Dirk I. Gates (born June 25, 1961 in

Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...

) is an American businessman, founder and

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...

of two companies,

Xircom Xircom, Inc. was based in Thousand Oaks, California, with manufacturing facilities located in Penang, Malaysia and international offices throughout Europe and Asia Pacific. They were one of the first companies to develop network computing produ ...

and

Xirrus Cambium Networks is a wireless Internet service provider, wireless infrastructure provider that offers fixed wireless and Wi-Fi to broadband service providers and enterprises to provide Internet access. An American telecommunications infrastructur ...

Career

In 1983, Gates received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from California State University, Northridge and then completed the

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

program at

Pepperdine University Pepperdine University () is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California. Pepperdine's main campus consists of 830 acres (340 ha) overlooking the Pacific Ocean and th ...

in 1990 at the age of 27 while co-founding his first company,

, with fellow entrepreneur Kirk Mathews.

created the industry's first product Ethernet Pocket Adapter which allowed notebook computers to connect to Ethernet LANs, along with the industry's first Type III PC Card called the RealPort that allowed users to connect Ethernet cables and phone cables directly to the notebook without the use of dongles. Gates served as

’s president after its launch in November 1988, became

in 1991, and in 1995, he became chairman of the company.( Foundation Board Members’ Biographies) In March 2001, after 13 years in operation, Gates negotiated the sale of

to Intel Corporation for US$748 million. Gates served as vice president and

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

of mobile communications at

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

and then went on to co-found

, a

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

technology company, in early 2004 with Patrick Parker and Steve DeGennaro. He served as the Chief Executive Officer of Xirrus until June 2012, at which point he assumed the role of Executive Chairman. Xirrus designs and sells

wireless networking A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and business installations avoid the costly process of introducing c ...

equipment called

Wi-Fi Array Cambium Networks is a wireless infrastructure provider that offers fixed wireless and Wi-Fi to broadband service providers and enterprises to provide Internet access. An American telecommunications infrastructure company, it provides wireless te ...

s based on the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

standards

802.11a IEEE 802.11a-1999 or 802.11a was an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 wireless local network specifications that defined requirements for an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) communication system. It was originally designed to support ...

802.11b IEEE 802.11b-1999 or 802.11b is an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 wireless networking specification that extends throughput up to 11 Mbit/s using the same 2.4 GHz band. A related amendment was incorporated into the IEEE 802.11-2007 standard. ...

, 802.11g, and

802.11n IEEE 802.11n-2009 or 802.11n is a wireless-networking standard that uses multiple antennas to increase data rates. The Wi-Fi Alliance has also retroactively labelled the technology for the standard as Wi-Fi 4. It standardized support for multipl ...

. In 1992, Gates was honored as High

Technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...

Entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

of the Year for the

Greater Los Angeles area Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...

and in 1994, made ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' Magazine's Whiz Kid list of the five youngest

CEOs Kea ( el, Κέα), also known as Tzia ( el, Τζια) and in antiquity Keos ( el, Κέως, la, Ceos), is a Greek island in the Cyclades archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Kea is part of the Kea-Kythnos regional unit. Geography It is the island of ...

of the Best small Companies in America. Dirk appeared on the

Dylan Ratigan Dylan Jason Ratigan (born April 19, 1972) is an American businessman, author, film producer, former host of MSNBC's ''The Dylan Ratigan Show'' and political commentator for ''The Young Turks''. He was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representa ...

show on

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and politi ...

in September 2010 and in January 2011, Gates was featured in a Kym McNicholas segment on

TV. He has also given countless speeches and presentations on Wi-Fi including the

keynote address A keynote in public speaking is a talk that establishes a main underlying theme. In corporate or commercial settings, greater importance is attached to the delivery of a keynote speech or keynote address. The keynote establishes the framework f ...

Interop Interop is an annual information technology conference organised by Informa PLC. It takes place in the US and Tokyo (Japan) each year. 2016 marked Interop's (US) 30th anniversary and throughout that time, Interop has promoted interoperability and ...

New York 2010. Gates has been a member of the

CSUN California State University, Northridge (CSUN or Cal State Northridge) is a public university in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. With a total enrollment of 38,551 students (as of Fall 2021), it has the second largest un ...

Foundation Board, has served as Chairman of the

Viewpoint School Viewpoint School is an independent school located in Calabasas, California. The school is coeducational, with students enrolled from Transitional Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade. Enrollment in the 2014–15 school year was 1,200, making it the ...

Board of

Trustees Trustee (or the holding of a trusteeship) is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, is a synonym for anyone in a position of trust and so can refer to any individual who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility to t ...

, and is also a member of the

Pepperdine Pepperdine University () is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California. Pepperdine's main campus consists of 830 acres (340 ha) overlooking the Pacific Ocean and ...

Board of Visitors. In 1997, Dirk Gates donated $1 million (apiece) of his personal funds to

and Pepperdine University to express his gratitude for the knowledge he acquired during his schooling.

Personal life

Gates is an avid member of the

high-power rocketry High-power rocketry is a hobby similar to model rocketry. The major difference is that higher impulse range motors are used. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) definition of a high-power rocket is one that has a total weight of more ...

community, frequently flying large

model rocket A model rocket are small rockets designed to reach low altitudes (e.g., for model) and be recovered by a variety of means. According to the United States National Association of Rocketry (NAR) Safety Code, model rockets are constructed of ...

s in California and Nevada. To facilitate his hobby, Gates started a side company, Gates Brothers Rocketry, with his brother, Erik Gates. The duo appeared on several episodes of the popular Discovery Channel TV series MythBusters that involved rocketry, including the pilot episode.http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/mythbusters/ MythBusters)

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gates, Dirk 1961 births American technology company founders California State University, Northridge alumni Computer hardware engineers Living people People from Fort Wayne, Indiana