Longtime tech entrepreneur and new Foundation of CSUMB board member Bud Colligan envisions free higher education for all. Wi-Fi, too.

UD COLLIGAN’S CAREER IN TECHNOLOGY STARTED IN THE EARLY 1980S WHEN HE JOINED APPLE INC. as part of the team that launched the Macintosh personal computer. After launching the Macintosh in Europe in 1984 and 1985, Colligan became the director of higher education marketing, where he helped the Macintosh become entrenched in higher education institutions across the country. Revenues for his division grew to more than half-a-billion dollars.

In 1987, as part of his higher ed job, Colligan spearheaded the creation of Apple’s Knowledge Navigator video. It laid out Apple’s vision of the future, showing a professor open what looks like a notebook on a desk to reveal a tablet-like device inside. The professor interacts with a “personal agent” appearing on the tablet’s screen through voice, asking the agent for information on deforestation in the Amazon – the device speaks, and pulls up articles on the topic – and the device even places a call to one of the article authors upon request.

It was a proto-Siri idea, something that at the time seemed futuristic – but as we now know, accurately predicted a relationship to technology that has become a daily reality 30 years later.

That video was made in six weeks and premiered at a major education trade show, Educom, and provided a vision for many things in personal computing for years to come.

Because of his expertise in educational computing and multimedia, Colligan was recruited from Apple to be CEO of Authorware in 1989, and in 1992, combined Authorware with Macromind-Paracomp to co-found Macromedia, taking the company public on NASDAQ in 1993 (and serving as chairman of the board until 1998). Adobe Systems acquired Macromedia in 2005 for $3.4 billion. In 1996, Ernst and Young recognized Colligan as “Software Entrepreneur of the Year.”

The longtime tech entrepreneur has also become a social entrepreneur, a community activist and an investor. As a co-founder of Monterey Bay Economic Partnership (MBEP) in 2014, Colligan has sought to improve the economic health and quality of life for all residents in the Monterey Bay region. In 2016 he spearheaded the founding of the Monterey Bay Housing Trust as part of MBEP, to facilitate more affordable housing in the region.

He’s been involved with social finance programs including the Opportunity Fund, a not-for-profit microfinance provider. The fund has invested over $320 million into California communities and small businesses.

He’s currently politically involved, supporting county supervisor candidate Manu Koenig in Santa Cruz County. And this summer, Colligan was named to the board of directors of the Foundation of CSU Monterey Bay. CSUMB will start the 2020-21 school year on Aug. 24 remotely, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Weekly caught up with Colligan via phone at his home in Santa Cruz.

  Weekly: What’s your interest in public universities, particularly at this moment in time? What role can a public institution like CSUMB play?

Colligan: I’ve been associated with CSUMB for a long time. I got involved with some of their first startup weekends, with Central Coast Angels and a sponsored speaker series where we had speakers from all over the world talk about entrepreneurship and the environment. [CSUMB President] Eduardo Ochoa was one of the first people I went to in 2014 when I started the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership. I was supposed to be the graduation speaker this year, but that got canceled.

Education is the ticket to a better life, better family, and the ability to prosper in this new information technology world.”

I believe in public education, and at CSUMB they walk the walk, educating first-generation students, where [minority] students are the majority. Education is the ticket to a better life, better family, and the ability to prosper in this new information technology world.

There is a clear digital divide between those who have access to high-speed internet and state-of-the-art technology and those who do not. What needs to be done? Should cities and the county provide free Wi-Fi for everyone?

The digital divide was one of the first two initiatives of MBEP, focusing on rural and farmworker access to the internet. The Sunesys, a trunk line between Santa Cruz and Soledad, got installed and made a big difference. A major broadband line goes down I-5, hooks up to Gonzales, and other towns have tied into it. Other smaller, third-party services have added to this network, to provide better Wi-Fi for the whole community.

And yes, Wi-Fi should be free. If we’re providing public education with tax dollars and if it’s online now, with distance learning, then it should be delivered with high-speed internet, and every student should be given a laptop and free internet. There’s a free hotspot program in the city of Gonzales. [The city distributed 2,000 4G hotspots that provide unlimited high-speed Wi-Fi and support up to 12 concurrent connections, for free. Proof of residence in the City of Gonzales is all that is required to qualify.]

Should public universities be free?

Community college is essentially free now, but even if education is free, people still have bills, childcare, food and rent to pay while they’re going to school. Beyond community colleges, once they enter four-year colleges, that should be free. Shelter, food, healthcare and education: These are the basic tenets of a society. I subscribe to a Scandinavian model where education is free. For those who cannot afford it, they should be offered it.

For public institutions, the four-year graduation rate is 33 percent; the six-year rate is 58 percent. For private colleges, the four-year graduation rate is 53 percent in four years and 65 percent in six years. That’s because they have a lot more resources.

Today, about 42 percent of all kids graduate from college. Of those, about 75 percent go to public universities. So, should college be free? That’s a big number. My position, yes. Conservatives will say we cannot afford it, but we waste money in other ways.

Other than dealing with Covid-19 and distance learning, what is the greatest obstacle facing CSUMB in 2020?

I’m going to learn, I haven’t even been to one board meeting yet. I’m going to reserve my assessment.

How best do you think CSUMB should navigate the pressures of Covid-19?

