Board of Directors
Scot Jarvis, Chairman
Scot Jarvis co-founded Cedar Grove Partners, a private equity firm with a focus on wireless communications, in 1997 after a highly successful career in management and investment roles in the wireless communications industry. A graduate of the University of Washington, Scot founded and served as the first President of Nextlink Communications, served as a Regional President of Nextel, and served as a Senior Executive with McCaw Cellular (now AT&T Wireless). He has served or currently serves on the boards of public and private companies, including Airspan, Conner Homes Group, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions (KTOS), MobiTV, RootMetrics, Slingshot Sports, Toba Inlet PCS, and Vitesse Semiconductor (VTSS). Scot also serves as a Venture Partner for Oak Investment Partners focusing in the wireless communications market.
John Saw, Board Member
John Saw, Ph.D., is chief technology officer at Sprint, responsible for technology development, network planning, engineering, deployment and service assurance of the Sprint network. Prior to this he was chief network officer.
Saw has more than 20 years of wireless industry experience. Before Sprint’s acquisition of Clearwire, he was CTO of Clearwire Corp. He joined Clearwire as its second employee in 2003 and was instrumental in scaling the company’s technical expertise and organization. In 2009 and 2010, he led the Clearwire team that built the first 4G network in North America, covering more than 130 million people.
Before Clearwire, Saw was senior vice president and general manager of Fixed Wireless Access at Netro Corp. (now SR Telecom) after Netro’s acquisition of AT&T Wireless’ broadband wireless group in 2002. He initiated the rollout of Netro’s broadband wireless products in Europe as part of Telefonica de Espana’s TRAC Migration project to bring high-speed internet and voice to suburban and rural Spain. He was chief engineer and vice president of Engineering at AT&T Wireless, and was instrumental in the development and rollout of AT&T Wireless’ Digital Broadband wireless service from 1997-2002 (one of the earliest OFDM-based wireless systems ever deployed and foundational to the subsequent development of OFDM-based 4G standards for WiMAX and LTE).
Before joining AT&T Wireless, he spent nine years at Nortel and Bell Northern Research, where he was involved in the development of TDMA, GSM and CDMA cellular infrastructure and microwave radio products. Under his leadership, Nortel was an early pioneer in the design and integration of Si/GaAs/HBT multichip modules (MMIC’s) into compact radio transceivers. Saw was awarded the Nortel Wireless President’s Award for Innovation in 1997.
Saw has a doctorate in electrical engineering from McMaster University, Canada. His dissertation on low-loss surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices is recognized as pioneering work that has helped enable a new generation of RF signal processing elements used in all mobile phones today. He has also published more than 15 technical papers and has six U.S. patents in wireless technologies. In April 2017, Saw was appointed to the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai. He also currently serves on the advisory board to the Global TDD LTE Initiative (GTI), an international industry consortium. In 2018, he was voted the Top Rising Star in Wireless by FierceWireless.
Bruce Brda, Board Member
Bruce Brda is the retired Executive Vice President, Products & Solutions, for Motorola Solutions where he was responsible for development of the company’s mission-critical communications portfolio. In this capacity, Bruce served on the company's executive committee, ensured strong alignment between the company’s vision, strategy and portfolio execution and contributed to more than a 200% increase in shareholder value. From 2014 through early 2019, Bruce led the company's product management, engineering, procurement, corporate strategy organization, CTO and venture capital organizations. Brda joined Motorola in 1989 where he held a variety of leadership roles in sales, engineering and business development across several Motorola business units. He managed the go-to-market function for key regions in Motorola’s Mobile Devices business and also led the global sales organization. In 2009, he led Motorola’s Networks business and guided its sale to Nokia Siemens Networks. Brda was then tapped to lead Motorola’s newly created Solutions & Services business. Prior to joining Motorola, he worked as director of engineering for Dukane Corporation and as a design engineer for Northrop Corporation. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Southern Illinois University and a master’s degree from Illinois Institute of Technology. He previously served on the Board of Eden Rock Communications prior to its acquisition by Nokia.
Gary Sledge, Board Member
Gary is the President of Kellett Investment Corp where he manages a large portfolio of diverse investments including real estate, investments in private companies and hedge funds. His 30+ years of financial and operations experience includes serving as Chief Financial Officer of Impac Hotel Group, one of the largest hotel companies in the US, and Technology Ventures, an incubator of several early stage technology companies. Before this, Gary held various leadership roles with The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and Johnstown American Companies. Gary holds a BBA Business Administration with a Major in Accounting from Georgia State University.
In Memory
C. James Judson, Chairman and Co-Founder
1944 - 2018
Jim was a retired senior partner at a prominent Seattle-based law firm and board member and co-founder of Spectrum Effect. Jim was previously Chairman and co-founder of Eden Rock Communications, VP at Eagle River Investments, Founding President at McCaw International/Nextel International and Founding President at McCaw UniCom Shanghai JV. Jim’s extensive experience in the wireless industry led to his development of some of the world's largest cellular operators. Jim served on the boards of China Unicom, Nextel International, NextLink, Lumera, Port Blakely Tree Farms, Garrett and Ring, Joshua Green Corporation, Welco Lumber, Airbiquity, Sonata Capital, TUPL, Opanga, Seattle Institute for Biomedical and Clinical Research, Aubeta and TSK America. Jim also served on the Boards of Trustees of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Foundation, the Yosemite National Institutes, the Pacific Science Center and the Washington Athletic Club. Jim attended Stanford University, B.A. cum laude 1966, and Stanford Law School, LLB. 1969 and was Executive Editor of the Stanford Law Review.
Spectrum Effect is grateful to Jim for the vision, guidance, and invaluable contributions to our success. Jim was a leader, a mentor, and a good friend. The Spectrum Effect team will honor Jim’s legacy by working diligently to bring his vision to reality.