Management Series: Leadership Panel - Aspire to be a Senior Leader? Ideas to get there.

We have three amazing speakers lined up for our panel to conclude our six-part management series. Learn more about them below! All proceeds from this event will go towards our scholarship program.

Karen Smith 

President, Olympus Scientific Solutions Americas

At Olympus Scientific Solutions Americas, Karen is focused on supporting, global customers and the employees and functions of the USA and Canada operations where they design and manufacture innovative test and measurement instrumentation in the fields of ultrasound, eddy current, and X-ray fluorescence technologies.

Karen began her career in NDT in 1987 at Panametrics in Waltham, MA where she focused on ultrasound instrumentation and applications. She became part of the Olympus team in 2005 during the business acquisition of R/D Tech. Karen has held several positions including leading Global Sales, R&D, Manufacturing&Operations, Marketing and Strategy.

Karen earned her Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Union College in Schenectady, NY and holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Clark University in Worcester, MA.

In her personal time, Karen enjoys downhill skiing, musicals, lake/water activities, biking, and cooking.

Nancy Wheeler-Nelson 

Retired, Former General Manager of Trimble

Nancy Wheeler-Nelson graduated from San Jose State University (SJSU) in 1979 with a BSEE. She also holds a BS from the University of New Mexico and completed graduate work in Applied Math at Santa Clara University (SCU) . Nancy began her engineering career as a development engineer and manager within Hewlett Packard’s Santa Clara Frequency and Time Division where she received two patents for algorithmic work. 

She then joined Trimble where she held the position of Vice President of Engineering for communication engineering and received her third patent for her work in GPS and radio communications. Her teams were located in Singapore, Christchurch New Zealand, USA, Germany and Sweden. She is retired after 27 years as a General Manager for the Engineering & Construction Segment of Trimble. 

Nancy was awarded the SJSU 2002 Engineering Award of Distinction for engineering excellence and service to the community. She has served on the Industrial Advisory Boards for SJSU and SCU engineering programs. Nancy was a charter officer forming the Society of Women Engineers SJSU student section. She is a founding director of SWE SCV Section GetSET outreach program (1992- 2003), a SWE Life member, SWE Fellow (2001) and a recipient of the SWE Distinguished Service Award (2006). 

Currently Nancy volunteers as treasurer for the local volunteer fire depart and participates with the SWE Late Career and Retired Affiliation Group (LCR AG). Additionally, she has been an advisor for the GetSET planning committee and participated in the virtual 2020 GetSET Summer Week.

Lynn Olson 

VP High Performance Memory Engineering, Micron Technology, Inc.

Lynn Olson is the Vice President of High-Performance Memory Engineering in the DRAM Engineering Group (DEG) at Micron Technology. She is responsible for the leadership of world-wide development activities related to high performance memory (High Bandwidth Memory and Graphics). Under her leadership, the team builds on the strong momentum delivering end-to-end solutions leveraging Micron’s industry leading graphics technology and driving successful entry into the high bandwidth memory (HBM) market as well as delivering future near memory solutions.

Prior to joining Micron, Ms. Olson was at Intel serving as Vice President in the Data Platforms Group – Programmable Engineering in Penang, Malaysia and India at Intel Corporation. She oversaw the development of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), including associated intellectual property (IP) and software development to advance business growth and foster technical leadership.

Before joining the Data Platforms Group – Programmable Solutions Group in 2017, she oversaw customer relationships and product development as general manager of the North America foundry program office at Intel Custom Foundry. Earlier in her Intel career, Ms. Olson spent eight years as program manager for the data center platform execution team. From 1999 to 2006, Ms. Olson served as general manager of Intel’s logic technology development design group. 

Ms. Olson earned her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from San Jose State University. She serves on the advisory committee for the university’s electrical engineering department.