Jerry S. Rawls is an American businessman and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and chairman of Finisar.

Biography

Early life

Jerry Rawls was born in Houston, Texas, and graduated from Bellaire High School in Houston in 1962. He earned his Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from

Texas Tech University Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sy ...

in 1967. While at Texas Tech, he played freshman basketball, was an officer of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, and was a member of several other student organizations. He went on to earn a Master of Science Degree in Industrial Administration from the

Krannert School of Management The Krannert School of Management is the school of management at Purdue University, a public research university in West Lafayette, Indiana. It offers instruction at the undergraduate, master's, and doctoral levels. History The School of Ind ...

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mone ...

in 1968.

Career

He joined Raychem Corporation, a materials science and engineering company in

Menlo Park, California Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County within the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south ...

and began a twenty-year career with them. He served in various capacities including National Sales Manager and Manager of Product Marketing. During his last six years there, he was General Manager of two divisions. In 1988,he co-founded Finisar Corporation, a fiber optics company, with Frank H. Levinson. The goal for Finisar was to build cost effective gigabit optical transceivers to provide the optical input and output for high-speed computer networks. In 1992, Finisar proposed using multi-mode optics to dramatically lower the cost of gigabit optical links in data centers. Finisar’s proposal for gigabit multimode optics was adopted by the ANSI committee as the basis for today’s Fibre Channel Standard and later by the IEEE as the Gigabit Ethernet Standard. In 1999 the company went public and raised $149.3 million. By the close of trading on the first day Finisar stock rose 373%, making Finisar the seventh largest first day gainer in the history of Wall Street at that time. The company now employs 9,000 people and has facilities and operations in California as well as in Dallas, Philadelphia, Boston, Champaign-Urbana, Malaysia, Singapore, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Sweden, Denmark, India and Korea. ''

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 ...

'' included Jerry in one of its lists of Corporate America’s 500 Most Powerful People.

University donations

The

Rawls College of Business The Rawls College of Business (officially Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration, commonly referred to as Rawls Business) is the business school of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Rawls Business offers curriculum for both und ...

and The Rawls Course at Texas Tech University are named for him. On October 2, 2003, Rawls Hall at Purdue University was also named in honor of Rawls.

References

External links

Rawls College of Business, Texas Tech University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rawls, Jerry S Living people Businesspeople from Houston Rawls, Jerry S. Krannert School of Management alumni American businesspeople Year of birth missing (living people)