Stephen S. Schwartz is president of Consilium, a wholly owned subsidiary of Applied Materials. Schwartz completed bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering at Purdue and an MBA from the University of Chicago before joining Applied Materials in June 1987 as a member of the Epitaxial Products Marketing Group. He was named marketing manager in 1988 and product manager in 1991. He became director of marketing in 1992 and was promoted to general manager of the High Temperature Films Division in 1993. In 1994 he moved the HTF Division headquarters to Japan and managed the division from the company's technology center in Narita. In 1997 he was named general manager of the IBSS Service Division and was promoted to vice president and general manager of the Field Operations Division of the Installed Base Support Services Product Group in 1998. He was named president of Consilium in 1999.

A Fortune 500 global company, Applied Materials is the largest producer of wafer fabrication systems and services for the worldwide semiconductor industry. Applied Materials manufactures systems that perform chemical vapor deposition (CVD), physical vapor deposition (PVD), epitaxial and polysilicon deposition, rapid thermal processing (RTP), plasma etching, ion implantation, metrology, inspection, and chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). In 1998 the company reported $4 billion in revenue, an investment of $643.9 million in research, development and engineering, and net income of $230.9 million.

Schwartz serves as the Purdue University Champion on Applied Materials' university relations team.