Tom Bruggere (born February 18, 1946 in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

) is an American entrepreneur and onetime candidate for the U.S. Senate in the state of

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

. He founded the company

Mentor Graphics Siemens EDA is a US-based electronic design automation (EDA) multinational corporation for electrical engineering and electronics, headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon. Founded in 1981 as Mentor Graphics, the company was acquired by Siemens i ...

and has been involved with several other startup companies.

Early life

Tom Bruggere was born in

. He stated of his early life that he "grew up with a picture of Jack and Bobby Kennedy over isbed." He has a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

, a Masters of Science in Computer Science from the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

, and a Masters of Business Administration from

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 ...

.Oregon State Library Digital Collection - Voters' Pamphlet May 1996 statement
/ref> He served in the

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

in the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

, from 1968-1970. Prior to running for office, he served on several government boards, including the

Oregon State Board of Higher Education The Oregon State Board of Higher Education was the statutory governing board for the Oregon University System from 1909 to 2015. The board was composed of eleven members appointed by the Governor of Oregon and confirmed by the Oregon State Senate ...

. Bruggere was an engineer with

Burroughs Corporation The Burroughs Corporation was a major American manufacturer of business equipment. The company was founded in 1886 as the American Arithmometer Company. In 1986, it merged with Sperry UNIVAC to form Unisys. The company's history paralleled many ...

Medium Systems Plant in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. ...

in the early to mid-1970s, then with Tektronix, Inc. in the late 1970s. He is

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

Leadership of Mentor Graphics

Bruggere founded

, a Tektronix spinoff, in 1981. A 1991 article in '' Oregon Business'' magazine stated: "One of ektronix'main contributions to Oregon has been the many companies that spun off from former employees," citing the success of Bruggere and a number of other creative former Tektronix employees with Mentor Graphics as the prime example. He was one of the people credited with founding the Oregon Center for Advanced Technology Education and served as chairman of the center in the early 2000s. Mentor Graphics is credited with having established the industry of

electronic design automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools work togeth ...

. He resigned as president and CEO in October 1993, and was succeeded in both roles by Wally Rhines. Upon leaving Mentor Graphics, he cited a desire "to do something else, something in public policy."

1996 U.S. Senate race

Bruggere won the Democratic nomination for the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and po ...

seat vacated by the retiring

Mark Hatfield Mark Odom Hatfield (July 12, 1922 – August 7, 2011) was an American politician and educator from the state of Oregon. A Republican, he served for 30 years as a United States senator from Oregon, and also as chairman of the Senate Approp ...

in 1996. Spending $800,000 of his own money in the primary race, he was one of 134 candidates for the U.S. Congress to finance their own elections in excess of $50,000 in that cycle. Bruggere's

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

opponent,

Gordon Smith Gordon Smith may refer to: In politics * Gordon H. Smith (born 1952), former U.S. Senator from Oregon, and current Area Authority for the LDS Church *Gordon Elsworth Smith (1918–2005), Canadian politician *Gordon Smith (academic) (1927–2009), ...

, was also heavily self-financed, having spent $2.5 million of his own money earlier that same year in an unsuccessful effort to defeat Democrat

Ron Wyden Ronald Lee Wyden (; born May 3, 1949) is an American politician and retired educator serving as the senior United States senator from Oregon, a seat he has held since 1996. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the United States Hou ...

in the

special election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

to replace

Bob Packwood Robert William Packwood (born September 11, 1932) is an American retired lawyer and politician from Oregon and a member of the Republican Party. He resigned from the United States Senate, under threat of expulsion, in 1995 after allegations of ...

, who had resigned. In the general election race, most Oregon daily newspapers endorsed Smith over Bruggere. Bruggere lost a close election to Smith, with neither side claiming victory for several days after the election, when

absentee ballots An absentee ballot is a vote cast by someone who is unable or unwilling to attend the official polling station to which the voter is normally allocated. Methods include voting at a different location, postal voting, proxy voting and online votin ...

were tallied.

Further business ventures

Bruggere was the founding Chairman of

Stamps.com Stamps.com is an American company that provides Internet-based mailing and shipping services. Until its acquisition by Thoma Bravo Stamps.com was a public company traded on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol STMP. The company's main offices ...

and Sensoria. He resigned from the Stamps.com board in October 2000. He has also served on the boards of

Will Vinton Studios William Gale Vinton (November 17, 1947 – October 4, 2018) was an American animator and filmmaker. Vinton was best known for his Claymation work, alongside creating iconic characters such as The California Raisins. He won an Oscar for his work a ...

OpenMarket OpenMarket Inc. is a privately owned subsidiary of Infobip that provides cloud-based mobile messaging solutions to enterprises, including global one-way and two-way SMS, MMS, RCS, short codes, local numbers and text-enabled toll-free messagin ...

, and Sirigen and on the advisory boards of Mercy Corps and of the Technology Management Program at

UCSB The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

. As of 2011, he was part of the management team of 13therapeutics, a biotech spin-off of the

Oregon Health & Science University Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) is a public research university focusing primarily on health sciences with a main campus, including two hospitals, in Portland, Oregon. The institution was founded in 1887 as the University of Oregon ...

(OHSU)."Company: 13Therapeutics website"
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bruggere, Tom 1946 births Living people Businesspeople from Oregon People from Wilsonville, Oregon Candidates in the 1996 United States elections Oregon Democrats 20th-century American politicians United States Army soldiers Businesspeople from Berkeley, California University of California, Santa Barbara alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Pepperdine University alumni Tektronix people Burroughs Corporation people Engineers from Oregon Engineers from California