Jeff Lawrence (born November 14, 1957) is an entrepreneur,

technologist Technologist may refer to: * Applied Science Technologist, a Canadian professional title in engineering and applied science technology. * Architectural technologist, a specialist in the technology fields of building, design and construction. * C ...

and

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...

Early life

Jeff was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His father was Ray Lawrence and his mother was Grace Lawrence. He has two younger sisters, Connie and Lisa. Jeff was married to Diane Troth, who died on November 30, 2016, and they have two children, Christopher and Kathy. He lived briefly in Northridge, California and New York, New York, and grew up in Van Nuys, California and Studio City, California. He was very interested in science and technology as a child. While going to college Jeff worked at Butterfly Media Dimensions, a company founded by

Allen Secher Rabbi Allen Secher (born February 14, 1935) is a rabbi, civil and human rights activist, radio host, television producer, actor, author and public speaker. Early life Allen was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father was Jack Secher and h ...

, a rabbi, civil rights activist, radio personality, and television producer. Jeff received a bachelor's degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1979.

Business

After graduating from UCLA Jeff joined Amdahl Corporation's Communications Systems Division in 1980. Amdahl had just finished acquiring the

privately held A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

company Tran Telecommunications which became its Communications Systems Division. At Amdahl, Jeff developed software for high performance packet switching systems designed for large enterprise and public data network infrastructures. Amdahl's circuit and packet switching systems were sold to PTT's and enterprises around the world. Some customers for the circuit and packet switching systems included Pacific Bell, SAPO, the

Trans-Canada Telephone System The Stentor Alliance was a formal alliance of Canada's major telecommunications companies, specifically its incumbent local exchange carriers. It derives its name from the Greek mythology, Greek mythological figure Stentor. Formed in 1992 to succ ...

and AT&T. The systems were used to build the Pacific Bell, Datapac and SAPONET public data networks as well as portions of AT&T's enterprise network. Jeff left Amdahl just before it moved its Communications Systems Division from Marina Del Rey, California to Richardson, Texas and went to Doelz Networks in 1985. At Doelz, Jeff developed software and systems for high availability local area network and wide area network products for large enterprise network infrastructures. After the

1987 stock market crash Black Monday is the name commonly given to the global, sudden, severe, and largely unexpected stock market crash on Monday, October 19, 1987. In Australia and New Zealand, the day is also referred to as ''Black Tuesday'' because of the time z ...

, Doelz Networks experienced financial difficulties and Jeff was laid off in 1988. Doelz Networks was bought by its management and a group of European investors in 1988. Jeff co-founded, with Larisa Chistyakov,

Trillium Digital Systems Trillium Digital Systems, Inc. developed and licensed Technical standard, standards-based communications source code software to telecommunications equipment manufacturers for the wireless, broadband, Internet and telephony, telephone network infra ...

in 1988 and served as its President & CEO until its acquisition by

Intel Corporation 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 series ...

in 2000. Jeff continued at Intel as the Chief Technology Officer for its Communications Group and left Intel in 2002. Trillium Digital Systems developed and licensed communications software to communications equipment manufacturers building the wireless, Internet, broadband and telephone infrastructure. Trillium software has been developed, licensed and used to build telecommunications equipment for over 30 years. Jeff and his wife, Diane Troth, founded The Lawrence Foundation in 2000 after Trillium's acquisition by Intel. The Lawrence Foundation is a

family foundation Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

that makes grants to non-profit environmental, human services, and other causes. The Lawrence Foundation has made over $6 million in grants since its inception."Common Grant Application
/ref> Jeff co-founded, with Lori Mitchell, the Common Grant Application in 2006 and continues to serve as its President. The Common Grant Application offers a Web-based service that serves as a common application to non-profit grantseekers and a grant management system to non-profit grantmakers. Jeff sits on the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering Dean's Executive Board. Jeff served on the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of Guidance Software (NASDAQ:GUID), a provider of computer forensic,

eDiscovery Electronic discovery (also ediscovery or e-discovery) refers to discovery in legal proceedings such as litigation, government investigations, or Freedom of Information Act requests, where the information sought is in electronic format (often refe ...

and cybersecurity between 2008 and 2015. Guidance Software was acquired by OpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX) in September 2017.

Achievements

* 1997, 1998 - Trillium listed in Inc. 500 for its fast growth as a private compan

* 1997 – Co-recipient of the Greater Los Angeles Area Entrepreneur of the Year awar

* 2005 – Recipient of the UCLA School of Engineering’s Professional Achievement awar

Articles written

*"The Network Tapestry". Communications Systems Design, February 1998. *"Today’s Networks". Global Communications, 1998.
"The Network Frontier: Wireless Technology and the Imagination"
CTI Magazine, June 1999. *"Battle of the Infrastructures: Voice-over-IP and Voice-over-ATM". OEM Integrator. *"The Role of Protocols in the Network Infrastructure". Telecom International.

CTI Magazine, January 1999. *"Building the Future Network". Annual Review of Communications.

CTI Magazine, April 1999. *"IMHO: On the Road to Voice-over-IP". Business Communications Review.

TMCnet.com, August 1999.

CTI Magazine, August 1999. *"Separation Anxiety". European Communications.

CTI Magazine, October 1999. *"The Emergence of a Unified Signalling Architecture". IEC Annual Review of Communications, 2000.

Communications Solutions, February 2000.

Communications Solutions, May 2000.

Communications Solutions, July 2000. *"MPLS: Quality of Service and the Next Generation Network". Integrated Communications Design, July 2000. *"The Next Generation Network". Global Communications, 2001. *"Content Distribution: The Next Frontier". Communications Solutions, February 2001. *"Bus, Bus, Interconnect". Communications Solutions, June 2001. *"Processing Models for the NGN". Communications Solutions, August 2001. *"How Do You Measure Performance?". Communications Solutions, November 2001.

Selected articles, publications and presentations

"Processing Models for the Next Generation Network"
FPL '01 Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications, August 28, 2001 *"Nanotechnology: Science, Innovation, and Opportunity" - Chapter 10. Edited by Lynn Foster. Prentice Hall, 2006.
"Why be an Entrepreneur? What It Takes to Succeed"
Keynote. Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum, October 2003.
"From Techie to Tycoon: You don't need an MBA to develop leading edge technology for the marketplace"
Panelist. Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum, October 2004.

Panelist. Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum, October 2009.

"The Game of Philanthropy"
Western Regional Planned Giving Conference, June 2, 2005.

References

External links

Common Grant Application

The Lawrence Foundation

Clivia Systems

Guidance Software
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawrence, Jeff 1957 births American businesspeople American philanthropists Living people People from Van Nuys, Los Angeles People from Studio City, Los Angeles