Background
Tom Bruggere was born in Berkeley, California. He stated of his early life that he "grew up with a picture of Jack and Bobby Kennedy over bed.".
Tom Bruggere was born in Berkeley, California. He stated of his early life that he "grew up with a picture of Jack and Bobby Kennedy over bed.".
University of Wisconsin–Madison. Pepperdine University.
He founded the company Mentor Graphics and has been involved with several other startup companies. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, a Masters of Science in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, and a Masters of Business Administration from Pepperdine University. He served in the Army in the Vietnam War, from 1968-1970.
Prior to running for office, he served on several government boards, including the Oregon State Board of Higher Education.
Bruggere was an engineer with Burroughs Corporation Medium Systems Plant in Pasadena, California in the early to mid-1970s, then with Tektronix, Incorporated. in the late 1970s. Bruggere founded Mentor Graphics, a Tektronix spinoff, in 1981.
A 1991 article in Oregon Business magazine stated: "One of main contributions to Oregon has been the many companies that spun off from former employees," citing the success of Bruggere and a number of other creative former Tektronix employees with Mentor Graphics as the prime example. He was one of the people credited with founding the Oregon Center for Advanced Technology Education and served as chairman of the center in the early 2000s.
Mentor Graphics is credited with having established the industry of electronic design automation.
He resigned as president and Chief Executive Officer in October 1993, and was succeeded in both roles by Wally Rhines. Upon leaving Mentor Graphics, he cited a desire "to do something else, something in public policy."
Spending $800,000 of his own money in the primary race, he was one of 134 candidates for the United States. Congress to finance their own elections in excess of $50,000 in that cycle. In the general election race, most Oregon daily newspapers endorsed Smith over Bruggere.
Bruggere lost a close election to Smith, with neither side claiming victory for several days after the election, when absentee ballots were tallied.
Bruggere was the founding Chairman of Stamps.com and Sensoria. He resigned from the Stamps.com board in October 2000.
He has also served on the boards of Will Vinton Studios, OpenMarket, and Sirigen and on the advisory boards of Mercy Corps and of the Technology Management Program at UCSB. As of 2011, he was part of the management team of 13therapeutics, a biotech spin-off of the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU).