Three Join HMC Board of Trustees

Harvey Mudd College has elected three new members to its board of trustees.

Annie Tran Kao ’02 serves as a structural engineer with the Simpson Strong-Tie Company, Inc., a manufacturer of construction building products.She joined the company in 2006 as a branch engineer and served as the Southwest training and education manager from 2009 to 2011. Prior to Simpson, Kao worked as a project engineer for new and retrofit commercial and residential projects for Ficcadenti, Waggoner & Castle Structural Engineers in Orange County, Calif. She also performed seismic evaluations of structures as an intern with Degenkolb Engineers in San Francisco.

Kao received her bachelor’s degree in engineering from Harvey Mudd College and her master’s degree in structural engineering from the University of California, Berkeley as a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellow. A licensed professional engineer in California, she is registered with the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. She actively participates in the Structural Engineers Association of Southern California and served on its Younger Member Board of Directors.

Deborah Rieman has more than 30 years experience in the computer software, networking andcommunications industries, serving as a technologist, marketing executive, chief executive and corporate director. She began her career asan assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Now she manages a private investmentfund and serves on the boards of Corning, Inc, Keynote Systems, LogLogic, Inc. and SmartPak, Inc.

Rieman is the retired president and CEO of Check Point Software Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of network security solutions. During her tenure at Check Point, the company’s market capitalization grew from   $12 million to more than $10 billion. Before Check Point, Rieman was vice president of marketing at Adobe Systems Incorporated. Prior to Adobe, she served as president and CEO of Sitka Corporation, a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems. She has also held management positions at Xerox Corporation and MITRE Corporation.

Rieman earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Sarah Lawrence College and her doctorate in mathematics from Columbia University.

Erin Smith is a retired banker and entrepreneur. In her early career, she focused on commercial

and private banking, working at Chase Manhattan and Citibank in New York and London. She later played instrumental roles in launching multiple Internet startups—including Bigfoot International and Tribeca Tables Software Development—with her husband, Leonard Barshack.

Smith holds a magna cum laude J.D. from the New York Law School and is admitted to both the New York and Idaho bars. She holds undergraduate degrees in finance and economics from the University of Delaware.

She has a longstanding interest in the cause of higher education, particularly the fields in which HMC excels: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.