I have always believed that an engineering degree is an excellent foundation for life. At its most fundamental level, engineering is about learning, creating, understanding, and making our world better. I see it being lived out broadly in technology improvements, science discovery, understanding of markets, and implementation of existing and emerging businesses.

 

Brian R. Smith is a Managing Partner for Techxas Ventures, an early-stage technology venture capital firm. Based in Austin, the firm has invested over $50 million in the last six years, making it one of the most active seed and early-stage investors in Texas. One of its earliest investments, Motive, went public in June 2004. The firm focuses its investment activities on commercializing disruptive technologies and applications, specializes in investing its capital at the earliest stages of development, and has developed a high-value-add, CEO-Centric approach.

Smith is also Managing Partner for Convergent Investors VI, with which he has been involved since 1999. In addition, he is co-founder and Chairman of Crossroads Systems, Inc., which began in 1994 initially as a consulting company and rapidly evolved into today’s storage routing leader. He took Crossroads public in 1999 and served as CEO from 1994 to 2003. Before starting Crossroads, he held various development and management positions at IBM.

Smith earned a BSEE from the University of Cincinnati and an MSEE from Purdue University. He currently serves on the boards of Crossroads Systems and Colabranet, and is chairman of the board at Teravicta Technology. With two patents to his credit, he was selected the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2000.