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DR. HENRY T. NICHOLAS, III
Since leaving Broadcom, Dr. Nicholas has focused his efforts on philanthropy and support for victims’ rights and criminal justice. His main philanthropic organization, the Henry T. Nicholas, III Foundation, is committed to improving the quality of life through investments in education, youth sports, medicine, technology, law enforcement and national defense. Dr. Nicholas has made a significant commitment to improving K-12 education and developing new technologies that will dramatically enhance learning. He has made major contributions to engineering and computer science programs at the University of California, Irvine. He established The Nicholas Prize, administered by the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at UC Irvine, which recognizes innovative collaborative research. Dr. Nicholas currently serves as Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the UC Irvine. He is an ambassador of The UCI Foundation and established the Henry T. Nicholas, III Crew Endowment for the UCI Intercollegiate Athletics Department. Dr. Nicholas also supports the UCI Center for Pervasive Communications and Computing. In 2004, Dr. Nicholas announced a $10-million gift to St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in Orange County and the formation of a partnership with UC Irvine’s school of engineering. The partnership is developing initiatives to test new educational technologies and eventually make these available to disadvantaged public schools. Dr. Nicholas recently established a new education foundation, which operates Academic Centers to support and mentor students from low-income areas and recently opened its first center in Santa Ana. He also supports the Oakland Military Academy, founded by Attorney General Jerry Brown, and is working to expand such academies around the state. Dr. Nicholas’ commitment to victims’ rights dates to 1983 when his younger sister, Marsy, was brutally murdered by an ex-boyfriend. While at Broadcom he frequently took time out of his schedule to respond to the media on the issues facing crime victims. He helped his mother, Marcella Leach, build Justice For Homicide Victims, a non-profit organization that counsels victims’ families and has successfully advocated for change within the judicial system. In 2004 he led the most dramatic election turnaround in California history by defeating Proposition 66, which would have gutted California’s highly successful Three Strikes law. Ten days before the election, polls indicated the measure was going to pass with 75% of the vote. In the final days of the campaign, Dr. Nicholas contributed $4 million and assembled a bi-partisan coalition of elected officials, including all living California Governors as well as rock musicians and grass roots organizations, to oppose Proposition 66. He also personally produced his own radio spots. Voters responded by defeating the initiative, 52.7% to 47.3%. Dr. Nicholas has been honored by law enforcement agencies and advocates across the state for his work on this campaign. He is a recipient of the Ronald Reagan Award for Pioneering Achievement in Criminal Justice and has received awards from several organizations including Crime Victims United; the Orange County District Attorney’s office and the Los Angeles Sheriff Department. More recently, he was a major supporter of Jessica’s Law, another California proposition designed to protect children from predators. He has also actively lobbied the California legislature to support tougher laws that require violent offenders to serve their full sentence. He currently is a major backer of criminal justice ballot initiatives including a Victims’ Bill of Rights known as Marsy’s Law, which will appear as a constitutional amendment on the November, 2008 ballot. Dr. Nicholas has been the recipient of the Orange County Titan Award, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for Electronics, was named as one of the Top 20 Entrepreneurs by Red Herring magazine and one of the World’s Top 50 Cyber Elite by Time Digital magazine. He attended the U.S. Air Force Academy and received his master’s of science and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from University of California, Los Angeles. |
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Dr. Henry T. Nicholas, III co-founded Broadcom Corporation, serving as President and Chief Executive officer from its inception until January, 2003. With partner Dr. Henry Samueli, he built Broadcom into a world leader providing highly integrated silicon solutions that enable broadband communications and the networking of voice, video and data services.