Donald Golini

Lecturer in Entrepreneurship Email: don.golini@simon.rochester.edu

Don Golini is a successful entrepreneur with over twenty years of experience in the development, management and commercialization of new technologies. For the past 14 years, Don was the president of QED Technologies, a company he founded in 1996 to commercialize a novel optical polishing technology transferred from the University of Rochester.QED develops, manufactures and markets polishing and metrology equipment for the precision optics industry.

Since its founding QED has grown from 5 to more than 50 employees with personnel in the U.S., Germany, France, Japan, and Australia. The QED portfolio includes more than a dozen fundamental international patents, and the company has sold more than 150 machines in North America, Europe and Asia. In July 2006, QED was acquired by Cabot Microelectronics Corporation (NASDAQ: CCMP), the leading supplier of chemo-mechanical planarization slurries used for polishing semiconductor and data storage devices. Over the years, QED has received various prestigious awards, including the Photonics Circle of Excellence Award, the U.S. Department of Defense Manufacturing Technology Achievement Award, the Rochester Top 100 Award, the R&D Magazine R&D100 Award, and the Rochester Business Ethics Award.

Prior to founding QED, Golini was involved in the development, management and commercialization of new technologies related to the manufacture of precision optics. He managed the research program at the Center for Optics Manufacturing (C.O.M.) at the University of Rochester from 1992–1996, and worked on large optics manufacturing and R&D at Itek Optical Systems in Lexington, Mass., from 1986–1992.

Golini is the author of many technical publications, has assisted in conference and technical session planning, and has served as a technical referee for the Optical Society of America (O.S.A.), the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers, the American Society for Precision Engineering and the U.S. Department of Energy. He is a former president of the Rochester chapter of the O.S.A. and is named on seven U.S. patents. In 2001, Don was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year®, and in 2003, selected as a Small Business Administration Rochester Small Business Person of the Year finalist. He is currently an active member of the Rochester Angel Network (RAN), and serves as a member of the Dean’s visiting Committee for the University of Rochester’s Hajim School of Engineering

B.S., Optics,
University of Rochester

M.S., Electro-Optics,
Tufts University