated circuit development for Power Path products at Linear Technology and later at Analog Devices. These products controlled, managed, and protected power in a variety of industrial, automotive and consumer applications. Prior to his management position, he designed integrated circuit controllers for switching regulators.

He holds a PhD and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science degree from the California Institute of Technology.

Russ Garcia
CEO

BIO:
Russ has more than 30 years of experience in the electronic systems and semiconductor industries with a proven track record in executive leadership positions in both public and private companies. As CEO of Menlo Micro, Russ oversees the corporate direction and strategy of the company, focusing on leadership, technology innovation and customers.

Prior to Menlo Micro, Russ founded nGeniSys, an investment and consulting firm focused on the electronics, semiconductor and telecommunications industries. He is also an Executive in Residence for GE Ventures and holds advisory and board of director positions at several venture backed companies. Prior to Menlo and nGeniSys, he held the position of EVP of Marketing for Microsemi, where he led the integration Actel, Zarlink and Symmetricom, representing over $700M USD of M&A over a 4-year period. His leadership of those acquisitions led to operating income improvements in each case from low single digits to all greater than 25% operating profit. One of those integrations resulted in greater 40% operating margin.

Prior to Microsemi, he was the CEO of two start-ups, WiSpry, a RF MEMS company and uNav Microelectronics, a fabless semiconductor company, where under his leadership, u-Nav developed and introduced the first “single-chip” GPS semiconductor device. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Marketing for Silicon Systems and Texas Instruments Storage Product Division.

Marianne Wu
Venture Partner, Standard Investments

BIO:
Marianne is a Venture Partner at Standard Investments. She believes firmly in the ability and opportunity for digital + deep customer insight + new business models to drive fundamental change across industries and throughout the economy.

Prior to joining Standard Investments, Marianne was President, GE Ventures where she led the investing team and before that was a Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures. She has also been a start-up executive, management consultant, and development engineer. Her career has focused at the intersection of technology, market and impact from both a start-up and large company perspective. She enjoys helping start-ups attack markets, partnering with, or navigating around large companies for success.

Marianne holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a B.A.Sc. in Engineering Physics from the University of British Columbia, where she is also on the Advisory Board. She enjoys exploring the outdoors with her husband and two daughters.

Paul Conley, PhD
Managing Director, Vertical Venture Partners

BIO:
Dr. Paul Conley is a leading investor and serves as an active Managing Director on Vertical Venture Partners portfolio company boards including semiconductor chip company Menlo Micro.

Prior to Vertical Venture Partners, Paul joined the Paladin team after more than 15 years of previous R&D and entrepreneurial experience. As founding CEO of BrightScale, he led the commercialization of a patented multi-core microprocessor technology in the HDTV market. As founding CEO of Appfluent Technology, he led the commercialization of patented in-memory distributed database technologies in the enterprise IT market. Prior to taking the entrepreneurial route, he spent nearly a decade in multidisciplinary R&D roles in the areas of high-performance computing, applied physics, and biomedical engineering, including postdoctoral positions at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Paul earned a PhD in Computational Physics and an MS in Bioengineering from UCSD, as well as an MS and BS in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia.

​​​John E. Major
Former Chairman of the Board, Broadcom

BIO:
John E. Major is a veteran of the technology industry, with more than 40 years’ experience at leading communications companies including Motorola and Qualcomm, and as CEO of several companies including Novatel Wireless. He has significant board experience at both public and private technology companies, including his Chairmanship of Broadcom until its acquisition by Avago.

From 2004 to 2006, Mr. Major served as chief executive officer of Apacheta Corporation, a mobile wireless software company. From 2000 to 2003, he served as chairman and chief executive officer of Novatel Wireless Inc., a wireless data access solutions company. Previously, Mr. Major was chairman and chief executive officer of Wireless Knowledge. Prior to that, Mr. Major served in executive level positions at Qualcomm Incorporated, including president of its wireless infrastructure division, and prior to that he held various leadership positions at Motorola, Inc., including senior vice president and chief technology officer. 

