Management Team
Girvan Patterson - CEO
Girvan Patterson, co-founder of GaN Systems, is a chartered electrical engineer and has nearly forty years experience in the telecommunications and data networking fields and twenty years public company board experience.
He worked initially on the development of the first processor controlled switching systems with GEC Telecommunications UK, gaining patents and industry recognition for his work, and latterly on the early implementation of CAD systems. After joining Bell-Northern Research he headed up the successful development of CAD/CAM tools for BNR and their subsequent deployment into Nortel as part of the Digital World rollout.
Since then he has gone on to a successful business career, founding graphics workstation producer Orcatech Inc and co-founding Plaintree Systems Inc, a pioneer in Ethernet switching. He has completed four IPOs on the TSX and NASDAQ. His greatest strengths and interests are in start-up management and international sales.
John Roberts - CTO
John Roberts, a co-founder of GaN Systems, has extensive experience in the semiconductor area and has been a founder/president of two Ottawa based semiconductor companies, Calmos (later Tundra) Semiconductor and SiGe Semiconductor.
Previously with Siliconix Inc., GEC Semiconductor and Microsystems International, in 1976 he joined Mosaid Technologies where he developed the SRAM report service. After founding Calmos, in 1989 John became CEO of the Strategic Microelectronic Consortium, an alliance of twenty-five Canadian companies including Nortel, PMC Sierra, IBM, Gennum Corporation, C-MAC MicroTechnology and other hybrid and semiconductor manufacturers. In addition, John has served on numerous boards of semiconductor companies, and holds a Master’s degree awarded by Swansea University and a Bachelor’s degree from Cardiff University.
Geoff Haynes - VP Business Development
In forty years of semiconductor and systems experience, Geoff has always been involved in customer facing roles where a broad technical understanding of products and processes has been essential to building long lasting partnerships.
His early semiconductor design experience began at Marconi in the UK becoming consumer products design group manager. This was followed by 25 years of senior sales and business management positions at Harris Semiconductor, Matra MHS and Maxim Integrated Products. In 1997 he co-founded SiGe Semiconductor and led the European sales drive. Educated at Kingston College in Surrey, Geoff is a Chartered Engineer.