BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION - David L. Sippel

David L. Sippel is an experienced business executive. He has a significant technical background that has been applied to a series of challenging engineering and technical management assignments. He has held senior management positions in a large multi-national corporation, and developed his entrepreneurial skills by co-founding a high-tech company that became a public corporation.

Sippel obtained BS, MS, and PhD degrees (1970) in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics from the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota.

In 1970, Sippel began a career with IBM in Rochester, Minnesota, as a staff engineer, working in advanced product development. He progressed through a number of technical/management assignments as an engineer, manager, executive and senior site business unit executive. During 1973-74 he was on special assignment to IBM’s Watson Research Laboratory at Yorktown Heights, New York. For most of his IBM career Sippel managed operations related to computer disk drive development and manufacturing. His last assignment, ending in 1994, was business unit executive responsible for a 500-person operation that developed and manufactured thin film media (disks) for IBM disk drive programs worldwide. As a technical contributor, Sippel was responsible for numerous key technical advancements, which resulted in significant patent and invention disclosure activity. He taught engineering courses and published a variety of internal and external technical papers. He participated extensively in IBM’s business and leadership development education offerings and, during his senior management career, received numerous division level awards. A seasoned traveler, Sippel worked with IBM peer group executives in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas to achieve major company-wide business objectives. During 1994 he initiated a leave of absence from IBM to pursue other business interests. He formally retired from IBM in 1998 after 28 years with the company.

In 1994, Sippel became a co-founder, member of the Board of Directors, and, later, Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of PEMSTAR, Inc. He was initially responsible for the development of all engineering operations in the company. He later focused on worldwide engineering support for product development, prototyping, automation and test development, and new product introductions. He was responsible for the integration of engineering acquisitions worldwide and the development of an engineering joint venture in Singapore. PEMSTAR provided a comprehensive range of global engineering, product design, automation and test, manufacturing and fulfillment services and solutions to customers in the industrial equipment, medical, computing and data storage, and communications industries. These services were provided on a global basis through eleven strategic locations in the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe. Integrated solutions offerings supported customers’ needs from initial product development and design through manufacturing to worldwide distribution and aftermarket support.

During the late 1990’s PEMSTAR was one of the fastest growing private companies in Minnesota. The company was taken public in 2000, and eventually had a worldwide full time employee base of over 3500 people and annual sales of over $870 million. PEMSTAR’s largest customers were IBM, Motorola and Applied Materials. The company also received recognition for its role in the development of the Land Warrior System for the U.S. Army. Sippel retired from PEMSTAR and its Board of Directors during 2001. During 2007 PEMSTAR was merged with Benchmark Electronics.

Sippel currently serves on a number of advisory boards, including the Industry Advisory Board of the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Minnesota.  He is also a member of the Client Advisory Board of Breneman Winbush and Associates, a leading Minnesota independent financial advisory firm.