Bill Townsend (born ) is an entrepreneur who helped launch several leading Internet companies including search engine
Lycos
Lycos, Inc., is a web search engine and web portal established in 1994, spun out of Carnegie Mellon University. Lycos also encompasses a network of email, web hosting, social networking, and entertainment websites. The company is based in Walth ...
, social networking site SixDegrees, now
LinkedIn
LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...
, GeoCities (sold to
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
) and Deja.com (sold to
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
and
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
). He is President & CEO of TRICCAR, Inc., a publicly-held bioceutical research and development company focused on pharmaceutical and bioceutical solutions to common diseases. He is also President & CEO of Ontheline Corporation, a next generation communications and digital lifestyle platform
Education
Townsend earned an MBA from
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of the fir ...
's Hankamer School of Business where he held the John Schoen Entrepreneur-in-Residence chair and lectured on leadership and entrepreneurship. He earned his BA at The
College of Wooster
The College of Wooster is a private liberal arts college in Wooster, Ohio. Founded in 1866 by the Presbyterian Church as the University of Wooster, it has been officially non-sectarian since 1969 when ownership ties with the Presbyterian Church ...
and studied at
Washington & Jefferson College
Washington & Jefferson College (W&J College or W&J) is a private liberal arts college in Washington, Pennsylvania. The college traces its origin to three log cabin colleges in Washington County established by three Presbyterian missionaries to ...
and
SDA Bocconi
SDA Bocconi School of Management (SDA standing for Scuola di Direzione Aziendale) is the graduate business school of Bocconi University. It is the leading School of Management in Italy and also stands among the top-ranked European institutions.
...
.
Career
Townsend has founded, co-founded or served on the executive management team or on the board of directors at several global biomedicine, nutraceutical, Internet, and technology companies. Most notably of these companies is TRICCAR, Inc., a bioceutical firm focused on bioceutical and pharmaceutical research, development, and marketing, where he serves as President and Chief Executive Officer as well as the Internet search engine company
Lycos
Lycos, Inc., is a web search engine and web portal established in 1994, spun out of Carnegie Mellon University. Lycos also encompasses a network of email, web hosting, social networking, and entertainment websites. The company is based in Walth ...
. Lycos was acquired by
Terra Networks
Terra is a Spanish Internet multinational company owned by Telefónica, with headquarters in Spain and offices in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, the United States and Peru. Part of Telefónica Group (the former Spanish public telephone monop ...
, the Internet arm of the Spanish telecommunications giant
Telefónica
Telefónica, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the world. It provides fixed and mobile telephony, broadba ...
for $12.5 billion.
Townsend served on the Board of Directors and oversaw the Marketplace division of the $2.8 billion
Newegg.com
Newegg Commerce, Inc. is an American online retailer of items including computer hardware and consumer electronics. It is based in City of Industry, California. It is majority-owned by Liaison Interactive, a multinational technology company.
...
company, the second largest pure-play e-commerce retailer behind Amazon. He oversaw the company's global marketplace division and its growth to over $280 million. Previously, he served on the boards of IAB, PacAirVentures, ReallyEasyInternet VOIP, and Futuristics.net.
Philanthropy
In 2000, Townsend founded the Amati Foundation to help expand the stringed arts, specifically education in playing, making, and preserving the violin.
Townsend began studying violin making under the tutelage of Ziang Mei and William Hilton (a student of Vhakn Nigogosian), and Alberti Genduso (who has studied with the German masters Horst Kloss and Karl Roy, director of the Bavarian State School of Violin Making in Mittenwald, Germany). Townsend has made musical instruments for the likes of
Martie Maguire
Martha Elenor Maguire (née Erwin, previously Seidel; October 12, 1969) is an American musician who is a founding member of both the all-female alternative country band The Chicks and country bluegrass duo Court Yard Hounds. She won awards in na ...
of The Chicks and concert violinist
Anne Akiko Meyers
Anne Akiko Meyers (born May 15, 1970) is an American concert violinist. Meyers was the top-selling classical instrumentalist of 2014 on Billboard's traditional classical charts.
Early life and education
The daughter of an artist and a colleg ...
.
In 2005, he introduced a wood treatment system to increase sonority and
harmonics
A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', the ...
in instrument making. This system, Il Cremonese Violin Treatments, matched the ground used by
Antonio Stradivari
Antonio Stradivari (, also , ; – 18 December 1737) was an Italian luthier and a craftsman of string instruments such as violins, cellos, guitars, violas and harps. The Latinized form of his surname, ''Stradivarius'', as well as the colloq ...
on which to apply varnish and protect wood. One of his instruments was featured in The Smithsonian Institution's Heart & Hands exhibition about musical instruments and their makers. Another of this violins is in the
GRAMMY
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...
museum. He donates proceeds of his instrument sales to charity.
Townsend is the son of
Jacquelyn Mayer
Jacquelyn Jeanne "Jackie" Mayer (born August 20, 1942) is a former Miss Ohio 1962 and Miss America 1963 and currently travels the United States as a motivational speaker, noted for her recovery from a near-fatal stroke suffered at age 28.
Early ...
, Miss America 1963. He contributes time and funding to women's issues, education and animal welfare causes.
Politics
Townsend was the 1992
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
nominee for
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
in
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
's 20th Congressional District, narrowly losing to Democratic incumbent
Austin Murphy
Austin John Murphy (born June 17, 1927) is a former Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania from 1977 to 1995.
Born in North Charleroi, Pennsylvania, Murphy grew up in New London, Connecticut. He later returned ...
.''The Congressional Record'' and Republican National Committee