Robert R. Maxfield was a co-founder in 1969 of ROLM Corporation, a computer and telecommunications manufacturer, where he served as Executive Vice President and director until ROLM was acquired by IBM in 1984. Following the merger, he continued as an advisor until retiring in 1988. Since 1988 he has been a consulting professor in the Management Science and Engineering department at Stanford University, and was a venture partner with Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers from 1989 to 1992. He is President of the Maxfield Foundation, which he founded in 1986 to support scientific research and education. He serves as a director of Echelon Corporation, as a trustee of Rice University, and as a trustee of the Santa Fe Institute. He earned his B.A. and B.S.E.E degrees from Rice University in 1963 and 1964, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University in 1966 and 1969.
