Management

Todd Smith, Ph.D., Founder and Chief Technology Officer, was a postdoctoral scientist in Dr. Leroy Hood's laboratory at the University of Washington Genome Center where he sequenced a large region of DNA containing the first breast cancer gene to be discovered, BRCA1. While at the UW Genome Center, he designed and led development of automated software systems for capturing and analyzing information from high throughput DNA sequencing. Dr. Smith received his B.S. in Genetics and Biochemistry in 1984 from the University of Minnesota and his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry in 1994 from the University of Washington.

Rob Arnold, President, joined Geospiza in 2003. Previously, he founded and was Chairman and CEO of Crossport Systems, an innovator in security solutions for broadband providers and applications, which was sold in 2001 to Lineo (now a subsidiary of Motorola). Before Crossport, Mr. Arnold co-founded and served as CEO of ST Labs, Inc., a 250-person software testing and quality assurance firm, which was sold in 1999 to Data Dimensions, Inc. (now LionBridge). Mr. Arnold is also a board member of the Technology Alliance.

N. Eric Olson, Ph.D., VP Product Development, completed his graduate and postdoctoral studies in Vascular Biology and Immunology at the University of Washington, where he initiated EST database mining projects that resulted in the discovery of novel regulators of Immunobiology. Dr. Olson was also co-founder and CEO of Neobase, a bioinformatics software company, and oversaw the sale of their web-based microarray data analysis software to VizX Labs, LLC in 2001, where he served as Scientific Director and Chief Scientific Officer. While at VizX labs, he oversaw development of their web-based GeneSifter microarray data analysis system, winner of a Frost and Sullivan award for Product Innovation in 2005. Dr. Olson joined Geospiza, Inc. in 2006 and is currently responsible for Geospiza’s product development.