Mr. Major has served on the boards of directors of Lattice Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ:LSCC) since March 2018, Lennox International Inc. (NYSE:LII) since 1993, ORBCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ:ORBC) since 2007 and of Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ: LFUS) since 1991. He previously served as a director of Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM) from 2003 until its acquisition by Avago Technologies in February 2016, and as a director of Pulse Electronics Corporation from 2013 until its acquisition by Yageo Corporation in May 2018, and as a director of Resonant, Inc. (NASDAQ:RESN) from 2013 until April 2019. 

Mr. Major holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the University of Rochester, an MS in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois, an MBA from Northwestern University and a JD from Loyola University.

Steve Litchfield
MaxLinear, CFO, Chief Strategy Officer

BIO:

Mr. Litchfield most recently served as Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of Microsemi Corporation, a provider of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor solutions that was acquired by Microchip Technology, Inc. in May 2018. Mr. Litchfield served in that position from 2009 until the closing of the acquisition by Microchip. Previously, he served as Microsemi’s Vice President, Analog and Mixed Signal Group from 2006 to 2009, as its Vice President, Corporate Marketing and Business Development from 2003 to 2006, and as its Director, Business Development from 2001 to 2003. Prior to joining Microsemi, Mr. Litchfield was an equity research analyst at Banc of America Securities and a production engineer at Toyota Motor Corporation. Mr. Litchfield also serves on the board of directors of several early stage technology companies that are not publicly traded.

Mr. Litchfield holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University and a MBA from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

Kari-Pekka Wilska
Nokia, Former President, America
Michael Idelchik
GE Global Research, Former Vice President, Advanced Technology
Tim Richardson
Micro Linear, Former CEO

Vertical Venture Partners – Partner
IXYS – Former Board of Directors

Risa Stack
The Production Board, General Manager

RA Capital Management – Venture Partner
RS Bioventures, LLC – Director
GE Ventures – Former Managing Director

David Velasquez
VP & GM Corning Advanced Optics Corning Inc.

BIO:
David Velasquez was appointed General Manager of Advanced Optics in August 2019. In this role, he is responsible for leading the division, which includes the Optical Materials and Technologies, Precision Glass Solutions (PGS), Corning Laser Technologies, Specialty Glass, and Iris® Glass business units.

Prior to this role, Velasquez had served as Division Vice President and General Manager of PGS since May 2017. As the leader of this newly formed business unit, he was responsible for consolidating a handful of separate Corning businesses and innovation programs targeting the semiconductor and consumer electronics markets, and for growing Corning’s glass wafer and panel sales in emerging applications including sensors, augmented reality, and advanced packaging. Velasquez joined Corning in 2001 as a Strategic Planning Manager in Corning Optical Fiber. He later moved into product line management and assumed responsibility of the product line portfolio in 2007. ​From 2010 to 2015, Velasquez led marketing and commercial operations for the Corning® Gorilla® Glass division. He built the analysis, forecasting, customer service, product line management, marketing communications, and branding functions as the business ramped to $1B in sales in two years. During his tenure, Velasquez helped oversee the transition of five generations of Gorilla Glass and the commercialization of multiple Glass+ offerings. In 2015, Velasquez was appointed Commercial Director of the Advanced Optics division. There, he drove initiatives such as the Keene, N.H. facility turnaround, targeted sales growth in China, next-generation semiconductor equipment capabilities and product profit and loss management. Velasquez earned a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and his Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Rich Simoncic
SVP, Analog Division, Microchip Technology

BIO:
Rich Simoncic has served as Senior Vice President, Analog Power and Interface Division since September 1999.

From January 1996 to September 1999, he served as Vice President, Memory and Specialty Products Division. From October of 1995 to January 1996, he served as Vice President of Yield and Manufacturing Engineering. Mr. Simoncic holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering Technology from DeVry Institute of Technology.

