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Business awards » The Utah Technology Council -- the trade group for the state's computer-related and life sciences companies -- is inducting three men into its Hall of Fame. The three will be honored Friday at a dinner at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City.
Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google Inc., is the featured speaker.
Myriad Genetics
Education » B.S. chemical engineering 1970; MBA University of Utah, 1974.
Currently » cofounder, president and CEO of Myriad Genetics
Before starting Myriad Genetics, Meldrum was president and CEO of Founders Fund Inc., a venture capital group. With Mark Skolnick he formed Myriad Genetics in 1991, seeing an opportunity to take advantage of genetic research on humans to create new products that detect genes linked to diseases and to develop treatments. Among its products, the company developed a test for two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer in women. Myriad had $326.5 million in revenue in its fiscal year 2009.
In helping to found Myriad, Meldrum said he saw an opportunity to help shift medicine from the treatment of disease to prevention. "The vision for the company was that we saw a paradigm shift in medicine," he said.
Myriad Genetics
Education » B.A. economics, UC-Berkely, 1968; Ph.D. genetics, Stanford, 1975.
Currently » cofounder, chief science officer of Myriad Genetics
Skolnick put together a huge database of the descendants of Mormon pioneers and matched that with incidence of cancer among them. In doing so, he and colleagues conceived of the idea of using the database to discover a large set of markers of genetic differences that underpins the Human Genome Project. In 1990, he and a colleague mapped the "neighborhood" where a breast-cancer gene was located, and Skolnick said that set off a race to pinpoint the exact gene. "I was interested in having more resources than I could obtain through a university situation, and I thought of an idea of creating a company" that became Myriad, Skolnick said.
SageCreek Partners
Education » B.S. business administration and finance, Brigham Young University, 1985.
Currently » founder and managing partner of SageCreek Partners.
After stints at WordPerfect and Novell, and as an executive as several smaller companies, Butterfield became chairman, president and CEO of Altiris, a Utah-based company that produces software to help companies manage computers and networks. Under his leadership, Altiris grew from $3 million revenue to $350 million in six years. The company was acquired by Symantec in 2007.
"We went from being one of the 132 companies that provided systems-management functionality to becoming one of the Top 10 systems-management software companies in the world," said Butterfield.
Past inductees in to the Utah Technology Council Hall of Fame:
Stephen Aldous
Alan Ashton
David Bailey
Bruce Bastian
H. Raymond Bingham
Nolan Bushnell
Edwin Catmull
James Clark
Bernard Daines
David Evans
Philo Farnsworth
Jim Kajiya
Alan Kay
Spencer Kirk
Drew Major
Raymond Noorda
Dinesh Patel
Shane Robison
Kevin Rollins
James LeVoy Sorenson
David Spafford
Theodore H. Stanley
Thomas Stockham Jr.
Ivan Sutherland
Homer Warner
John Warnock.
What » Utah Technology Council Hall of Fame dinner.
When » 6 p.m. Friday
Where » Grand America Hotel
Cost » Tickets are $250 per person or $400 nonmembers. Contact mark@utahtech.org or call 801-568-3500.