Daines to enter tech hall of fame
Spokane high-tech entrepreneur Bernard Daines has founded companies that sold for hundreds of millions of dollars, but he’s never worn a tuxedo.
He’ll don one Friday, however, for his induction into the Utah Technology Council’s hall of fame – an honor acknowledging his role in developing and advancing Ethernet technologies. Associates called Daines, 63, a visionary and a leader who spurred a telecommunications-engineering sector in the Spokane area.
“He’s such a well-kept secret,” said Richard Nelson, council president and CEO. “He’s an amazing technologist; he’s changed our world.”
Known for starting local hardware-development companies Packet Engines and World Wide Packets, Daines will be honored at a black-tie event in Salt Lake City.
The ceremony will be the first trip in two years for Daines, who has suffered health problems, he said. It’s been a change of pace for a man who once traveled often as former chairman and CEO of Linux NetworX, a tech outfit near Salt Lake City that he invested in during the early 2000s.
“I guess it does kind of round out my Utah experience,” Daines said of his induction.
In 1969, he became the first computer science graduate from Brigham Young University, where he helped build the program and later taught.
Through a succession of companies, Daines developed Ethernet protocols and devices to make computer networking increasingly faster and expand its scope.
Over the past decade, he was once named Spokane’s wealthiest man – a title he denied – and among Newsweek’s key 100 people to watch during the first decade of the 21st century.
Engineers who worked with Daines still “draw back onto the principles that he taught us,” said Greg Davis, senior director of hardware development for F5 Networks in Liberty Lake who worked with Daines at Packet Engines, which Daines later sold.
“He’s still revered as the father of getting us all started in this field,” Davis said.
Most recently, Daines has focused on TierPoint – a firm he co-founded offering server hosting and business continuity services. “He single-handedly has made the network-communications industry as successful as it is today,” said Octavio Morales, a TierPoint co-founder.
Intel CEO Paul Otellini will speak at the event, which is expected to draw about 900, Nelson said. James LeVoy Sorenson, a Utah medical-device inventor, also will be recognized.