In Memoriam

With the passing of Gary J. Bowen, Sr. on Thanksgiving Day, 2015, Deep Fiber Solutions lost one of its visionary founding investors. We will miss his advice and counsel.

Gary was in the computer and networking industry for 46 years. He began his career with the Hewlett-Packard Company where from 1968 to 1981 he held a variety of engineering, marketing, sales and management positions.

In 1981 he was a founder of Masscomp. Masscomp designed, manufactured and marketed computer systems for use in real time applications. Masscomp grew rapidly, went public in 1984, and was acquired in 1987 by Concurrent. While at Masscomp, Gary held the positions of Executive Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Customer Support and later as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the OEM Products Group.

In 1989, Gary joined the team of another start up company, Wellfleet Communications as Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Customer Support. Wellfleet grew at unprecedented rates and was twice named Fortune Magazine’s #1 fastest growing public company. Wellfleet was the only company to ever achieve this honor two years in a row.

In 1994, Wellfleet acquired Synoptics Networks and changed the name of the merged company to Bay Networks. At Bay, Gary was the Executive Vice President of Field Operations and Chief Marketing Officer. Gary left Bay in 1997 to begin a new career helping start up internet and networking companies succeed. Gary served as Chairman of New Oak Communications (acquired by Nortel), Quantum Bridge Communications (acquired by Motorola) and most recently as lead director of Acme Packet (acquired by Oracle in 2013).

Gary held a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rhode Island.