Larson, Robert E.

Larson, Robert E.

former President
IEEE

Robert Larson is Co-founder and Managing Director of the Woodside Fund. Dr. Larson has enjoyed a challenging and fruitful career in the computer and electronics industry for the past 35 years. He has an exceptionally broad exposure to the most recent developments in these technologies. Dr. Larson was co-founder, President, and CEO of Systems Control, a computer systems and software company with 500 employees, including 100 with Ph.D. degrees, prior to its sale to British Petroleum. In addition, he was President of the international Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the 340,000 member professional society for electrical engineers and computer scientists. As IEEE President in 1980, he visited China for the first of his many trips, where he gave a lecture at Tsinghua University, and visited many ministries involved in electrical engineering industries. The meetings included the Ministry of Electric Power, where he met former Chairman Jiang Zemin. This meeting resulted in a technology transfer to China, the Electric Power Energy Management System/Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition technology, that is still being used in China. In 1990s, he was asked by Chairman Jiang to guide the implementation of the privatization model of various sectors, working with State Council Development Research Center.

Dr. Larson has worked for IBM, Hughes Aircraft, and SRI International. He was also a Consulting Professor at Stanford University in the Engineering-Economic Systems Department for over 20 years. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from Stanford University, and a B.S. degree from MIT, all in Electrical Engineering. He has written six textbooks and 140 technical papers on software and computer systems.