Franz Birkner

Who is Franz Birkner?

Co-Founder President and CEO

Franz brings to Rayspan over 25 years of successful

experience as a telecommunications entrepreneur and venture capital

investor in the wireless, wireline and optical networking sectors. In

addition to serving as CEO of Rayspan he is also a co-founder and

Managing Director of Express Ventures. Previously, he was an active

investor and board member at Dot Wireless, acquired by Texas

Instruments, and Cognet Microsystems, acquired by Intel.

He was co-founder and chairman/CEO of ComStream

Corporation, a highly successful supplier of digital satellite

communications equipment which was acquired by Spar Aerospace. For his

accomplishments at ComStream, Franz was elected San Diego High Tech

Entrepreneur of the Year. He also has served as Vice President -

Strategy Development for Linkabit and the Digital Communications units

of M/A-COM.

Franz was a founder of the San Diego Telecomm Council

and launched its University Outreach program. He serves on the advisory

boards of UCSD's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,

Calit2 OptIPuter project, and Center for Networked Systems.

Previously, he was a manager at the Boston Consulting

Group, where he provided strategy development services to numerous

major corporations. Franz began his career as an engineer at

Watkins-Johnson Corporation, where he designed digitally controlled

microwave surveillance systems. He earned dual B.S. degrees with honors

from MIT's School of Electrical Engineering and from its Sloan School

of Management.