Richard Eidswick

Richard Eidswick General Information

Biography

Mr. Richard Eidswick is a Founding Partner of Arbor Partners. He has been a full time Partner of the firm and involved in every investment decision in AVP-I and AVP-II. He served on the Boards of several of the portfolio companies and provides operational advice to them all. He was also instrumental in establishing the Michigan Venture Capital Association and served as its founding President in 2002 and 2003. In 2004, he was appointed President of Champ Car World Series, an open-wheel auto racing series in Indianapolis. Although he retained his Board positions with three of the portfolio companies in 2004, other partners assumed many of his duties. These remaining Board positions will be assigned to other partners in 2005 and beyond. As a Founding Partner of Arbor Partners, he will continue to serve in a reduced capacity, available to advise management of the AVP-II portfolio companies on an as-needed basis. He will also review and assess investment decisions of AVP-III, but will not serve on the Boards of those companies. He founded Network Express and served as President and CEO from start-up through several rounds of venture financing and a public offering (NETK on NASDAQ) in 1994. Network Express was a fast-growing company in the emerging ISDN communication industry; product revenues increasing from zero in 1990 to $19 million in 1995. Its products, used to connect computers together across wide-area networks, were sold in Japan, Europe, and the United States. The company was acquired by Cabletron Systems for $110 million in 1996. Prior to starting Network Express, he was Chairman and CEO of Diffracto, a Canadian company in the machine vision industry. In three years, he led Diffracto from losses of $5 million in 1986 to a small profit on $11 million in revenue in 1989. This business success in a very competitive market allowed Diffracto's major product line to be merged with Perceptron in 1990. Previously, he was the Founder and CEO of Machine Vision International (MVI), a position he held from 1982-1986 when the company was merged with Compucom. MVI grew from a start-up to $9 million in sales in three years, with accounts in aerospace, automotive, and electronics in the United States, Europe, and Japan. During his tenure, MVI raised $15 million in private and public financing, including a public offering on NASDAQ. From 1968 to 1982, he was Senior Vice President and a Director of Comshare. He is on the Board of Directors of Cohesia, Inc., and Bank of Ann Arbor. He also serves on the Board of Advisors to the Sam Zell and Robert Laurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at The University of Michigan.