Steve is a serial entrepreneur, board director, public speaker, author and aviator.
He is a nationally recognized thought leader on business competitiveness and is a frequent guest lecturer at the USC Marshall School of Business on entrepreneurship. He has conducted business in a dozen countries in Europe and Asia. He graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Mathematics, is an Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” for Software and Information Services and a recipient of the California Governor’s Special Recognition Award.
Steve serves on the U.S. State Department Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, which advises the Secretary of State on foreign policy issues. An Administration policy advisor on cyber security, he served in 2012 on the Department of Homeland Security Task Force on Cyber Security Resources, led one of the three working groups and personally briefed DHS Secretary Napolitano on the Task Force recommendations. At the Pacific Council on International Policy he is a member of the Board of Directors and serves as Chairman of the National Security Membership Committee.
Steve’s private equity investment company, Dolphin Capital Holdings inc., invests in innovative business strategies. Portfolio investments include: regenerative medicine, biotechnology, medical devices, applied materials development, alternative energy, distressed debt, and for income real estate. He serves on several public and private boards and is the Lead Director at Neostem, Inc., a NASDAQ traded leading innovator in stem cell research and therapies development.
Steve founded SM&A, an Aerospace & Defense Industry management-consulting firm that over 25 years grew to over $100 million in annual revenue, some 800 employees and spearheaded industry-changing innovations for winning U.S. Government contracts. During his tenure the company managed more than $360 Billion in major program competitions. After conducting a very successful NASDAQ listed IPO in 1998 he served as Chairman & CEO for another ten years. The company was sold to private equity in 2008.
A two-time US Air Force veteran, Steve is a highly accomplished aviator, with more than 5,600 hours of flight time, and ten jet type ratings. At the end of the Cold War, Steve was the first Westerner to fly an aircraft into the Kamchatka Peninsula in Far Eastern Russia. There, he led the creation of one of the earliest Russian-American joint ventures, converting a remote, but strategically located military air base into a refueling base for international cargo carriers. His book, Dancing with Russians: Adventure & Entrepreneurship in the Developing World will be in publication later this year.
