Management
Coulomb Technologies was founded in 2007 by experienced entrepreneurs and executives from Cisco Systems, Lucent Technologies, 3Com Networks, Echelon Corporation, and Tesla Motors. Two of the founding members bring valuable experience in local government.
- Richard Lowenthal, Founder and CEO
- Praveen K. Mandal, Founder and President
- Harjinder S. Bhade, Founder and Vice President of Engineering, Software
- Dave Baxter, Founder and Vice President of Engineering, Hardware
- Scott Saffian, Sr. Vice President of Worldwide Sales
- Tom Tormey, Vice President of Product Management
- Scott Williams, Vice President of Business Development
Richard Lowenthal
Founder and CEO
From 1998 – 2006 Richard Lowenthal provided business formation consulting services for high-tech startup firms as sole proprietor of Berteleda Consulting. Through his consulting firm, he has been involved in starting several companies, including Lightera, Pipal Systems and Procket Networks. From 1996 to 1997, Mr. Lowenthal was vice president and general manager of Cisco's WAN Access Products Division. From 1990 through 1995, Mr. Lowenthal was vice president of Research and Development for StrataCom, a telecommunications product development and manufacturing company. Prior to StrataCom, Mr. Lowenthal was co-founder and vice president of Engineering for Stardent Computers, a high-performance computer company in Sunnyvale, California. Mr. Lowenthal was also vice president of Engineering for Convergent Technologies in San Jose.
Mr. Lowenthal is also a former Mayor of Cupertino, California. He has chaired the boards of several organizations, including the Rotary Club of Cupertino, West Valley Community Services, Fremont Union High Schools Foundation and the Santa Clara County Libraries Joint Powers Authority. He is currently Chair of the Board of the YMCA's of Santa Clara Valley. Mr. Lowenthal has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley.
Praveen K. Mandal
Founder and President
Praveen K. Mandal brings to Coulomb Technologies more than 18 years of experience. Prior to Coulomb, he was vice president of research and development for Carrier Ethernet Solutions at Lucent Technologies. Before joining Lucent through an acquisition, Mr. Mandal was the vice president of engineering at Riverstone Networks, a company well regarded by many analysts as having the top technologies in the Carrier Ethernet routing market. Mr. Mandal joined Riverstone when Pipal Systems, where he served as CEO and Founder, was acquired. Before founding Pipal, Mr. Mandal held consulting and Venture Partner positions with numerous Venture Capital firms in Silicon Valley, providing his insight and expertise on market trends, telecommunications technology, and team assessments. Mr. Mandal is a veteran of five successful start-ups, including Redback Networks, Global Internet and ZeitNet. Mr. Mandal holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Santa Clara University.
Harjinder S. Bhade
Founder and Vice President of Engineering, Software
Harjinder S. Bhade has been in the networking field for more than 20 years, delivering highly scalable, fault-tolerant systems for the world's most demanding applications. Mr. Bhade has held variety of roles in this field, ranging from software engineer, to senior director of engineering, to positions in product quality and project management. Prior to Coulomb Technologies, Mr. Bhade was senior director of engineering at Lucent Technologies and Riverstone Networks. Mr. Bhade was founder and director of software at Pipal Systems, which was acquired by Riverstone Networks. Earlier in his career, Mr. Bhade worked in variety of engineering, project management and quality assurance roles at Pluris, ZeitNet, Network Equipment Technologies and Bell-Northern Research/Nortel. Mr. Bhade holds a B.S. degree in computer science from Chico State and an MBA from the University of Phoenix.
Dave Baxter
Founder and Vice President of Engineering, Hardware
Dave Baxter is a technology innovator and product developer. Mr. Baxter has held many senior management positions, including vice president of engineering at 3Com Corporation, where he led the development of numerous router based products, and vice president of engineering at Adept Technology, where he developed multiple generations of assembly robots and flexible automation controllers used in factories and food packaging plants worldwide. A pioneer of voice over broadband technology, Mr. Baxter led the development of the industry's first carrier grade voice over DSL system while vice president of engineering for Jetstream Communications.
Mr. Baxter has also directed customer service organizations for multiple companies, and earlier in his career, he developed computer systems, ranging from desktop workstations to a graphics supercomputer. Mr. Baxter received a B.S. from the Engineering College at Cornell University.
Scott Saffian
Sr. Vice President of Worldwide Sales
With more than 30 years of sales experience, Scott Saffian has generated significant revenue and built sales teams for both hardware and software organizations. Most recently Mr. Saffian was vice president of academic sales at Xythos Software, a leading provider of Internet-based document and file management applications. Through his leadership at Xythos he helped grow the business from less than 50,000 users to more than 4M licensed users today, and made them the undisputed leader in document management in higher education. Mr. Saffian was also the Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Xippix, an Internet-base visualization software company, and Aurora Technologies where he opened up distribution sales to the PRC through Hong Kong. Mr. Saffian holds degrees from the University of Pittsburgh.
Milton T. (Tom) Tormey
Vice President of Product Management
Tom Tormey brings to Coulomb demonstrated leadership of high volume, leading edge product development teams in multiple start-up companies. His early experience spans over 15 years in design and senior management positions at semiconductor companies such as Silicon Systems, Zymos, Sierra Semiconductor, and most recently as Vice President of Engineering at InvenSense where Mr. Tormey managed the design and product development teams that created the world's first dual-axis MEMS gyroscope. Prior to InvenSense, Mr. Tormey was Vice President of Engineering at Echelon Corporation where he spent 14 years managing the development of a wide range of networking hardware, including analog/digital boards and systems, routers, gateways, web servers and other 8-, 16- and 32-bit embedded systems as well as the development of an integrated network processor/ PHY chip family that has shipped in excess of 50 million units world-wide. Mr. Tormey received his BSEE from the University of California, Irvine and his MSEE from the University of California Berkeley. He is the co-author of four patents.
Scott Williams
Vice President of Business Development
Scott Williams has more than 25 years engaged in the creation of global technology companies in both the telecommunications and alternative energy vehicle markets. Prior to Coulomb, Mr. Williams has most recently built the global sales and marketing organizations for Vectrix Corporation, the creator of the world’s first highway legal high performance 100 percent electric maxi scooter. The Vectrix bike is now sold in eleven countries worldwide and is used by both celebrities and industry leaders, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay Leno and Robert Lutz, vice-chairman of General Motors. Mr. Williams is a graduate of Suffolk University in Boston with a degree in International Business / Computer Sciences.
