Lifetime Achievement in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Award
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2004 Recipient: Sanford R. Robertson |
Sanford R. Robertson has been a moving force in the creation and evolution of Silicon Valley as a center of entrepreneurship and high-tech enterprise. An innovator and entrepreneur, he helped define venture capital and investment banking.
Mr. Robertson, co-founder of Robertson Stephens and of Francisco Partners, led the initial public offerings of many of the nation’s best known high tech firms, including Applied Materials, Sun Microsystems, Dell computer, and Pixar Animation. He presently serves as a Director of Dolby Laboratories, salesforce.com, Pain Therapeutics, and the Schwab Fund for Charitable Giving.
He is on the advisory board of the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose and was a founder of the Bay Area Life Sciences Alliance and was instrumental in the creation of UCSF Mission Bay.
The lifetime achievement award was inaugurated in 1998.
Honorees include:
2007 Recipient: L. John Doerr
2006 Recipient: F. Warren Hellman
2005 Recipient: C. Richard Kramlich
2004 Recipient: Sanford R. Robertson
2003 Recipient: Dr. Ralph Landau
2002 Recipient: Dr. Edward Penhoet
2001 Recipient: Mr. William Hambrecht
2000 Recipient: Dr. Gordon Moore
1999 Recipient: Mr. Arthur Rock
1998 Recipient: Dr. Alejandro Zaffaroni
Through the Lifetime Achievement Award, we seek to identify exemplars of entrepreneurship whose success can teach future generations by the example they set. Further, it allows us to bring outstanding practitioners to the Berkeley campus, creating opportunities for exchanges of ideas with faculty and students. We believe that by enhancing the interaction among academics, entrepreneurs, scientists and faculty, pragmatists and idealists, we help foster entrepreneurial success for individuals and the community as a whole.
The Lester Center has identified three distinct components shared by successful entrepreneurs. The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes the presence of these elements in the people who are thus honored. First, the award recognizes entrepreneurial excellence. This is reflected in the individual’s success in multiple business arenas and the significant impact of that success on a given industry.
Second, the award acknowledges the individual’s leadership in both business and community. As a leader, the award recipient models behavior that young entrepreneurs can emulate.
The third component of the award recognizes the efforts by which the entrepreneur returns value to his/her community. The award recipient’s contributions may be to the preservation of the environment, improvement of educational opportunity, or some other substantial contribution to the well-being of the community.
