Tom Dunlap, ’79

*Retired*

When Tom Dunlap ’79 joined Intel Corp. it was six years old and only a whisper of the $30-billion-a-year semiconductor powerhouse it would one day become. As Dunlap retired in January at the age of 54, he wrapped up three decades at the company he joined as a young electrical engineer just out of college.

Back then, not knowing he was working for the world’s future chip-manufacturing leader, Dunlap considered various advanced degrees before settling on law school—night classes while remaining with Intel by day. Dunlap credits Santa Clara’s night law program for sparking his career path at a time when high technology itself was embryonic. Dunlap sought out any course with a hint of intellectual property or business linkage, while at Intel he worked on technical contracts, toting his law school texts on business trips abroad. When he graduated in 1979, Intel tapped him as its first European counsel, and based him in Brussels.

"After that it was my career strategy to continue to learn and improve my skill set in whatever was the logical thing for me to do in my current job and grow a little bit and be ready for whatever was the next opportunity that came around."

The opportunities never stopped at Intel, where he was one of four lawyers in the early days. "We had to be pretty interchangeable and deal with whatever came in," he says. For two decades, he was the company’s general counsel, heading up an in-house legal team of 389 people by the time he retired with the title of senior vice president as well.

Longevity did not mean monotony, he says. "The job was different every year. The challenge was varied."

Dunlap was a key player in litigation and legislation that were vital to chip and microcode protection, but he counts as his proudest accomplishment the development of "a full service legal department" that understands the company’s needs and seeks the best solutions for the corporation and shareholders.