CSUMB and the whole Cal State system were very smart in making an early call to go online-only this fall. The biggest question, not just for Cal State, for every university, [is the] very large cost structure based on in-person education, so a lot of money is spent on the physical dorms, meals, health centers, etc. When you move to an online model, what does it mean to the costs, and how much are people willing to pay for it?

“Drones, solar-powered aviation – that’s a great opportunity for our area.”

That reconciliation was going to go on for the next 25 years, plenty of time to give universities time to adjust and create two tracks – one online, one in person – but that question and the resolution has been fast-forwarded. Not just for CSUMB, but for every university.

We’ve heard many politicians yearn for a big tech company like Apple or Google to open up a division in Monterey County, but the research says that’s unlikely. Would it be a good idea to attract tech companies here, and if so, what needs to be done to make this happen?

The brief answer is no. No tech company in their right mind will relocate or put a major presence in Monterey or Santa Cruz counties, compared to, say, Portland, Oregon. We don’t have the talent base, the housing, there’s too high a cost of living.

However, what I have argued for is that there are opportunities to build companies from the ground up that have unique opportunities in the region. I started working on this six years ago, and it’s making progress. In Santa Cruz, Looker, started by a couple of local guys, got acquired by Google for $2.6 billion. Netflix started in Santa Cruz, but decided to relocate to Los Gatos [in Silicon Valley]. Google has 500 people at Looker, and another 500 commuting over the hill. Plantronics, Borland, Seagate, Texas Instruments, all had a big presence in Santa Cruz. And now, there are a lot of startups, Central Coast Angels has invested in a number of startups. Fullpower Technologies, even, Amazon is doing mobile development in Santa Cruz

“At CSUMB they walk the walk, educating first-generation students, where [minority] students are the majority.”

In Monterey County, a couple of vectors are starting to work – for example, Joby Aviation. It’s not clear if it will stay, though, as other states are vying for the business. Drones, solar-powered aviation – that’s a great opportunity for our area.

In Salinas, MBEP, CSUMB and the [Western Growers Center for Innovation and Technology’s] ag tech incubator are shining examples of what’s being done. A lot of startups are in the area. CSUMB, with increased support for the business school, is trying to get an engineering school going and the big ag companies, including Taylor Farms and Driscoll’s, develop a lot of intellectual property­ – seminal companies that change the paradigm and employ a lot of people in I.T. and robotics. How do you start leveraging the assets of a large company so eventually they spin out a lot of new companies? That’s the opportunity.

Of the over 7,500 enrolled CSUMB students, 44 percent are Latino, over 60 percent are female, 40 percent are from within the tri-county area, nearly half are first-generation college students, and almost 30 percent are low-income. What must the university do to foster success for this student body?

CSUMB is already doing it, they are walking the walk. CSin3 is a joint degree with Hartnell and CSUMB, you get your degree in three years. [The CSin3 program allows students to earn a computer science degree in three years by committing to year-round study and taking classes at both CSUMB and Hartnell College.]

That program has a lot of mentoring, and personal instruction, and I can tell you that a class of 40 or 50 students would be made up almost entirely of first-generation students, and minorities. They have lots of supplemental programs and academic counseling. Salinas Valley Promise at Hartnell helps a lot of students matriculate, is part of a pilot that now has over 1,100 students, trying to link students together so they can coach and counsel and be a peer group, and give them equipment, and attempt to pair them one-on-one with successful people. It includes free computers, summer leadership, quarterly professional development, mentoring. And certainly now, maybe more than ever, success is a nice remedy for negativity.

What was your first computer?

An Apple II [the first computer sold by Apple which had a 5.25” storage disk only, with 140 KB of storage. For comparison, a 250 GB hard drive sold today is equal to 250,000,000 KB].

Did you receive Apple stock options in 1983, when you started working there? What are they worth today?

Everybody did. When Apple’s stock went public, it was at $22. You could have bought Apple stock after Steve Jobs first left and up until the iPod came out in 2004, and the stock was basically flat. It started to have its incredible run-up after his return, and for the last 15 years. If you had $1,000 of Apple stock back then, it would be worth $435,000 today.

Anything you learned from your days at Apple?

We were the huge underdog after the IBM PC came out, and Apple almost went bankrupt in 1985. I was fortunate enough to work in Apple education, and had a very important position with the colleges and universities. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have worked with Steve Jobs, to see so many of the colleges in this country, and to witness the transition after Steve left.

“You could have bought Apple stock after Steve Jobs first left and up until the iPod came out in 2004, and the stock was basically flat.”

The Knowledge Navigator video was created in response to needing to go to a big educational trade show in 1987. And we were going to compete with Steve Jobs and his new company, NEXT, fighting against his amorphous product.

That video was made to demonstrate that Apple still had it. It gave Apple a vision that it could talk to for two years, filling an important gap.

In retrospect, many of the things envisioned – artificial intelligence and “agents” and laptops with graphics and sounds built in, and the worldwide internet – all of that stuff came to pass in 20 years.

The people whom I worked with on that, you do that once in your lifetime, it was a seminal piece of work. And then most of the things (envisioned) came about.

The only thing we got absolutely wrong was the notion was that the Knowledge Navigator was like a book.

What’s your favorite app on your iPhone?

Probably my camera and photos app.

What iPhone do you use?

I’m on the iPhone X. I don’t have an 11 yet.