William "Bill" N. Carrico Jr. (born February 12, 1950) is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

and businessman who founded several technology companies in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

. He was the president and

CEO 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 especially ...

3Com 3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe ex ...

, senior vice president of

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...

, and chairman of

Packet Design Packet Design is an Austin, Texas-based network performance management software company credited with pioneering route analytics technology. This network monitoring technology analyzes routing protocols and structures in meshed IP networks by part ...

Education

Carrico graduated from

Santa Clara University Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...

in 1972 with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE).

Career

Carrico worked for

Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of int ...

and

Zilog Zilog, Inc. is an American manufacturer of microprocessors and 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers. It is also a supplier of application-specific embedded system-on-chip (SoC) products. Its most famous product is the Z80 series of 8-bit microp ...

. He and

Judith Estrin Judith "Judy" L. Estrin (born 1954/1955) is an American entrepreneur, business executive, and philanthropist. Estrin worked with Vinton Cerf on the Transmission Control Protocol project at Stanford University in the 1970s. Estrin is an entrepreneu ...

co-founded

Bridge Communications Bridge Communications, Inc. was founded by Judy Estrin and Bill Carrico in 1981 and was based in Mountain View, California. Bridge Communications made computer network bridges, routers, and communications servers. They specialized in inter-conne ...

in 1981, which merged with

in 1987. The couple joined

Network Computing Devices Network Computing Devices (NCD) was a company founded in 1987 to produce a new class of products now known as a thin client. It was founded in Mountain View, CA, and when it closed it was headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon. The corporate founde ...

in 1988. Carrico and Estrin also co-founded

Precept Software Cisco is an American computer networking company. Cisco made its first acquisition in 1993, which was followed by a series of further acquisitions. History Founded in 1984, Cisco did not acquire a company during the first seven years of its exi ...

in 1995 (acquired by

in 1998) and

in 2000.

References

Santa Clara University alumni Living people Engineers from California American venture capitalists American computer scientists American electrical engineers Businesspeople from California Year of birth uncertain 1950 births {{Compu-scientist-stub