Page 4 - Chi Phi Fall 2016

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: TIM SEMONES ’81
Tim in Alaska in 2015
1. How would you describe your time at
Georgia Tech?
I still think of it as right up there with the facilities. Dave and I were OTA officers and
best times of my life. I was way into having fun
and way into working hard at school. I don’t
remember a lot of easy going and relaxing.
2. What is your favorite Chi Phi memory?
So many good ones . . . Maybe as pledges,
“borrowing” a decorated Christmas tree, when
we brought it back it went all the way up the
spiral stairs to the third floor? Maybe the band
“Green Ice” after fall football games? Maybe
family dinners at the house, laughs with Mother
Brooks? Maybe Exec Committee meetings try-
ing to figure out how to make kitchen payroll
and throw this weekend’s party? Maybe
meeting my wife-to-be Susan on the
steps at the front of the House after just
returning from a Fall Rush float down the
Chattahoochee?
3. What led you to join Omega Chap-
ter?
At FASET (freshman orientation), the
first person I met at Tech was our upper
class group leader. He was Omega-man
Dave Skelton, who naturally took us by
the Chi Phi House. Dave is still one of my
closest friends, and we had great col-
lege years and have both enjoyed giving
back as alumni. There was something
different about the Chi Phi House com-
pared to others for me. It was a really
diverse, authentic, and slightly quirky
group of guys. We had third generation
legacy, old-time Atlanta folks who knew
every bar in Buckhead and everyone in town,
and serious hardcore students who spent
countless hours on classwork but loved to cut
loose. It was a great fit for me.
4. Can you tell us more about your deci-
sion to serve as the Steering Committee
Chairman for the chapter’s renovation/
expansion capital campaign project?
Dave Skelton and I did a similar thing back
in 1996. The house was in pretty rough shape
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as far as physical plant goes. Tech was going to Our best finish was 25th in 2011. Generally 80
be the Olympic Village for the ‘96 games and
there was momentum campus wide to update
partnered on the project; he ran the construc-
tion and I ran the fundraising. We had a great
campaign and the House continued to stand
tall for these past twenty years. The house
wound up hosting the Saudi Arabia Olympic
team. It was obviously an easy decision to
jump on board again. This time is lot easier, at
least for me just playing a complementary role.
The current OTA officers (Dave included), the
Chapter, and Elevate (our fundraising consul-
tant) are doing a great job on the campaign.
Tim at Chi Phi Chakett in 1980
5. Outside of work, what do you do for
fun?
I moved to Sun Valley, Idaho with my family
about 16 years ago. My daughter just turned
18 and it has been great fun watching her grow
up here. Sun Valley is a ski resort and I would
call myself a ski bum. I also enjoy hiking and
camping in the mountains here. My biggest
fun project each year is partnering with a great ment work. I took a deep dive into character-
friend of mine here in Idaho who mushes the
Iditarod 1000 mile dogsled race in Alaska. We
raise money in the community and field a team
every year, he’s finished eight of these races.
teams start out of Anchorage each year and
60+ finish in Nome 10 days later. I usually hop
a ride with a bush pilot buddy of mine in Tal-
keetna, Alaska and follow the race along the
way. One of the pictures is me near the village
of Huslia in 2015; it was -46°F.
6. What advice would you give to young
alumni and active members?
Embrace change. Never compromise
on what you believe in, but always look for
win-win. Work hard on your EQ (emotional
quotient). Another thing I would say is to not
“leave anything on the field” while you are at
Tech and at Chi Phi. There is so much to learn in
the classroom but also so much to learn being
in a band of brothers. One of my contempo-
raries at the House, John Stevens lived an
attitude that he called . . . “Yes, we’re here for
the crane”. It was a bit crazy in practice during
college days, but it catalyzed the core belief
for me that you go hard after what you want,
and you go after it with confidence.
7. Can you tell us more about your busi-
ness life after Tech?
An electrical engineering graduate in ‘81,
I went to work with Hewlett-Packard out of
school. Great technical and business learning
experience. Started my first tech company at
25 with an HP colleague. We did all sorts of
interesting software and electronic measure-
izing radar absorbing materials for stealth
aircraft and also spent an inordinate amount
of time developing a sensor system for pre-
cise measurement of fastener holes in
airplane wing assembly. Every Boeing
and Airbus wing line utilized these sys-
tems for ten years. I then went to MBA
school at UCLA at 35, moved back to
Atlanta and worked with MindSpring as
an Internet guy until we merged with
Earthlink. I decided to leave Atlanta in
2000 and finally do that winter ski sea-
son I always dreamed of. We moved to
Sun Valley, where almost immediately a
PhD researcher, wiz-bang, MBA class-
mate of mine called with an idea for a
semiconductor company doing chips for
high-speed fiber optics for telecom and
datacenter applications. He needed a
partner who knew entrepreneurship and
the operations side. 10 years and $75M
of venture capital later, the company we
founded – Inphi – went public on the
NYSE. My partner Loi and I and 10 others rang
the bell at the opening of the NYSE trading
floor in November 2010. I left a year after, but
Loi and Inphi live on. The company does over
$250M in revenue and is worth over $1.5B in
the market today. I know that my education
and experiences at Georgia Tech and UCLA,
and a little luck, were what enabled me to have
such a journey. I took a few years off, but I’m
back doing another tech startup in the semi-
conductor space.