Board of Directors

Roger Blethen was appointed Chairman of the Board of LTX Corporation in 2001—a recognized leader for innovative semiconductor test solutions, selling to the world's major integrated-circuit manufacturers. Mr. Blethen was President/Chief Executive Officer for 11 years, from 1994 through 2005.

A co-founder of LTX in 1976, Mr. Blethen led the development and marketing of three generations of LTX semiconductor test equipment (STE) systems, including the industry’s first scalable, single-platform system in 1999—named Fusion®. Mr. Blethen also guided LTX through a transition from high fixed costs and vertically integrated manufacturing to a leaner business model whose cornerstone is 100% outsourced manufacturing. This new business model created a nimble company that is better able to cope with the inherent volatility of the STE industry.

Roger Blethen received his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University in 1974. He now serves Northeastern as an advisor to the School of Technical Entrepreneurship and on its Industrial Advisory Board to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Mr. Blethen served for many years as a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Technical Advisory Committee on Exports. Recently, he became a charter member of the Corporate Directors™ Club, an education and networking organization for Public Company directors.

Mr. Blethen is a Director of MEMSIC Corporation, a maker of MEMS sensor ICs; Chairman of Diablo Technologies, a start-up producer of ICs for Advance Memory Buffer applications; and was formerly Chairman of Synad Technologies Ltd., a manufacturer of Wireless LAN ICs.

As Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, he has worked closely with lead customers and technology partners to translate Diablo’s high-speed mixed signal design expertise into a winning product portfolio. In his capacity as Chief Technical Officer, Riccardo has been defining Diablo’s technology roadmap and IP development programs since inception. Riccardo has been directly responsible for three rounds of equity financing, and has been a member of Diablo’s board of directors since the start of the company in 2002.

As a senior designer at Nortel Networks, Riccardo was pivotal in delivering one of the world’s most advanced Serializer/Deserializer (SerDes) technologies for switching and framer applications. He was involved in backplane protocol engineering and developed phase align algorithms for backplane and optical link SerDes macros. Riccardo was also manager of the OEM Hardware design group at Matrox Graphics Inc., where he and his team designed and supported multiple generations of desktop motherboard platforms for all the major PC OEMs including HP, Dell, Compaq, Siemens, and Fujitsu.

Riccardo holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering from Concordia University, where he specialized in Microwave and Optical Theory.

Prior to joining Celtic House, Tom was a research analyst at Eagle & Partners (now Dundee Securities).

He was also a partner at FiberMetrics and a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Tom serves on the boards of Diablo Technologies, NOVX Systems, Ontology Partners and VirtenSys.

He has served on the boards of BlazePhotonics (acquired by Crytal Fibre), Cambrian Systems (acquired by Nortel Networks), Extreme Packet Devices (acquired by PMC-Sierra), iMagicTV (IPO on TSE), ITF Optical Technologies (acquired by Avensys), March Networks, Northchurch Communications (acquired by Newbridge Networks), PixStream (acquired by Cisco), SkyStone Systems (acquired by Cisco) and Tropic Networks (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent).

Jean-François joined BDC Venture Capital in 2001. Before joining the Bank, Jean-François was Project Manager with Honeywell and possesses over 5 years relevant experience as Project Manager in the fields of process control as well as industrial ventilation/instrumentation for both Honeywell and Preston Phipps.

Jean-François holds a Masters degree in Business Administration with a Major in Finance and Information Technology from École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) and a Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering from École Polytechnique de Montréal.

Roger Jenkins joined GTI Capital in 1995 with more than ten years operational experience in finance, sales, marketing, engineering and product management acquired within telecom companies operating at the national and international levels, and more than five years of VC experience acquired at Société générale de financement du Québec. As Senior General Partner and co-owner, he is primarily responsible for managing all GTI Capital VC Funds.

Roger has gathered considerable operational experience, having occupied several management positions in leading technology-driven firms such as Bell Canada, Nortel and ABL Canada. He also played a key role in establishing the Technology Investments Group at Société générale de financement du Québec (SGF), where he gained substantial international experience. At SGF, he was responsible for investments in biotechnology, Software and Semiconductors. He sits or did sit on numerous boards of directors of IT companies, both private and public, such as Mediagrif, Skywave, LTrim, ITF, Max-T, DFT, Locus, Elix, etc. He is a Director of the Canadian Advanced Technology Association (CATA) and was previously a Director of the Canadian Venture Capital Association (CVCA).

Roger holds a Bachelor degree in mechanical engineering from Université de Sherbrooke and an MBA from école des hautes études commerciales (HEC). He also owns a Private Airplane Pilot License, he has run six marathons in the last ten years, the last two in New York in 2004 and 2005.