Utah Capital Investment Corporation Biographies
Will West
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Mr. West is the President, CEO, and Co-Founder of Control4, a manufacturer of residential control systems. This is the fourth new technology company he has started in Utah with his long time partner Eric Smith. Control4 recently closed its Series A financing, adding to the more than $200 million in private capital Mr. West has raised in the past 5 years. Will, Eric and their partner Mark Morgan plan to release Control4 products to the market this year.
Mr. West also co-founded STSN in 1998 and has served as its Chairman, CEO, and President. He and the rest of the STSN team have grown the company to where it is today -- the worldwide leading provider of wired and wireless broadband services for business travelers. Every month, more than a quarter of a million business travelers rely on STSN to keep them connected while they are on the road. STSN's secure broadband solutions are available in hundreds of thousands of guest rooms and hotel meeting rooms worldwide.
Prior to founding STSN, Will was the CEO, President and Co-Founder of PHAST Corporation. Under his leadership PHAST Corporation (now a division of a larger control systems company) became the leading manufacturer of high-end home automation systems. PHAST brought to market over 30 electronic control products and an extensive suite of software that revolutionized the residential systems market.
Mr. West's professional experience includes work at Proctor and Gamble, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, Price Waterhouse, and Wasatch Advisors. Mr. West holds a Bachelor's degree in Finance from the University of Utah and a Masters in Business Administration from the Wharton School of Business. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Ed Alter
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Prior to joining the UCIC, Mr. Alter served as a board member of the Utah Capital Investment Board (UCIB), and recently completed 28 years as Utah State Treasurer, electing to retire at the end of last year. As Treasurer, Mr. Alter's major responsibilities included cash management and investment of state funds and selling general obligation and revenue bonds.
Alter's tenure as Utah's Treasurer encompassed seven four-year terms. First elected in 1980, he served in the administrations of five governors, on both sides of the aisle: Democrat Scott Matheson and Republicans Norman Bangerter, Michael Leavitt, Olene Walker and Jon Huntsman Jr.
Alter played a significant role in helping build Utah's economy into one of the nation's most solid and dynamic, for which he garnered numerous honors and accolades. He was recognized nationally for his innovative leadership in public financial management, including:
- Elected as President of the National Association of State Treasurers in 1986
- Named by City and State magazine to its All-Pro Government Team in 1988
- Received the first Jesse M. Unruh award for treasury excellence from the National Association of State Treasurers in 1989
Alter has been a member of the Utah State Retirement Board since 1981, and has served as President of the Board for nine years. He is also a member of the State Bonding Commission, the Private Activity Bond Review Board and the Utah Housing Finance Agency Board. Prior to his election as state treasurer, Mr. Alter was the assistant treasurer for the University of Utah (1972-1980). He began his career in the public accounting profession as a senior accountant in Los Angeles (1967-1972), where he became a CPA.
Richard Nelson
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Richard Nelson is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Utah Information Technology Association (UITA), the premier industry-driven, high-tech professional organization in the state. UITA is recognized also as one of the top information technology councils in the country. He has represented the industry since 1999, with highlights ranging from leading the industry's enormously successful passage of the $100 million Fund of Funds with the 2003 Legislature (which will significantly increase venture funds in coming years) to providing industry testimony before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. He likes to refer to his industry role as the "community builder" in fostering Utah's highly-recognized IT community -- with over 2600 IT companies.
Mr. Nelson has an MBA from Northwestern University in marketing and finance and a Bachelor of Science Degree from Brigham Young University. In 2000, Governor Leavitt appointed him to the state's Board of Business and Economic Development. Mr. Nelson is on a number of boards, including the executive committee of the Council of Regional Information Technology Associations - the world's largest high tech council with over 22,000 technology-related companies.
Mr. Nelson has held responsible industry positions, including: Managing Director of a successful merger and acquisition intermediary firm; co-founder and Executive Vice President of Dayna Communications (a successful high tech start-up where he raised the early stage and LBO funds); National Finance Administrator for the Reagan for President national campaign staff, and a successful marketing representative for an IBM developed company. In addition, he had an appointment with Governor Leavitt as the director of the state's Bond Authority and Incentive Funds.
Mr. Nelson currently serves on the following boards: Board of Governors, Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce; Economic Development Corporation of Utah Board; Industry Advisory Board, College of Engineering, University of Utah; Rollins Center for eBusiness @ BYU; Technology Entrepreneur Advisory Board, Westminster College; and the Utah Technology Industry Council. Mr. Nelson has served on the board of directors of Fidelity Trust Company, a national credit card bank of Fidelity Investments; eCharge Bank board; past president of the Salt Lake BYU Management Society; committee chair of the Salt Lake Rotary Club; and past president and current board member of the National Kidney Foundation of Utah. In 1991 he received a highly successful transplant and continues to be proactive with top genetic research authorities at the Mayo Clinic. He loves working and living in Utah with his spouse Karen, four sons, and one daughter.
