Celebrating the Life of
Dr . Frank S . Greene
October 19 , 1938 – December 26 , 2009
21ST ANNUAL SCIENCE FAIR & AWARDS CEREMONY
Each year we acknowledge the life of Dr . Frank S . Greene who was a scientist , an educator , a parent , a mentor , a venture capitalist , and a Silicon Valley entrepreneur . His legacy sets the standard of excellence for the Dr . Frank S . Greene Scholars Program .
Dr . Frank Greene was one of the first African-Americans pioneering technologies in Silicon Valley . He was among the first Black students to attend college at Washington University in St . Louis where he obtained his B . S . in Electrical Engineering . He continued his education and earned a M . S . in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University . After earning his M . S ., he served four years in the U . S . Air Force and became an Air Force captain . In 1970 , he completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering at Santa Clara University .
Dr . Greene stood among technology giants such as Robert Noyce , William Hewlett , and David Packard . Dr . Greene is one of the 63 inductees into the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame , given by the Silicon Valley Engineering Council . In addition , he was also the recipient of the Purdue University Outstanding Electrical Engineer Award , was honored by the title of the Santa Clara University Distinguished Engineering Alumnus , and was distinguished as one of the 50 Most Important African- Americans in Technology in an exhibit at Palo Alto City Hall .
In the mid 1960s , Dr . Greene came to Silicon Valley to join Fairchild Semi-conductor R & D Labs as a memory chip and system designer . Here , he developed high-speed semiconductor computer-memory systems . He held the patent for the integrated circuit that made Fairchild a semiconductor leader in the 1960s .
In the early 1970s , he became an entrepreneur and eventually co-founded and built two technology companies , Technology Development Corp . and Zero One Systems Inc ., that developed software and computer services . He later founded New Vista Capital , a Silicon Valley venture capital firm , with a special focus on minority and female-headed firms .
He gave back by teaching Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at five different universities : Howard University , Santa Clara University , Stanford University , Northwestern University , and Washington University in St . Louis .
His most recent project was launching the GO-Positive Foundation , which offers leadership programs with “ core positive values ” for high school and college students . He felt that Vision , Relationships , and Execution ( VRE ) were the components of leadership . Dr . Frank S . Greene made a huge impact and his legacy will live on through the Greene Scholars Program .
On November 14 , 2018 the former Jordan Middle School in Palo Alto held a ceremony celebrating the renaming of the middle school in honor of Dr . Frank S . Greene . The Palo Alto School Board voted to rename the school after a GSP Scholar project became the catalyst for the petition to replace David Starr Jordan , an advocate of eugenics , as the school namesake .
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