Gerald Marxman '56

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MONMOUTH, Ill. — Dr. Gerald Marxman, a 1956 Monmouth College graduate whose diverse career includes significant achievements in the fields of engineering, business, technology and environmental issues, will deliver the 2007 commencement address at his alma mater on May 20.

“I tend to think of my career as divided into three segments – engineering, business and the application of both to address social concerns,” said Marxman. “Each was of primary importance at one time of my life.”

After graduating magna cum laude from Monmouth, Marxman was first in his graduating class at Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University) and received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. A short time later, as senior staff scientist at United Technologies Corporation and director of physical sciences at Stanford Research Institute, Marxman created the combustion model and theory for a then-new type of rocket, called the “hybrid” rocket. He is recognized as a pioneer of this propulsion system, and decades later his theory is still the basis for hybrid rocket design. It was recently cited as one of six contributions that were most important in the development of hybrid rockets.

In the 1970s, Marxman was chief operating officer and chief technical officer of Envirodyne Industries, one of the first U.S. environmental companies. He joined Envirodyne when it was a start-up company and helped build it into a successful public corporation. In 1980 he co-founded Digideck, Inc., which later was sold to a consortium of television broadcast companies, and, 18 years later, he co-founded Care2, Inc., which performs services for many of the major non-profit organizations in the United States. With more than six million members, Care2.com is now the largest community on the Web for people concerned about environmental issues and other progressive causes. Care2 is dedicated to helping members “get connected and make a difference.”

Marxman is the past president and co-founder of CommTech International, a specialized venture capital firm formed in 1982 to commercialize technology from leading research and development organizations, including Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International), Stanford University, the University of California and others. In 1982, few research universities had even considered commercializing their own technologies, and even fewer had technology commercialization offices, which now exist at virtually all such institutions.

At the beginning of the 1990s, when the Internet was still in its infancy, CommTech sponsored Stanford engineering professor John Cioffi in a project to develop what became known as “Digital Subscriber Line” (DSL) technology. As the program evolved, CommTech co-founded Amati Communications, Inc. (with Stanford and Cioffi) to commercialize the technology. In an extended competition with most of the world’s largest communications corporations, tiny Amati’s proprietary technology was designated the official standard for DSL and is now used worldwide for fast Internet connections over phone lines. Amati was acquired by Texas Instruments, which today licenses the technology.

CommTech developed the technology underlying a new polymeric material that competes with DuPont’s “Kevlar” and licensed it to Dow Chemical Company and Toyobo Co., Ltd. (Japan). AP Technologies, co-founded by CommTech, is an important supplier of software to the banking industry, with nine of the 10 largest U.S. financial institutions as customers. Colorep, Inc. was formed by CommTech to commercialize technology for digital printing on fabric and other materials. Colorep’s proprietary technology virtually eliminates the severe environmental problems associated with conventional printing processes and also makes possible inexpensive, “just-in-time” delivery. This innovation is gaining recognition among major textile, carpet and other manufacturers as a paradigm shift in the way such materials are dyed.

Marxman recently retired as president of CommTech, “partly to do what I can to make Care2 even more successful, and partly because we’ve been winding down CommTech anyway to make time for pursuit of currently more interesting objectives.”

As a sideline, Marxman also assists budding entrepreneurs residing in a guest cottage on his property. The residents are mainly MBA candidates at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. CoinStar was founded in the cottage in the late 1980s by Jens Molbak, and Kiva.org, the first company to make possible online person-to-person loans to people in third-world countries, was founded by current residents Mathew and Jessica Flannery.

In addition to his professional duties, Marxman is a trustee emeritus of Monmouth College and serves on the board of directors of Acuity Ventures, another Silicon Valley venture capital firm, as well as several privately held companies, including a hybrid rocket “spin-out” from Stanford University. He is the author of nearly two dozen publications in technical books and scientific journals on combustion and fluid dynamics topics.

Released by the Office of College Communications
Barry McNamara, Associate Director of College Communications
Phone: 309-457-2117
Fax: 309-457-2330