Geoff Woolley
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Geoffrey T. Woolley has been active in private equity investing for over 20 years and founded two successful venture funds in the United States and Europe. He pioneered the concept of venture debt and has invested in over four hundred companies in his career.
Business titles include Founding Partner of Dominion Ventures, Inc. and Executive Chairman of European Venture Partner. Forming Dominion in 1985 at the age of twenty-four, he is the youngest person to raise an institution private equity fund from institutions that include Calpers, IBM, Mitsui, Travelers, Duke University and many others. At Dominion, he raised and managed over $750,000,000 while returning attractive returns to investors. In 1998, he stepped back to an advisory role at Dominion to enable time to pursue other non-profit and business interests. At Dominion he invested in well know companies such as Ciena, Coinstar, Human Genome Sciences, Powersoft, Tivoli, Vertex and Xylan along with hundreds of successful and not so successful companies.
He founded European Venture Partners (EVP) in 1997 to introduce "venture leasing", an asset backed debt instrument with equity participation to the European and Israeli market. With offices in London, Tel Aviv and Stockholm, the company has successfully invested over ?200,000,000 in various early stage companies. He remains active spending up to ten days monthly in Europe and has been able to return superior returns to investors despite a major private equity downturn.
Mr. Woolley serves as an advisor on the boards of Polaris Ventures, Euclid SR Partners, and Von Braun & Schrieber Private Equity. He provides advice on strategy, fund raising and is an investor in these well known funds.
He is very active in Eccles Business School at the University of Utah where he chairs a program to make the school a top entrepreneurial business school in the next seven years. This includes his Chair role of the University Venture Fund that is an independent non-profit, with student associates managing the fund. Raising a $20,000,000 fund, students work with well established venture and buy-out funds to perform due diligence on prospective investments these top tier firms are investigating.
Mr. Woolley has been active with many worthy non-profits. For four years, he was Chairman of the NAMES Project Foundation, the caretaker of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. During his tenure, the organization organized forty local chapters, with over 20,000 volunteers and was able to raise multi million dollars to sustain the organization. He is on the board of Unitus, a microfinance non-profit that provides small loans to the world in very poor places such as India, Bolivia, Mexico and South Africa. Geoff was active in the 2000 presidential election and took an active "co-chair" role in the Gore 2000 campaign.
Mr. Woolley holds an MBA degree from the University of Utah and a BS in Business Management from Brigham Young University
Peggy Wallace
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Peggy Wallace currently serves in the capacity of vice president for America First Credit Union, one of the nation's largest and most successful credit unions. A Utah native, Ms. Wallace has worked almost forty years in positions of increasing responsibility and influence within the financial services industry. Prior to her current role, she has served as: operations officer for United California Bank; senior operations officer for American Savings and Loan's Southern Division; and associate vice president over Savings Administration for Beverly Hills Savings.
Ms. Wallace has served on numerous professional and community boards, and currently serves on: the Utah Cooperative Alliance; Utah Professional Republican Women; Republican Women's PAC; as a long-standing Development Education board member with the World Organization of Credit Unions; and on the public policy committee for the Utah Technology Council (UTC).
From 2001 through 2006, Ms. Wallace served as the Representative for West Jordan in the Utah Legislature, where she chaired the commerce and revenues sub-appropriations committee for two years; was vice chair of Workforce Services for two years; and sponsored the Utah Fund of Funds legislation (Utah Venture Capital Enhancement Act).
Bret Jepsen
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Mr. Bret Jepsen was most recently with Sterling Stamos Capital Management as a Director of Venture Capital in the Private Equity Group. Mr. Jepsen has nearly 10 years of principal investing experience in private equity and venture capital. Prior to joining Sterling Stamos, he managed the $1.5 billion venture capital portfolio for the City of San Francisco's Investment Office. While at San Francisco, Mr. Jepsen gained access to several top-tier, oversubscribed venture capital funds and created a secondary program designed to enhance returns by acquiring less-risky, pre-identified venture capital portfolios. He currently serves as an advisor to several venture capital funds in the San Francisco Bay Area and East Coast. Mr. Jepsen has spoken at industry events including the IBF Venture Capital Investing Conference, University Venture Fund Summit, and Silicon Valley SDForum. Prior to his work for the City of San Francisco, he worked at Connecticut-based Portfolio Advisors, LLC, where he helped monitor and build private equity programs for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Pennsylvania Employees’ Retirement System and San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System. Mr. Jepsen also gained direct investment experience while working for Dominion Ventures, LLC.
Mr. Jepsen received his BA from Brigham Young University and an MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management, where he co-authored a case study on the private equity secondary industry.
