Bill has had an illustrious and accomplished career spanning over 30 years in networking and venture capital. He spun off the successful venture firm Vesbridge Partners from Saint Paul Venture Capital, and was also a General Partner with SPVC where he led investments in several companies including Atrica, Mahi Networks, and Picolight.

Before becoming a venture capitalist, Bill was Chairman and CEO of ADC. He took the company from a $263 million annual revenue business to over $3 billion over the course of his 10 year tenure as CEO. Prior to joining ADC in 1987, Bill was a General Manager at Intelsat and also served 15 years at AT&T in senior sales and marketing roles.

Bill has served on the boards of Siara (acquired by Redback for $4.3 billion), Optivision (ultimately ONI, IPO), Excel Switching (acquired by Lucent for $ 1 billion), Applied EPI (acquired by Veeco for $100 million), and Fortune 500 companies Pentair, Ceridian, and Banta. While at ADC, Bill led investments in Siara and Optivision as well as approved investments in several other companies, including Efficient Networks.

Ralph E. Taylor-Smith

General Partner, Battelle Ventures

Ralph is a General Partner of Battelle Ventures L.P. and Innovation Valley Partners L.P. He covers all aspects of the venture business, including deal sourcing, due-diligence, deal negotiation and transaction closing, Board of Director duties, and start-up company development. He has led or co-led various venture investments for the firm including BioVigilant, Hi-G-Tek, Rajant, RemoteReality, Sypherlink, and he serves on the Board of Directors for each of these Companies.

Prior to entering the venture capital industry, Ralph gained significant experience in technology R&D, business development and investment banking. He worked previously as a Senior Research Scientist at Bell Labs, in Business Development at Lucent Technologies, and as an Investment Banker on Wall Street at GoldmanSachs and JPMorgan.

Michael Bolton

Managing Director, Novitas Capital

In September 1997, Michael G. Bolton co-founded and became the CEO of Novitas Capital. He has over 20 years of early stage investment experience in working with entrepreneurs and emerging technology companies.

Prior to establishing Novitas Capital, Mr. Bolton was the founding Chief Executive Officer of the nationally recognized Ben Franklin Technology Center at Lehigh University. He was also the co-founder of the successful NEPA I (1985) and NEPA II (1993) venture capital funds , now known as the Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds.

Mr. Bolton has both a BA and MBA from Lehigh University. After graduating from Lehigh, he held various systems engineering and sales positions at RCA. Mr. Bolton re-joined his alma mater in 1972 to start the University's corporate and foundation relations program and went on to become Vice President for Development and University Relations. While at Lehigh, Mr. Bolton's group raised more than $500 million for the University and formed strong relationships with major corporations and business leaders.

Bryson Hollimon

Managing General Partner, Technology Venture Partners

Bryson D. Hollimon is the founder and Managing General Partner of Technology Venture Partners, L.P., an early to mid-stage venture capital fund with an investment strategy focused on networking, communications, software and semiconductor technologies. Prior to forming Technology Venture Partners in 2000, he was a Senior Managing Director and Director of Investment Banking at Dain Rauscher Wessels, now RBC Capital Markets. Previously, he spent ten years as an investment banker, senior executive and venture capital investor, with Wessels, Arnold & Henderson. In his roles as Head of Investment Banking at Wessels, Arnold & Henderson, LLC (WAH) and its successor firm Dain Rauscher Wessels, LLC, Mr. Hollimon was responsible for the execution of over $18.4 billion of equity financings and $7.6 billion of merger & acquisition advisory work.

Prior to joining Wessels in 1989, Mr. Hollimon was a Senior Vice President in the investment banking division of Wheat First Securities, Inc, now Wachovia Corporation. Currently, Mr. Hollimon serves on the boards of the following companies: Aegis Semiconductor, Inc.; Inlet Technologies, Inc.; Nistica, Inc.; Redshift Systems Corporation; SentitO Networks, Inc. and Verrillon, Inc. In addition, Mr. Hollimon also serves as Vice Chairman of the Urban Ventures Leadership Foundation, Minneapolis, MN. Mr. Hollimon is also a guest lecturer at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management on topics related to investment banking and venture capital.

Ashish Vengsarkar

Nistica Chief Executive Officer

Ashish Vengsarkar joined Nistica as CEO in the Spring of 2006.  He came to Nistica from Meriton Networks where he was Vice President of Global Business Development. Prior to Meriton, Ashish founded the ROADM pioneer Photuris in January 2000, where he was Vice President of Product Marketing.  

Ashish began his career in Bell Labs developing optical fiber devices and subsystems.  He transitioned to Lucent’s optical business unit as Director of Product Management for Metro Optical Networks where he led the launch of the WaveStar 400G optical transport system.  He has more than 30 patents, many of them utilized in current optical networking products.  

Ashish received his Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Master's and Ph.D. Degrees in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech and an Executive MBA from the Wharton School, where he was a Palmer Scholar.

Thomas Strasser

Nistica Chief Technology Officer

Tom Strasser co-founded Nistica in the Fall of 2005.  Prior to founding Nistica,   Tom was Chief Technologist and Director of Intellectual Property at the optical networking startup Photuris.

Tom's experience ranges from knowledge of components to optical networks, including seven years as a technologist and manager in AT&T and Lucent Bell Labs.  He invented and led product realization efforts that led to commercially deployed WSS ROADMs, Tunable Dispersion Compensators, and undersea qualified OADM fiber gratings. He is a recognized technology leader in optical fiber communications, and served as the Technical Program Chair of OFC 2004 and General Chair of OFC/NFOEC 2006.

Tom received a B.S. degree from Alfred University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from Cornell University. During his graduate studies on periodic guided-wave devices, he worked at Eastman-Kodak Research Labs.