Tom Horgan CEO

Tom has been CEO of Acorn since 2001. Tom has over 25 years of experience in commercializing technologies and services, in multiple market segments. Previously, Tom was CEO of Maxwell Technologies, a long time San Diego company listed on Nasdaq. Maxwell pioneered the ultracapacitor under his guidance, and launched several innovative technologies that arose from more than 30 years of R&D in the defense sector. Barrons described Maxwell Technologies’ transformation from a defense technology company into a commercial one as one of the best in America under new management during that period.

Previously, Tom was a Vice President for Conner Peripherals, a multi-billion dollar disk drive manufacturer, which was acquired by Seagate in 1996. He has held senior management positions at Quantum and Digital Equipment Corporation where he led in establishing the company’s Information Security service and product initiative in Europe. Tom is involved in the investment community in San Diego, and serves as a director on a number of boards of privately held companies. Mr. Horgan holds a B.E. in Engineering, and a M.I.E. in Industrial Engineering from University College Dublin, Ireland.

Dr. R. Stockton Gaines EVP Technology

Dr. R. Stockton Gaines founded the company and is Executive Vice President, Technology. He has had a distinguished 40-year career in research, industry and investments. Until 1995, Dr. Gaines directed a research program at the Information Sciences Institute of USC, addressing issues in parallel computing system architectures, software operating systems and support. He managed the FAST Electronic Broker project, a successful demonstration of electronic commerce using a novel approach to brokered purchasing using E-Mail.

His work in industry has included consulting on general corporate issues, strategic planning, and management of specific hardware and software projects for numerous high technology companies such as IBM, EMC, Storage Technology, Silicon Graphics, Honeywell, Unisys, Olivetti, Control Data, Philips Data Systems, Northrop among many others. He has also consulted to a number of venture capital companies including Paragon Venture Partners and Brentwood Associates.

Dr. Gaines holds a B.S. in Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University.

Dr. Joe Daniele Chief Operating officer

Joe joined Acorn in June 2001 as Chief Operating Officer. An expert in Intellectual Property (IP) and technology commercialization, he has led R&D efforts and completed more than 400 IP arrangements over the years.

Previously, he served as Senior Vice President of Intellectual Property and Technology Commercialization at SAIC, a $6 billion San Diego-based Company. At SAIC, Joe was responsible for establishing the technology commercialization function and for generating significant revenue and equity through mining and commercializing the company’s patent and know-how portfolio.

Before joining SAIC in 1998, Joe held senior positions at Xerox Corporation in IP commercialization as well as product development, corporate strategy and new ventures. There, he established and headed Xerox’ Intellectual Capital Business Unit and Corporate Office for Management of Intellectual Property (COMIP). In all, Joe’s teams were responsible for management, licensing and commercialization of Xerox’ portfolio of more than 8,000 patents and associated know-how.

He holds an MBA from the University of Rochester, and a BSEE and Ph. D. in Physics of Solids from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Steve Caliguri Vice President - Telecom

Mr. Caliguri has over 25 years of experience in the telecom and technology industries.  He has been leading the telecom division within Acorn Technologies since its inception. Previously, he was one of eight founders and senior executive officer of Leap Wireless, Inc., which began as a spin-off of QUALCOMM in 1998.  Leap was an international wireless telecom company with a portfolio of spectrum licenses (Mexico, Chile, Australia, and Russia).

As a key member of the founding executive management team, Mr. Caliguri was responsible in making Leap become a major international wireless competitor.  During the time Mr. Caliguri was with Leap Wireless, the company staff increased from 6 to over 1,000; and revenues grew to over $500M annualized with over 1 million wireless customers becoming the 10th largest U.S. carrier in less than 3 years of operation. In addition, Mr. Caliguri has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions as well as investing in technology companies. Mr. Caliguri also held responsibility for Leap’s Chilean Wireless operating company investment, SMARTCOM PCS, where he was able to realize a profit of over $300M from the sale of the company. Prior to Leap Wireless, Mr. Caliguri was as Senior Director of Product Management for the CDMA Infrastructure Division of QUALCOMM where he focused on the development of world-class products for system-level applications, including WLL, mobility systems, data systems, and advanced network solutions. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Boston College in 1984 and an MSEE from Northeastern University in 1988. He also attended Boston College’s MBA program.

Dr. Paul Clifton Vice President - Semiconductor

Dr. Clifton has worked on the development and yield ramp of 130nm, 90nm, 65nm CMOS technologies as Device Group Manager at PDF Solutions, a Silicon Valley based provider of advanced process-design integration solutions to the IC industry. He has broad experience in semiconductor device and process engineering and optimization as well as consulting to industry on yield ramps for advanced generation technologies. He has specific process engineering expertise in CVD, epitaxy and strained Si. Prior to joining Acorn Technologies, Paul assisted a Japanese IDM in solving performance, leakage and variability issues for the 45nm technology.  Paul has also worked as research team leader at the University of Newcastle under Dr. Anthony O’Neill, where they pioneered development of Strained Silicon technologies in Europe. In addition he has held research fellowships at the Universities of Southampton (UK) and Tohoku (Japan) and at the CNRS (France) and a lectureship in Microelectronics at the University Of  Durham (UK).