Sam brings extensive management experience and video processing expertise to the Elemental team as chief executive officer. Sam states that a main goal for Elemental is that, "we want to restore the luster to the video cluster here in Portland." Prior to co-founding Elemental in 2006, Sam specified and architected next-generation products as an IC design manager for Portland-based Pixelworks. He spent time in China organizing the company's Shanghai design center and was responsible for a wide variety of functional blocks on six ImageProcessor ICs. Prior to joining Pixelworks in 2000, Sam held engineering positions at Silicon Graphics and Intel Corporation. Sam holds an M.B.A from University of Oregon, an M.S.E.E. from University of California at Berkeley and a B.S.E.E. from Brown University. He was the Oregon League of Conservation Voters Volunteer of the Year in 2005 and a Regional Qualifier for the non-partisan White House Fellows Program in 2006. While he’s not as active as before Elemental and his two toddlers, Sam is an avid Ultimate Frisbee player.