Bush Announces Information Tech Advisory Council

Gov. Bush

(July 8, 1999) Texas Governor George Bush announced the formation of an Information Technology Advisory Council for his presidential campaign on Wednesday, July 7. The group is chaired by Michael Dell, and reads like a who's who list of high tech leaders.

The list of co-chairmen provides further evidence that George Bush is winning widespread support from high tech companies. In addition to Michael Dell, the Chairman of the Texas based Dell Computer Corp., the other co-chairmen are:

Michael Dell

Dell Computer Corp. is one of the world's top PC makers and the world's leading direct-sale computer vendor. Michael Dell founded the company in 1984. He is the longest tenured CEO of any major US computer company. He owns 14% of the company, which had a market capitalization of $97.3 Billion as of July 7.

Dell Computer Corp. sells hardware and markets third-party software and peripherals. Its products include notebooks, PCs, and network servers. It also markets a variety of peripherals and software for other manufacturers. Nearly 70% of its systems are sold to government entities and large businesses.

The group will advise Gov. Bush on high technology issues and help recruit other industry leaders for Bush. 

The George W. Bush for President web site released the following biographies of the co-chairmen.
Michael Dell

As Chairman and CEO of Dell Computer Corporation, Dell oversees the leading direct sales computer company and the fastest-growing major computer systems company in the world. He founded the company in 1984 with $1,000 and an unprecedented idea in the personal computer industry: bypass the middleman and sell custom-built PCs directly to end-users. The company subsequently pioneered toll-free technical support, onsite service, and factory integration of software-programs which today have become standards in the computer systems industry. Dell is acknowledged as the largest online commercial seller of computer systems, with an average of $18 million per day in online sales.

James Barksdale

As managing partner at The Barksdale Group, Barksdale oversees the full service investment advisory firm he founded in April of 1999. Prior to starting The Barksdale Group, he was President and CEO at Netscape Communications Corporation. In these positions he oversaw all aspects of the growing Internet software company, which provides open software to enable people and companies to exchange information and conduct commerce over the Internet and other global networks. Previously, Barksdale served as CEO of AT&T Wireless Services.

Carol Bartz

In 1992, Carol Bartz became chairman of the board and CEO of Autodesk, Inc., the world’s leading supplier of design software and the fifth-largest PC software company in the world. Under Bartz’s leadership, the company has diversified its product line and grown net revenues from $285 million to more than $500 million. Bartz previously held positions at Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment Corporation and 3M Corporation.

John Chambers

During the past four years as President and CEO, Chambers has grown Cisco from $1.2 billion in annual revenues to its current run-rate of $11 billion by establishing leadership in key technology sectors of the networking industry and aggressively pursuing new market opportunities. Silicon Valley’s hometown publication, Upside Magazine, recently ranked Chambers as "the top titan of the digital world." For the second time in three years, Business Week has named Chambers one of the top 25 executives worldwide.

Richard Egan

Egan, Founder of EMC Corp., held the position of President and CEO until 1992. In 1988, Egan brought the company public and was elected Chairman of the Board. EMC Corporation, with 6,300 employees worldwide and over $2.94 billion in annual revenue in 1997, is the world’s leading supplier of intelligent enterprise storage and retrieval technology, designing systems for open system, mainframe and midrange environments.

Thomas J. Engibous

Thomas J. Engibous was elected president and chief executive officer of Texas Instruments Incorporated, one of the world’s leading electronics companies, in 1996. He joined the company in 1976 and has spent all of his operational career in the company’s semiconductor business.

Robert Herbold

Herbold serves as a senior executive at Microsoft Corporation, the leading worldwide provider of software for personal computers. He is responsible for worldwide operations at Microsoft, including finance, manufacturing and distribution, information systems, human resources, public relations, procurement, corporate services and real estate. He is a member of Microsoft’s Business Leadership Team. This group shares responsibility with Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman and chief executive officer, for broad strategic and business planning for the entire company.

Raymond J. Lane

Raymond J. Lane is President and COO of Oracle Corporation, the second-largest software company in the world and the leading enterprise software and services company. Mr. Lane is responsible for planning, communicating and implementing policy and strategy decisions formulated by the firm’s Executive Committee. Oracle has exhibited phenomenal sales growth under Mr. Lane’s leadership, from approximately $1 billion in FY93 to its current revenue of $8 billion.

Steve Papermaster

Papermaster serves both as CEO of Agillion, an internet business services company, and as chairman of Powershift Group, an Austin-based technology venture development company. He currently serves on the Boards of Directors for Vignett, TechRepublic, Netpliance, Net-worker.com and Perficient, Inc.