50 Most Important People in Sonoma County: Don Green

Some people start working on their golf swings when they retire. Don Green starts companies.

The British-born engineer retired twice in the past 14 years, only to come racing back each time with a bright idea and a burning desire to start a new telecommunications company in Petaluma: first Optilink Corp. in 1986, then Advanced Fibre Communications in 1992.

''I discovered I wasn't very good at being retired,'' the 67-year-old entrepreneur said.

Today, a family of high-tech startups along Highway 101 between Petaluma and Santa Rosa traces its roots to Green, who brought a new industry to Sonoma County -- and along with it an influx of highly paid technology whizzes from around the world.

In a little more than a decade, Green and a talented group of former employees launched 11 of the 15 telecommunications equipment manufacturers in Sonoma County. Clustered in a corridor that has come to be known as Telecom Valley, these young companies are building devices that connect homes and businesses to high-speed communications networks.

Telecom Valley has become one of the strongest and fastest-growing parts of the Sonoma County economy. Last year, local telecommunications equipment companies sold more than $1 billion worth of technology around the world. More than 2,200 people now work in Telecom Valley, where the average salary tops $70,000 a year.

Green played a key role in the development of Telecom Valley -- not just by starting its two biggest companies and staffing them with talented engineers, but by allowing employees to leave and start their own companies.

''We are the children of Don Green. He is the creator of all this,'' the founder of one Telecom Valley startup, Fibex Systems' V.K. Budhraja, said in 1997.

Green had no desire to become an entrepreneur when he started his career in telecommunications 50 years ago. Born into a working-class family in Liverpool -- his mother and father worked at the same factory making hair dryers for beauty salons -- Green was simply looking for a steady job when he took an apprenticeship in the communications arm of the British Post Office.

''I was not a tinkerer with technology. It just seemed like a good solid job where, after you worked there for 40 years, they paid you a good pension,'' Green said.

Green quickly discovered he was something of a misfit in the bureaucracy. Although the young engineer inhaled all the technical training available, he raised the ire of superiors by continually suggesting changes in the rigid organization.

''When I left, my file was quite thick for being a little bit of a troublemaker,'' Green said.

It was the birth of an entrepreneur. Green packed up and moved to Canada in 1956, then in 1960 headed to San Francisco, where he became a design engineer for Lynch Communications. He launched his first startup, Digital Telephone Systems, in Novato in 1969 and sold it four years later for about $25 million.

Green made his first attempt at retirement in 1985, but came back one year later to form Optilink, the first major telecommunications equipment company in Petaluma. He sold the company four years later for $54 million to Texas-based DSC Communications. Last year, French telecom giant Alcatel acquired DSC, in part because it coveted the technology developed in Petaluma.

Green left DSC in 1992 after clashing with Optilink's new owner. Instead of easing into retirement, he marched across the street from Optilink and started Advanced Fibre Communications. The company went public in 1996, raising $113 million in its initial public offering.

The ventures made Green a wealthy man, and he has returned some of his good fortunes to his adopted country. In 1997, Green and his wife, Maureen, donated $10 million toward the construction of a concert hall at Sonoma State University, where the Santa Rosa couple have sung in the university's Bach Choir for more than a decade. It was the largest single donation ever in the California State University system.

''I've always felt if people do well because society has allowed them to do well, then they have some obligation to give back,'' Green said.