Tom Baruch has built a career around his passion that the United States is exceptional at innovation largely because the entrepreneurial spirit is pervasive in this country. He has spent 40-plus years "connecting the great ideas to the great company builders" – seeking out the entrepreneurs with the most innovative and transformative deep technology breakthroughs and helping them succeed. And what is truly unique about Mr. Baruch's approach is that he has achieved success through a variety of platforms: corporate partnerships, venture capital, academia, nonprofit organizations and the Council on Competitiveness.

In the late 1960s, before the words venture capital were even part of the American lexicon, Tom was honing his early-stage investment skills at Battelle Development Corporation. There he was responsible for finding innovators and helping them to commercialize products through a specifically dedicated Battelle fund. At Exxon in the 1970s through the early 1980s, Tom again managed investments and created several early-stage technology companies applying materials science and semiconductorindustry technologies such as Supertex (SUPX). In 1982, Tom founded and then served as CEO of Microwave Technology, Inc., a supplier of gallium arsenide integrated circuits and value-added sub-systems to the defense industry.

Tom founded CMEA Capital with New Enterprise Associates (NEA) in 1989 with several core tenets in mind that continue to be practiced 21 years later. CMEA believes that being able to identify and fund the truly significant scientific breakthroughs are at the heart of the United States' ability to compete on the global stage in the future. CMEA would invest not only our capital, but we would also invest as much sweat equity as needed to make our companies successful. Finally, the firm's culture would not be focused on the next exit, rather on building great companies.

Some of Tom's early success stories are Aclara Biosciences; Entropic Communications, Inc. (ENTR); Flextronics (FLEX); Netro (NTRO); Silicon Spice, acquired by Broadcomm (BRCM); and Symyx Technologies (SMMX).

Beginning in the early part of this decade, Tom envisioned that the low carbon economy would become the predominant theme in the global economy. Due to his earlier experience in the energy industry at Exxon and his strong grounding in applications of material science, Tom understood how the use of technology, especially from material science, could manipulate electrons to increase the storage and creation of energy.

Tom moved to head up the CMEA's energy & materials investments, which focus in the areas of efficient lighting, solar power generation and management, biofuels, and rechargeable batteries, among others. He serves as the Chairman of the Board and was an integral part in the founding of each of the following companies: Codexis Inc., CNano Technology, Intermolecular and Wildcat Discovery Technologies. He also serves on the boards of Draths, Entropic Communications (ENTR), Exela, FORO Energy, and Solyndra.

Tom holds an engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Juris Doctor degree from Capital University. He is a registered patent attorney. Tom is a member of the Board of Trustees of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he also served as co-chair of the recent successfully completed $1.4 billion Capital Campaign. At Rensselaer, Tom and his wife Johanna have funded the Richard Baruch, M.D. Chair in Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies as well as the Baruch Center for Solar Biochemical Research. Tom also serves on the Executive Committee of the Council on Competitiveness, designed to enhance U.S. competitiveness by fostering relationships between businesses, universities and the government.  He is also a member of the COC’s Energy Security, Innovation and Sustainability (ESIS) Initiative, as well as the COC’s U.S. Manufacturing Competitive Initiative.  Additionally, Tom is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Berkeley Institute for Synthetic Biology (BISB), the Board of Trustees of That Man May See Foundation and the Board of Trustees for UC San Diego’s Dean’s Leadership Council.  Recently, Mr. Baruch accepted an invitation to serve as an inaugural member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship advising the Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke, and the Administration on key issues related to innovation and entrepreneurship.

These personal commitments are consistent with Tom's belief that transformational entrepreneurship and technology are essential components for U.S.A. leadership going forward in the global economy.