Sam Tishler
Sam has had a fairly eclectic career. Trained as a geologist, (B.A. Boston University), he was planning to attend graduate school when he received an offer from the Smithsonian/Harvard Astrophysical Observatory to do field work at their world wide network of astrophysical observatories. Sam served in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, and then became Station Chief in Shiraz, Iran, and Olifantsfontein, South Africa. He also oversaw the construction of an observatory in Ethiopia. During his time abroad, he established a successful program to recover meteorites and map meteorite craters in the Middle East and Southern Africa. After seven years abroad, Sam and his family returned to the USA to manage all of the observatories in the U.S., South America, Africa and the Middle East.
His career change began when he became the CEO of Harnessed Energies, Inc., a small geophysical instrumentation company in Massachusetts. From there he became a Senior Consultant at Arthur D. Little, Inc. an international consulting company where he specialized in the commercialization of new technology, and became a founding partner of Arthur D. Little Ventures, funded by ADL and Harvard. After seven years at ADL, he became CEO of a client company, Kloss Video Corporation, founded by Henry Kloss, an audio/video pioneer who founded Acoustic Research, KLH, (he was the K), and Advent. Henry had created the market for large screen color television, and came to ADL to help him commercialize his invention, a very bright projection cathode ray tube based upon Schmidt reflecting telescope optics. After Kloss Video, Sam became Vice President of Raytheon Ventures where he invested in and became a director of several companies, some of which became public. He also led the development of strategic plans, acquisitions and divestitures for Raytheon’s commercial divisions.Sam’s final position before retiring was as Vice President for Corporate Development at Dynatech, a Massachusetts based mid-sized conglomerate.
In retirement Sam was chairman of DPAC/Quatech, an electronics manufacturer based in California and Ohio. Before moving to Sanibel Island in 2000, Sam and his wife Brenda lived on a small farm in Central Massachusetts raising their three children, and caring for a menagerie of dogs, cats, horses, ponies, sheep, and an assortment of barnyard fowl.
Sam has had a lifelong passion for flying, scuba diving, ultramarathon cycling, upland bird hunting, and listening to early, classical, orchestral and chamber music, and the type of jazz exemplified by Miles Davis and John Coltrane.