About NWCHP Advisors

Your Ad could be here! contact us for sponsorship...

NWCHP Board of Advisors

Jack Gao; Joseph J. Borich; Gordon L. Chanen; Bradley B. Furber;
Chienfu Li; Sidney Rittenberg; Ji Shen; Jerry Shiao; William B. Stafford

Jack Gao
Dr. Jack Gao is the General Manager of Microsoft China. He is in charge of the strategic development, marketing, sale, technical support and operation of Microsoft corp. in China Region. Born and raised in China, Jack had PhD degree from Harbin Institute of Technology and UCLA in Engineering, Prior to his position in Microsoft, Dr. Gao had been working in differenct international software companies, including Autodesk where he served as General Manager for Greater China Region (related press release in Chinese).

Joseph J. Borich
Joseph Borich is the Executive Director of the Washington State China Relations Council. Prior to his current position, Mr. Borich was a Foreign Service Officer. He entered the Foreign Service in 1972 and was closely associated with the China field throughout most of his career, serving under every president from Nixon to Clinton in a China-related capacity. His last assignment was as Consul General in Shanghai from October 1994 through June 1997; he previously helped open this Consulate General in 1980. He also served as Director of the Taiwan Coordination staff in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Department of State, and prior to that as the last Deputy Chief of Mission in the former U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu.

In his current position, Mr. Borich leads the only State-level association dedicated solely to promoting relations with China. The Council has been a leading voice since 1979 in promoting trade between China, Hong Kong, and the United States. This non-profit council represents over 160 corporate members such as The Boeing Company, Microsoft Corporation, Weyerhaeuser, Frank Russell Company, Costco Wholesale, PACCAR International, Starbucks Coffee Company, major ports, banks, law firms, and other manufacturers, retailers, and businesses in Washington State.

Mr. Borich was born in Minnesota in 1944, received a bachelor’s degree from South Dakota State University in 1967, and a master’s degree from the University of South Dakota in 1972. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand from 1967 to 1969, and served in the U.S. Army from 1969-1971, including a tour in Vietnam. Mr. Borich and his wife Ting Hsiao-hui reside in Seattle.

Gordon L. Chanen
founder of Chanen & Company, has nearly 20 years of experience as an institutional investor, investment banker, and financial analyst. Among companies for which he has raised capital as investment banker have been Tera Computer, Microvision, Jay Jacobs, Captura Software, Willows Lodge, and the Children's Media Network. Prior to starting Chanen & Company, he was the Special Investments Analyst for the Laird Norton Trust Company, where he was responsible for monitoring an institutional venture investment portfolio; evaluating venture, mezzanine and IPO equity placement opportunities; conducting due diligence; recommending investments to the Investment Review Committee; and reporting on the progress of those Venture Capital Funds in which the Trust Company was a limited partner. Before moving to Seattle in 1982, Gordon worked as an economic development consultant in the United Kingdom and as a mortgage banker in St. Louis.

President of the non-profit Northwest Venture Group for 1998-2000, Gordon is also the director of Seattle's M.I.T Enterprise Forum, The National Association of Venture Forums, and is a corporate director of Blood Cell Storage, Inc. He holds an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, in Entrepreneurial Finance and a B.A. in Urban Studies from George Washington University. He is a NASD registered principal.

Bradley B. Furber
Bradley Furber has over ten years' experience representing domestic and Canadian issuers, underwriters, and venture investors in private and public equity, debt, and convertible securities offerings. He also assists clients on a wide variety of other corporate matters, including strategic planning, executive compensation, recruiting, mergers and acquisitions, technology licensing, and strategic alliances.

Before founding Van Valkenberg Furber Law Group, Brad practiced law in the Seattle office of Bogle & Gates. He is the inaugural Chair of the Website Committee and the current Recorder of the Executive Committee of the Business Law Section of the Washington State Bar Association. He is a frequent speaker on securities law topics. In 1999 Brad was recognized by Washington Law & Politics as one of Washington State's "Super Lawyers". Brad is also a co-founder of CBeX.com, an M&A portal, and actively involved with several local angel networks. He earned a BA degree in History from the University of Washington, an MA degree in Public Policy from Duke University Graduate School, and a JD degree from Duke Law School.

Chienfu Li
Chienfu Li is director of broadcast and business services of Yahoo! Asia, responsible for broadcast and business services development in Asia. Chienfu joined Yahoo! in 1998 as the general manager of Yahoo! Taiwan where he supervised overall operations of Yahoo! Taiwan, including production, sales, marketing and building strategic relationships with local businesses. Under Mr. Chien-fu Li’s leadership, Yahoo! Taiwan has been developed to be a localized site offering a wide selection of localized communication, commerce and media services. In his new role, Chienfu is leading the development of Yahoo! Broadcast at a regional level.

