About Autocell

Management Team

Gary Vacon | Chairman
Prior to co-founding Autocell Labs (formerly Propagate Networks) and sitting on its board of directors, Vacon was an independent advisor to early-stage companies and venture capitalists in the networking and telecommunications equipment market. He is a director of Cerylion, Inc., and was a director of iAtlas prior to acquisition, and is currently on the advisory board of PhotonEx and InfiniSwitch. Previously, Vacon was founder and CEO of NetICs, Inc., a 100Mbps Ethernet switch company, later acquired by Bay Networks (now Nortel Networks). During his tenure at Bay, he held several senior management roles, including general manager of the switching division and general manager of the routing division. Vacon also played key roles in several of the company's acquisitions.

Floyd J. Backes | Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Backes has been an engineer and architect in the computer networking business for over 20 years. Prior to co-founding Autocell Laboratories (formerly Propagate Networks), he was vice president of strategy and architecture at Nortel Networks. Backes came to Nortel Networks from 3Com, where he was CTO of the switching division. Prior to 3Com, he held senior technical positions at Bay Networks and at Digital Equipment Corporation, where he implemented the world's first wire-speed spanning tree Ethernet bridge. Backes has contributed extensively to LAN and bridge-related standards development in IEEE 802, the ATM Forum, the IETF, and ISO/IEC. He is currently a voting member of IEEE 802.1 and a voting liaison to 802.11. Backes has 10 patents issued and numerous patents pending related to LANs and LAN switching. He earned his bachelor's of engineering technology, cum laude, from the University of New Hampshire.

Laura A. Bridge | Vice President, Engineering
Bridge brings over 20 years of management, architecture and development experience in the computer and networking business to Autocell. Prior to joining Autocell, Bridge managed software engineering for 3Com's enterprise switching division, where she was responsible for embedded systems and protocol software. In 3Com's Systems Marketing organization Bridge managed cross-business unit technical product initiatives. Prior to 3Com, Bridge was an architect for multi-protocol router products at Ascom-Timeplex. Prior to Ascom-Timeplex, Bridge held various engineering management and architectural positions in the defense industry at Systems Development Corporations and Unisys. Previously, Bridge held systems software development positions at Xerox, and IBM. Bridge has a B.A. in Computer Science from University of California at Berkeley.

Holmes W. Anderson | Director, Intellectual Property and Licensing
Holmes W. Anderson has been practicing intellectual property law for over ten years, both as in-house counsel and in private practice. Mr. Anderson's areas of expertise include patent prosecution, intellectual property licensing, patent infringement and validity opinions, and trade mark prosecution. Areas of technical experience include telecommunications, particularly, WLAN, optics and communications network protocols.

Mr. Anderson previously served as Lead Intellectual Property Counsel for the research and development division of Nortel Networks, where he was responsible for managing patent-related activities and supporting mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. Prior to that, he was in private practice at Weingarten, Schurgin, Gagnebin & Hayes in Boston. Mr. Anderson received formal training in patent preparation and prosecution while working for United Technologies Corporation, prior to which he worked as an engineer for a developer of automated optical inspection equipment. Mr. Anderson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Vermont, and a Juris Doctor degree from Franklin Pierce Law Center. He was admitted to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 1993, and to the Massachusetts Bar in 1994.