After completing his BSEE at Purdue in 1968, James A. Katzman joined Hewlett-Packard and while at the company was one of the principal architects of the H-P 3000 computer system. In 1971 he moved to Amdahl Corporation where he was responsible for the design of the integrated I/O channel for the Amdahl 470V/6 system.

In 1974 Katzman founded Tandem Computers Incorporated, serving as vice president of engineering for the first four years. He was one of the principal architects of the Tandem NonStopTM system and later served as vice president of Western operations and headed Tandem's Management Development Program.

Since 1983 Katzman has been an independent investor in high technology companies and has served as director of start-up companies in businesses such as optical character generation, computer imaging, scientific computing, and computer systems software. He is also a special limited partner in Technology Venture Investors (TVI).

Katzman received his MSEE from Stanford University in 1971. He is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, Data Processing Advisory Board at Evergreen Valley College, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He has been a guest lecturer at San Jose State, the University of Utah, and Stanford University. He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, and Omicron Delta Kappa.