Technology >> CEO Interviews >> November 27, 2000
RADU M. VANCO was named President and Chief Executive Officer of
Catalyst Semiconductor, Inc. in March 1998 and brings to the job a very
strong technical expertise and business background. Mr. Vanco joined
Catalyst in November 1992 as Vice President of Engineering and was
promoted to Executive Vice President and COO in October 1996. He was
elected to serve on the company's Board of Directors in November 1995.
As Executive Vice President, Mr. Vanco had the responsibility of
overseeing and coordinating all engineering activities including design,
product/test engineering, technology development and managing the
company's business units. Mr. Vanco also played an important role in
business development activities including licensing, foundry, steering
the new product strategy and in establishing the company offshore
engineering activities in Eastern Europe. Before joining Catalyst, Mr.
Vanco was Product Line Manager of the High Density PLD at Cypress
Semiconductor since February 1991, contributing to substantially
increasing the revenues and market share of the business. Before that,
since 1985, he held various senior engineering and management positions
with SEEQ Technology, one of the EEPROM technology pioneering firms. At
SEEQ Technology, Mr. Vanco is credited with developing a number of
creative high endurance, high speed military grade EEPROM products. Mr.
Vanco was born and educated in Romania. He earned his MS degree and
graduated at top of his class from the Politechnical Institute of
Bucharest, Romania in 1972. Between 1972 and 1984, Mr. Vanco held
various technical and managerial positions at the Research Institute of
Semiconductors in Bucharest, Romania, where he performed pioneering work
in the development of the first MOS LSI circuits in Romania. He
immigrated to the US in 1985. Mr. Vanco has authored a number of
scientific papers, made presentations at ISSCC and is the author of a
number of patents. Profile
Semiconductor?
Mr. Vanco: The company was founded about 15 years ago, in 1985, and went
public in 1993. From the
