Lunch & Learn

James E Cates has over 40+ years’ of experience in the IT field. He spent 21 years at IBM in various R&D management positions, developing a broad range of successful IT products. He left IBM as a WW head of RD product development. He has spent 20+ years in Silicon Valley as the CIO, VP/IT and Corporate Process Officer at four high-tech companies(Silicon Graphics,Synopsys,Brocade and Altera) each building over $1 Billion in revenue. He was also the COO of IT Solutions (a startup that acquired Keane consulting). Currently, James works with Silicon Valley startups, non-profits, Venture funds and the CA Community College system to increase diversity in the STEM disciplines for industry. He is also a Co-Program Mgr (with an industry colleague)of the two year cybersecurity degree program at Merritt Community College in Oakland, CA. Along with the Merritt management team and faculty, he and his industry partner, Mark Egan, have established a very competitive cybersecurity program at Merritt. The Merritt College cybersecurity program has consistently placed some of its competitive teams in the top 5% of the National Cyber League(NCL) cybersecurity games. These games involve the participation of 400+ four and two year US colleges currently representing approximately 3593 US teams. Merritt’s Spring 23 competitive team placed 16th.