Dr. Lawrence G. Roberts,
CEO and Founder of Anagran
Dr. Lawrence Roberts led the team that designed and developed ARPANET, the world's first major computer packet network. While at MIT in 1965 he created the first computer-to-computer network using a packet link between MIT and SDC. Based on that success, he moved to ARPA in 1966 as ARPA's chief scientist, and began to architect ARPANET in 1967 including the theoretical packet switching work by Leonard Kleinrock to expand the network to many nodes. Dr. Roberts designed and managed the building of the APRANET over the next 6 years. The first four computers were connected in 1969 and by 1973, 23 computers were connected worldwide. At that point Dr, Roberts turned the development over to Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf and left ARPA to form the first commercial packet network, Telenet. Today, Roberts and Kleinrock, along with Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, are widely recognized as the four founding fathers of the Internet.
After ARPA, Dr. Roberts founded the world's first packet data communications carrier, Telenet - the company that developed and drove adoption of the popular X.25 data protocol. Roberts was CEO from 1973 to 1980. Telenet was sold to GTE in 1979 and subsequently became the data division of Sprint. From 1983 to 1993, Roberts was Chairman and CEO of NetExpress, an electronics company specializing in packetized fax and ATM equipment.