Walter Loewenstern, Jr., Private Investor

Dr. Walter Loewenstern was born in Houston, Texas, and served in the U.S. Navy for two years as an officer in the Civil Engineering Corp. Walter moved to the San Francisco Bay area in 1961, where he spent eight years as an engineer for the Electronic Defense Lab of GT&E.  In 1969, he and three other engineers founded the ROLM Corporation, which grew to become a Fortune 500 company by manufacturing and selling computerized telephone exchanges and militarized computers.

In 1984, IBM bought the ROLM Corporation, and Walter retired from the company four years later. He is currently on the board of the Hoover Institution, is active as a venture capitalist in high-tech start-ups, and is an investor in real estate.

Walter has been active in JA for over 40 years.  He first volunteered as a consultant for several classes JA classes, which sparked his interest in JA. He then served on the board of the Santa Clara chapter of JA for a number of terms, and joined JA Worldwide in its infancy. He studied Russian, and then traveled to Russia to help set up JA there. 

Walter has a B.A., B.S. in electrical engineering from Rice University and a Ph. D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

He and his wife live in Los Angeles, and they maintain a second home in Santa Cruz, California. They have three grown children and three grandchildren.