Green Music Center :: News Clip

‘Telecom Valley Reunion’ to benefit Green Music Center

Monday, August 27, 2007
BY LORALEE STEVENS
STAFF REPORTER

PETALUMA -- Sonoma State University will host a Telecom Valley 20th Anniversary Reunion on Oct. 6, with everyone who has any link to Telecom Valley past or present invited.

To be held at the Donald and Maureen Green Music Center, the event will include a complimentary reception and tour, followed by dinner at the Doubletree Hotel in Rohnert Park. Dinner tickets are $50 per person.

"Telecom Valley has been the birthplace for technology that fundamentally changed communications all over the world," said Mike Hatfield, an industry veteran who worked at Advanced Fibre Communications under Mr. Green, and co-founded both Cerent Systems and Calix. Cerent was acquired by Cisco Systems in 1999 for over $7 billion.

The local telecom industry that sprang from Mr. Green's Digital Telephone Systems in 1969 included dozens of startups and attracted communications giants Alcatel, Nokia and Cisco to the area. Sonoma County is still home to startups Turin Networks and Calix, and divisions of Tellabs, Alcatel and Cisco.

The Telecom Valley reunion is intended to commemorate the entrepreneurial spirit of the local industry, which dates to Mr. Green’s founding of Optilink in 1987.. Event producers hope attendees will join the campaign to raise $7 million that will name the concert hall at the music center "Innovation Hall, dedicated to the pioneering spirit of Telecom Valley."

For more information, visit www.telecomvalleyreunion.com.