Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Investment Partner,Angel

Investor Stage

Seed

Ralph Eschenbach has been a Sand Hill Angels member since 2004, serving as President, Treasurer, and board member. He has spent his whole career in Silicon Valley, which began at HP Labs. In 1976, he created the first commercial GPS receiver at HP, demonstrating the possibility for addressing a low-cost market for a locating sensor. Trimble Navigation purchased the design in 1982, and it became the foundation of Trimble's GPS technology. He joined Trimble in 1983 as VP Engineering and eventually assumed P&L responsibilities for Trimble's Marine and Aviation businesses. He joined Trimble as CTO in the late 1990s and retired in the mid 2000s. He presently serves on the boards of roughly six startup firms in the valley and likes discovering and mentoring new ventures. He got his BSEE from UC Berkeley in 1968 and his MSEE from Stanford University in 1970. He graduated from Magna Cum Laude and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.