Jim Cable
Former Chairman & CEO, pSemi

BIO:
Jim Cable has more than 25 years of experience in semiconductor research, development and production, including pSemi Corporation (formerly Peregrine Semiconductor), Hughes Microelectronics Center, Hughes Technology Center and TRW.

Cable most recently served as the chairman and CTO of pSemi and as the global semiconductor R&D director for parent company, Murata Manufacturing, until his retirement in Dec. 2019. Cable joined pSemi in 1996 and held positions as COO and vice president of technology and engineering, before becoming CEO in 2002. From 2002 to 2017, Cable served as the company's CEO where he led the team through an IPO and championed the 2014 acquisition to Murata Manufacturing. Under his engineering leadership, pSemi pioneered stacked CMOS RF switch integration, solved insurmountable circuit linearity problems and ultimately manufactured high-performance, multi-throw-count CMOS RF switches that support more than 40 different communications bands and will become even more mission critical in 5G. Cable is a co-inventor on over 70 semiconductor and technology patents, including breakthroughs in CMOS RF switch linearity and integration that are used by most modern cellphones today. Mr. Cable received his B.S. in physics from UC Riverside and his master's degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from UCLA.

Optimize the electrification of everything.

From milliwatts-to-kilowatts.
From DC-to-GHz.

THE IDEAL SWITCH STORY

An entirely new category of switches.

The relay introduced the telephone to every home. The transistor did the same for computers and smartphones. Both were revolutionary in their time, but both have serious limitations.
With the introduction of the Ideal Switch™, we’ve combined the strengths of the relay (metal-to-metal contact when closed and air gap when open) with the merits of the transistor (ultra-reliable and scalable manufacturing).
1835
ELECTROMECHANICAL RELAY
1904
VACUUM TUBE
1947
TRANSISTOR
1960
SOLID-STATE CHIP
Today
How we got here

Our lineage of innovation & entrepreneurship starts with the “Wizard of Menlo Park” himself, Thomas A. Edison.

Born out of a decade-long effort at General Electric’s Global Research Center, Menlo Micro is bringing to the market a series of technology innovations that have enabled us to reinvent one of the most essential and fundamental building blocks required for nearly every electronic system imaginable… the switch.

Executive Leadership Team

BIO
Russ Garcia
CEO
BIO
Chris Keimel​
Co-Founder, CTO
BIO
Yalcin Bulut
COO
BIO
Mark Czepiel
CFO
BIO
Chris Giovanniello
Co-Founder, SVP of RF Business Unit
BIO
Rose Aebig
VP of Global Human Resources
BIO
Lew Boore
SVP of Government Relations & Market Development
BIO
Ajit Utagikar
SVP of Quality
BIO
Chris Umminger
VP of Power Products Business Unit

Board of Directors

BIO
Russ Garcia
CEO
BIO
Marianne Wu
Venture Partner, Standard Investments
BIO
Paul Conley, PhD
Managing Director, Vertical Venture Partners
BIO
​​​John E. Major
Former Chairman of the Board, Broadcom
BIO
Steve Litchfield
MaxLinear, CFO, Chief Strategy Officer

Corporate Advisors

Kari-Pekka Wilska
Nokia, Former President, America
Michael Idelchik
GE Global Research, Former Vice President, Advanced Technology
BIO
Tim Richardson
Micro Linear, Former CEO
BIO
Risa Stack
The Production Board, General Manager
BIO
David Velasquez
VP & GM Corning Advanced Optics Corning Inc.
BIO
Rich Simoncic
SVP, Analog Division, Microchip Technology
BIO
Jim Cable
Former Chairman & CEO, pSemi

Investors

Order your Ideal Switch today. We have sales teams around the world.
We’re growing and looking for brilliant talent to help us continue the path we’re on.