Henry Thompson Nicholas III (born 1959) is an American businessman who is a co-founder of

Broadcom Corporation Broadcom Corporation is an American fabless semiconductor company that makes products for the wireless and broadband communication industry. It was acquired by Avago Technologies in 2016 and operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of the merged ...

, and former co-chairman of its board, president, 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 ...

(CEO) of the company. , Nicholas was ranked number 520 on ''

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 ...

'' billionaire's list with a net worth of $5.7 billion.

Early life and education

Henry Nicholas was born in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wi ...

, to

Marcella Marcella is a Roman cognomen and Italian given name, the feminine version of Marcello (Mark in English). Marcella means warlike, martial, and strong. It could also mean 'young warrior'. The origin of the name Marcella is Latin. Marcella may refer ...

and Henry T. Nicholas Jr. When Nicholas was four, his parents divorced and he moved with his mother and sister to Los Angeles, California. His mother later married Robert Leach, a journalist and Hollywood screenwriter. Nicholas attended elementary schools in Malibu, and progressed to

Santa Monica High School Santa Monica High School, officially abbreviated to SaMoHi, is located in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1891, it changed location several times in its early years before settling into its present campus at 601 Pico Boulevard. It is a part o ...

. Nicholas has dyslexia. After attending the

United States Air Force Academy The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a United States service academy in El Paso County, Colorado, immediately north of Colorado Springs. It educates cadets for service in the officer corps of the United States Air Force and U ...

Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

, Colorado, Nicholas graduated from UCLA School of Engineering in 1982 with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in electrical engineering. He earned a master's degree in 1985, and a PhD. in electrical engineering from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

in 1998."Alumnus Dr. Henry T. Nicholas, III was Named for the IEEE Frederik Philips Award for 2014"
, UCLA Engineering News, 2014. His doctoral dissertation became the basis for the development of the integrated circuit (IC) that Broadcom sold.

Early career

After graduating from UCLA in the 1980s, Nicholas worked at TRW in

Redondo Beach, California Redondo Beach (Spanish for ''round'') is a coastal city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located in the South Bay region of the Greater Los Angeles area. It is one of three adjacent beach cities along the southern portion of Sa ...

, where he met

Henry Samueli Henry Samueli (born September 20, 1954) is an American businessman, engineer, and philanthropist. He is the co-founder of Broadcom Corporation, owner of the National Hockey League's Anaheim Ducks, and a prominent philanthropist in the Orange Co ...

, his future business partner, who was a professor of engineering at UCLA. Nicholas later moved to PairGain Technologies in Cerritos, where he was director of microelectronics. He left PairGain in 1991 to start Broadcom Corporation with Samueli.

Broadcom

Nicholas and Samueli founded Broadcom in the spare bedroom of Nicholas' Redondo Beach condominium in 1991. Each partner invested $5,000 own money, and they floated the company in 1998. Nicholas retired from Broadcom in 2003, ostensibly to work on his marriage.

Philanthropy

In 2003, Nicholas and his wife founded the Henry T. and Stacey Nicholas Foundation, a private

non-profit foundation A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

whose goals were to invest in education, youth sports, technology, medical research, victims' rights and national defense. Following their separation in 2006, it was renamed The Henry T. Nicholas III Foundation. In 2008, the Nicholas Academic Center was opened in downtown Santa Ana, California, in partnership with retired

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

judge Jack Mandel, on whose program the schools are based. The second center opened in 2009 on the campus of Valley High School in Santa Ana. In 2004, Nicholas donated $10million to St. Margaret's Episcopal School in Orange County and for the formation of a partnership with the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

Henry Samueli School of Engineering The Henry Samueli School of Engineering (HSSoE) is the academic unit of the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) that oversees academic research and teaching in disciplines of the field of engineering. Established when the campus opened i ...

to explore the application of technology to enhance learning. In addition, Nicholas provided St. Margaret scholarships to students from Santa Ana. Nicholas also supports

Oakland Military Institute Oakland Military Institute, formally the ''Oakland Military Institute College Preparatory Academy'', is a charter school run by the California Military Department's Youth and Community Programs Task Force in partnership with the Oakland Unified Sc ...

. Nicholas has financially supported

South Coast Repertory South Coast Repertory (SCR) is a professional theatre company located in Costa Mesa, California. Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory, founded in 1964 by David Emmes and Martin Benson, is led by Artistic Director David Ivers and Managing Direc ...

, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana and

Orange County Performing Arts Center Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower * Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum ...

Personal life

In 1987, Nicholas married Stacey, a former electrical engineer, with whom he had three children. Nicholas is now divorced and separated from his later girlfriends Melissa Montero and Ashley Christine Fargo. He lives in Newport Coast, California. In April 2008, he admitted himself to an alcohol rehabilitation program of the Betty Ford Center and completed his treatment at Cliffside Malibu.

Criminal charges

In June 2008, Nicholas and other Broadcom executives were indicted for stock fraud and options backdating. At the same time, Nicholas was also indicted on drug charges. The charges caused considerable scandal, and were the subject of much speculation in the press. Judge Cormac J. Carney threw out the stock fraud and options backdating charges in December 2009. The drug charges were dropped in January 2010. The judge, in dismissing the charges, accused the prosecution of a "shameful" campaign of witness intimidation aimed at securing unjustified convictions. In August 2018, Nicholas was arrested in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

on suspicion of drug trafficking after a variety of drugs, including marijuana, heroin,

cocaine Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly used recreationally for its euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South Ameri ...

, methamphetamine and ecstasy were found in his hotel suite. In August 2019, he entered an

Alford plea In United States law, an Alford plea, also called a Kennedy plea in West Virginia, an Alford guilty plea, and the Alford doctrine, is a guilty plea in criminal court, whereby a defendant in a criminal case does not admit to the criminal act and ...

to two felony drug-possession charges; he agreed to donate $1 million to a drug treatment-and-rehabilitation program, to perform 250 hours of community service, and to go to drug counseling. In exchange, the prosecution dismissed five more-serious drug trafficking charges and did not seek a prison sentence. The case was later dismissed.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicholas, Henry American billionaires American male criminals University of California, Irvine faculty UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni Businesspeople from Cincinnati 1959 births Living people 21st-century American criminals American businesspeople convicted of crimes American people convicted of drug offenses People from Glendale, Ohio People with dyslexia 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople Victims' rights