James R. Carreker, 55, is the founder and managing principal of Arbutus Associates, a research and consultancy program in the emerging field of entrepreneurial philanthropy. Arbutus has as its mission a long-term systemic improvement in the efficiency of funding nonprofit organizations. Mr. Carreker is also founder and chairman of Philanthropix Partners, a newly formed information services nonprofit, based in San Francisco.

Until February 2001, Mr. Carreker was chairman of Aspect Communications Corporation (Nasdaq: ASPT), the world's leading supplier of call center systems, software for contact servers, and professional services for customer relationship management (CRM). Mr. Carreker founded Aspect in August 1985, took it public in 1990, and served as the company's CEO for 15 years. Under his leadership, the company grew to more than $500 million per year in revenues and over 2,500 employees in 18 countries.

In their local community, Jim and his wife Helen are active supporters of the arts and community public benefit organizations, including the San Jose Museum of Art, the Tech Museum of Innovation, Design Response, and others. He serves on the boards of the Foundation Incubator in Palo Alto, California and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington. He also serves on the Technology Advisory Council to CARE USA, the Atlanta-based international relief and poverty eradication organization.

For the past ten years, he has served on the industry professional advisory council to the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech and now serves on the Advisory Board to the President of Georgia Tech. Mr. Carreker is currently a member of Cohort I of The Philanthropy Workshop West, a year-long collaborative program of Hewlett Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and TOSA Foundation on the key principles of strategic philanthropy. He is a frequent informal technology advisor to a number of local and international nonprofits and believes in the importance of information, communications, and networking technologies in improving the operations and impact of nonprofits. Together, Jim and Helen Carreker are currently facilitating the formation of the Arbutus Center for Distributed Engineering Education at Georgia Tech, a new initiative to expand the methods of teaching engineering subjects using information technology.

Mr. Carreker is a past recipient of the 1995 Community Foundation Silicon Valley Corporate Community Involvement Award, the 1997 ALF John W. Gardner Leadership Award, the 1998 PACT Community Leadership in Action Award, and the 1999 NSFRE Outstanding Grantmaker Award.
Mr. Carreker is also an avid supporter of entrepreneurs and those who seek to build new for-profit companies. Through direct investment and participation in a half-dozen venture side-funds, Mr. Carreker has assisted in the funding of more than 100 Silicon Valley high technology start up companies in the past decade. He received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1969 and a master of science in electrical engineering with high honors from Stanford University in 1970. The Carreker’s have raised one daughter and live in Saratoga and San Francisco, California and Sydney, Australia.