Christopher Varelas
United States
Mr. Gary Bjorklund serves as a Board Member at OndaVia. In the early part of his career, Bjorklund worked at two major industrial research laboratories. From 1974-1979, Bjorklund was a member of the Technical Staff at Bell Labs, Holmdel, where he performed research in quantum electronics and nonlinear optics. From 1979-94 he worked for IBM Research in San Jose in management positions where he directed technology development efforts on a variety of applications of photonics for information technology. Since 1994, Bjorklund has been involved primarily with small companies. He has served as an executive, consultant, and board member for a number of photonics startups. From 1994-98 he was Director of Advanced Development at Optivision/Optical Networks and from 2000-01 he was Chief Technology Officer at Nanovation Technologies. As a consultant, he has done work for a numerous photonics industry clients, including both companies and investors. From 2006-09, he served as Consulting Director for the Stanford Photonics Research Center (SPRC). Since 2009, he has been active as an angel investor in a number of high technology start-up companies in the areas of photonics and clean technology. He is a limited partner in the CalCEF Clean Energy Fund and a member of the Band of Angels. He is currently active in the Bands Clean Tech/Energy SIG. Bjorklund has also been active in the leadership of several non-profit organizations. He served on the Board of Governors of the IEEE Lasers and Electro-optics Society from 1982-87 and was President of that organization in 1986. He also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Optical Society of America (OSA) from 1989-99 and was President of that society in 1998. More recently, Bjorklund has been involved as a founder of the OSA Foundation, an organization created to bring a focus to and raise funding for the OSAs charitable activities. The OSA Foundation supports programs that advance youth science education, provide optics education and resources to underserved populations, and furnish resources for career and professional development. He served as the first Chairman of the Board of Directors of the OSA Foundation from 2002-08. In 2010, Bjorklund was elected to the Board of Directors of the Monterey Symphony and he is currently serving as a member of the Finance, Governance, and Strategy Committees of that organization. Bjorklund is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a Fellow of the OSA. In 2010 he was the recipient of OSAs Distinguished Service Award. Gary C. Bjorklund did his undergraduate work at M.I.T., where he majored in Physics, and his Ph.D. research at Stanford University in the Department of Applied Physics.
Individual/Angel