Chienfu possesses solid experiences in Internet business development and information management. Chienfu began his career in the Internet industry in 1996 as the founding general manager of sinanet.com Taiwan (later became sina.com). Prior to entering the Internet industry, he had worked for Andersen Consulting for nearly 10 years.
(Chinese version of Mr. Li's biography)

Sidney Rittenberg
Born in 1921 in Charleston, SC, Sidney graduated in Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He entered the US Army after Pearl Harbor, and was selected to study the Chinese language and culture at Stanford University. In 1945, he went to US Army headquarters in China, to work as a language expert in the Judge Advocate's General's Office. After his honorable discharge in Shanghai in 1946, he went to work as a famine relief observer in the UN’s China program, and was co-opted for a time by General Marshall's mission to serve as neutral interpreter for all three parties (US, Nationalist, and Communist) in the truce talks that followed the Japanese surrender. In that capacity, he met and became a friend of Chinese Communist leader Zhou Enlai.

In 1946, with Zhou Enlai’s arrangement, SR visited the Communists' war-time cave-capital at Yan'an and met Mao Zedong there. He spent the next three decades in China to help the Communists set up an English language program. During this period, he also worked on the English translation of major documents, including the works of Mao Zedong. He became personally well acquainted with legendary Chinese revolutionaries and contemporary leaders. During the Cultural Revolution era, He was wrongfully put in prison.

He moved back to America in 1980, without his previous belief in "Marxism-Leninism" but determined to continue to build bridges between America and China. Since then, he has lectured, taught and, with his wife Yulin and son, Sidney Junior, consulted and assisted American corporations and public figures who are involved in China.

Sindey has been for the past decade an advisor to Craig O. McCaw on his China projects. Among their other clients include Levi Strauss & Co, Intel, Hughes Aircraft, Digital Equipment Corporation, ARCO, Billy Graham, Mike Wallace, and Dan Rather. He is Visiting Professor of Political Science at Pacific Lutheran University and also teaches Chinese Philosophy at Tacoma Community College. He is a board member of Washington State China Relations Council, the Seattle Chinese Garden Society, and the Companion Flag International Support.

Jerry Shiao
Dr. Jerry Shiao has been involved in the field of computer networks for 12 years. His expertise is in local area network, wide area network, wireless networks and network management -- from fundamental theory to practical implementations.

He currently works at Cisco Systems, Inc. as a Network Architect, developing the next generation ATM switches. Prior to joining Cisco, Dr. Shiao was with Bay Networks from 1993 to 1996 developing Local Area Network products. He also served as consultant to National Semiconductor on Wireless Networking in the years before joining Bay Networks.

From 1993 to 1997, he also taught a sequence of network related courses at Northwestern Polytechnic University (NPU) and served as the Director of R&D as well as the chairman of EE/CS department. Recently, he co-founded Silicon Valley University (SVU) and is appointed by the Board of Directors to serve as SVU's first president. SVU's mission is to graduate high caliber hardware and software engineers for the networking industry.

Dr. Shiao received his BS in Control Engineering from National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan, in 1984 and Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from USC, Los Angeles in 1992. (for details see http://www.cina.org/fshiao.html)

William B. Stafford
Bill Stafford is president of the Trade Development Alliance of greater Seattle. Between 1971 and 1990, he was employed with the City of Seattle in a number of positions, including Deputy Mayor to Charles Royer and Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, where he was responsible for the national, state, regional and international relations of the city. He has been involved in a number of national urban advisory committees, chairing in 1980 the National Urban Consortium among the big cities on urban research, and currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Institute for the Regional Community/National Association of Regional Councils. Prior to joining the City of Seattle, he was with Ford Motor Company. He has been an affiliate professor at the Graduate School of Public Administration of the University of Washington. He is a graduate of Colorado College and has an MBA from Columbia University. He was selected "Outstanding Public Employee" by the Municipal League of Seattle-King County in 1986.

Bill Stafford has been active in the Seattle community, serving on the boards of the Woodland Park Zoological Society, Seattle Children's Museum, the Public Defender Association, the Burke Museum and the Woodland Park Zoo Board Oversight Committee, among others. He serves on the Seattle Community College Chancellor's Roundtable, and is currently a member of the United States Department of Commerce's District Export Council, chair of the Seattle Sister City Commission, a member of the International Advisory Board of the University of Washington's Center for International Education and Research, and executive board member of the Japan America Conference of Mayors and Chamber of Commerce Presidents, and member of the Asia Society Seattle Advisory Committee and a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Small Business Administration.

The Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle is comprised of the Port of Seattle, Metropolitan King County government, Snohomish County Government, the City of Seattle, the City of Everett, the Greater Settle Chamber of Commerce and organized labor representatives. The Trade Alliance exists to promote the Greater Seattle region as one of North America's premier international gateways and commercial centers.