National Council - Ralph Derrickson

Ralph Derrickson has been an entrepreneur most of his professional life. He is drawn to people and organizations who seek to use technology to create new business models and make the world a better place. Ralph’s experience combines operations and investment in a wide range of business settings, including start-ups, interim management, venture, and restructuring situations. He is especially interested in healthcare and works with a number of start-ups as a strategic advisor.  Most recently Ralph was President & CEO of Bsquare Corporation (NASDAQ: BSQR) where he restructured the business and raised over $32M prior to its acquisition by Kontron America, Inc. 

Preceding that he was President and CEO of Carena, Inc, from 2006 to its acquisition in 2017.  They were the first organization to deliver virtual care at scale starting in 2008 and led the industry in all clinical quality and patient satisfaction metrics.  Prior positions of note include Managing Director of Venture Investments for Vulcan Capital, Paul Allen’s investment management company where he led technology, wireless, and biotechnology investments. Ralph co-founded Watershed Capital, an early-stage technology venture fund. He held executive leadership positions at Metricom, Vulcan Ventures, Starwave Corporation, and NeXT Computer. He started his career as a system software engineer at Sun Microsystems and Digital Research.

In his volunteer work he focuses on entrepreneurship & education. He is a mentor with the Creative Destruction Lab Computational Health Stream at the University of Washington (UW). He serves on the President’s Roundtable and the Dean’s National Council for the Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences at RIT. He chaired the Advisory Board of the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship at UW for over 5 years and is still an active member of the board. He is also treasurer and trustee of the Hyla School on Bainbridge Island.