Don Rodriguez:  

I left Tucson right after graduation to attend Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA where I got my BS in Physics in 1972. I then got an engineer job at Hughes Aircraft in Culver City and lived the 70's on different beaches near LA......Venice, Hermosa, Santa Monica, Playa del Rey, and Manhattan Beach. After 3 years finally got an R & D job at Magnavox Research in Torrance where I worked on radiation effects on communcation systems and advanced semiconductor technologies (BBD, CCD's, I2L, Magnetic Memories). In 1978 I was recruited out of nerd stuff into sales and marketing for semiconductor companies. I first worked briefly for Signetics but was stolen out of there by Advanced Micro Devices and started the rocket ship career with that fast growing company. I went from living in my Datsun station wagon on the beach, to having an office in Beverly HIlls and driving a new BMW. It was very overwhelming at first , but I acclimated quickly. Got my first promotion to REgional Sales Mgr in 3 years, but had to move to Maryland to run some southern states. I lived in Columbia, Maryland in the early 80's and got my horizons expanded on different business and cultural styles as I grew up in management. Got promoted again back to the factory in Silicon Valley in 1984 and lived in Los Gatos and the Rose Garden (San Jose) until retiring back to Arizona in 2005. During that time I became a Vice President, then corporate officer of a couple of other companies. Worked at the hottest start up in the industry Cirrus Logic, where we set an industry record of growing in 9 years to over $1B in sales. And on the person...Expand for more