By Gerrye Wong
To carry out its year-long theme of “Aerospace to Cyberspace — Moving in the 21st Century,” the Chinese Historical Society of America will honor Silicon Valley entrepreneur Kenneth Fong at its Gala 2001 Dinner on April 21 in San Francisco.
Fong, the founder and former CEO of Clontech Laboratories, Inc., helped lead the company to greatness. In 1990, it was selected by Inc. magazine as one of the 500 fastest growing, privately held companies in the United States. In August 1999, Clontech was merged with Becton Dickinson.
Fong retired last year, but that doesn’t mean he’s slowed down. Fong, his wife, Pamela, and two children, John and Maggie, reside in Atherton, Calif.
Fong is a board associate for the Whitehead Biomedical Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also sits on the Biotech Study Group for the Innovation & Technology Commission of the Hong Kong Government, and he is an advisory board member of the Developmental Center for Biotechnology (DCB) in Taiwan and the Biochip Center of Tsing Hua University in Beijing.
Here in the United States, Fong is on the Planning Advisory Board of Graduate Programs at the University of Pacific, and he is chairman of the long-range planning committee for the Society of Chinese Bioscientists. He is also a member of the Committee of 100, a group of prominent Chinese Americans in the United States.
In 2000, the Fongs established the Fong Optometry and Medical Library at the School of Optometry at University of California, Berkeley. He was one of the founders of 80/20, a political organization that is working to increase API political clout.
Fong earned a biology degree form San Francisco State University in 1971. He went on to receive his doctorate in molecular biology and microbiology from Indiana University. In 1998, he was named San Francisco State University’s Hall of Fame Alumnus. |
