LA JOLLA, CA – The La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) is pleased to announce that Tom Tullie, a leading high tech executive and angel investor, has been elected to its Board of Directors.
“We’re delighted to welcome Tom Tullie to our board,” said Mitchell Kronenberg, Ph.D., La Jolla Institute president and chief scientific officer. “With his decades of experience in building successful high tech firms and more recently his success as an angel investor, Tom will be invaluable in helping guide La Jolla Institute in the many growing business opportunities arising from our leading-edge immunology research.”
Tullie, a resident of Del Mar, Calif., was trained as an electrical engineer and his first job out of college was designing semiconductors. However, within a few years, Tullie had obtained an MBA and was determined to move into sales and management. His first major success came after he joined Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC) as vice president of sales in 1996. Four years later, his team had transformed a company worth $20 million into a high tech giant with a $35 billion market cap. By the time he left AMCC, Tullie had risen to chief operating officer.
As Tullie’s career unfolded, he began a pattern of joining companies as CEO and turning them around so successfully they were soon acquired by other firms. After leaving AMCC, he did that with two different high tech firms—Path 1 Network Technologies and Vativ Technologies.
Tullie also began to focus on companies he could not only improve financially, but which also contribute to improving the world. In 2009, he helped launch ecoATM, as chairman and CEO of the automated electronics recycling company, which has since recycled millions of cell phones. Just a little over three years later, ecoATM was sold for $350 million. He’s also executive chairman of Everyone Counts, a high tech voting systems firm he believes will improve and expand democracy by enabling millions to vote online. Tullie is particularly proud of his support as vice chairman of the non-profit EvoNexus, a startup technology incubator that has helped launch dozens of high tech firms in San Diego and Irvine.
In joining the La Jolla Institute Board, Tullie believes he can leverage more than 30 years of financial expertise to assist an organization he says is already among the world’s most important scientific organizations.
“With their remarkable team of talent scientists whose frequent discoveries are revolutionizing our knowledge of the immune system, La Jolla Institute is a true game changer in human health,” Tullie said. “I hope to help them by utilizing my expertise to advise them financially, whether it’s licensing their technologies or creating separate commercial ventures to deliver their discoveries to the world.
Tullie added, “What I see is a truly exciting combination of potential commercial success, delivery of cutting-edge research which relieves the suffering of people with autoimmune diseases—like my father who struggles with Crohn’s disease—and the real potential to transform medicine and save millions of lives around the world. To play a role in helping the Institute achieve that kind of global impact would be one of the most satisfying highlights of my career.”
About La Jolla Institute for Immunology
The La Jolla Institute for Immunology is dedicated to understanding the intricacies and power of the immune system so that we may apply that knowledge to promote human health and prevent a wide range of diseases. Since its founding in 1988 as an independent, nonprofit research organization, the Institute has made numerous advances leading toward its goal: life without disease.
