Feb 13, 2007 - Claremont, Calif. - The spring 2007 edition of the Dr. Bruce J. Nelson '74 Distinguished Speaker Series has been announced at Harvey Mudd College.

The series will feature the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Visiting Professors in Leadership and Management. In addition to the Nelson lecture, they will teach part of an ongoing class in leadership; hold seminars and discussions for students, faculty and administrators; and deliver a public lecture based on personal experience making tough ethical decisions.

The lectures will be held in Galileo Hall on the Harvey Mudd College campus, beginning at 7 p.m. They are free and open to the public and will be followed by a dessert reception.

Tuesday, February 27
Judy Estrin - Packet Design, LLC, CEO
"Hard Decisions: Startup to Corporate Boardroom"

Judy Estrin is president and CEO of Packet Design LLC, a network technology company she co-founded in May 2000. She previously co-founded three technology companies with Bill Carrico. Bridge Communications, founded in 1981, was a vendor of internetwork routers and bridges that went public in 1985 and merged with 3Com Corp. in 1987; Estrin served as engineering vice president and executive vice president of Bridge, and later ran the Bridge Communications Division at 3Com. Network Computing Devices (NCD), a maker of X terminals and PC-UNIX integration software, was founded in 1988 and went public in 1992; Estrin started with NCD as executive vice president and became CEO in 1993. Estrin served as CEO of Precept Software from the company’s 1995 founding as a maker of streaming video software. When Cisco Systems acquired Precept in 1998, she became Cisco’s chief technology officer until April 2000. Estrin has been named three times to Fortune Magazine’s list of the 50 most powerful women in American business. She sits on the boards of directors of The Walt Disney Company and The Federal Express Corporation as well as two private company boards – Packet Design, Inc. and Arch Rock. She also sits on the advisory councils of Stanford’s School of Engineering and the university's Bio-X initiative. She holds a B.S. degree in math and computer science from UCLA, and an M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Tuesday, March 6
Norman R. Augustine - former chairman and CEO, Lockheed Martin Corporation
"What Makes A Leader?"

Tuesday, March 27
Jeff Wilke - senior vice president, North America Retail, Amazon.com
"Tough Choices: Leadership is All About the Long Run"

Tuesday, April 10
Alan Eustace - senior vice president, Engineering and Research, Google
“Don’t Be Evil”

Tuesday, April 17
George Atkinson, science and technology advisor to the secretary of state
“The Globalization of Science and Technology”

For more information, call (909) 607-3165

About the Dr. Bruce J. Nelson '74 Distinguished Speaker Series

This speaker series has been made possible through the generosity of the family of Bruce J. Nelson. Bruce's life and his sudden death in 1999 had a tremendous impact on the many people whose lives he touched. A brilliant technologist and a great leader, Bruce was also entirely unconventional and eclectic; a true free spirit. Friends from Harvey Mudd College vividly remember his passionate tirades against peas as well as his many daring outdoor adventures. He was an avid photographer, mountaineer and world traveler who cherished the tranquility and wonder of nature.

Bruce Nelson graduated from Harvey Mudd College in 1974 and went on to earn a master's in computer science from Stanford, and a Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon. While pursuing his Ph.D., he developed the Remote Procedure Call (RPC), for which he was awarded the prestigious Association of Computing Machines (ACM) Software Systems Award. At the time of his death, he was the chief science officer at Cisco Systems.