Jay Galbraith has the honor of serving as the president of BRIDG with its mission to create a semiconductor manufacturing, advanced packaging, and workforce hub to serve America in Osceola County, Florida. He brings more than three decades of administrative leadership and government affairs experience serving Central Florida and the entire state in transformational initiatives to his role leading the organization.

 

Jay has been a partner of BRIDG since its inception more than a decade ago through his work with Valencia College. Jay leverages his strengths to position BRIDG and establish NeoCity as a national hub for semiconductor research, manufacturing, advanced packaging, and workforce attainment. As BRIDG leads programs and federal contract awards critical to national security and domestic self-sufficiency in semiconductor advanced packaging of microelectronic systems, his familiarity with BRIDG drives the vision for the future forward.

 

Prior to joining BRIDG, Jay served as vice president for public affairs at Valencia College. His background also includes corporate leadership roles at United Parks and Resorts and the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, Lees-McRae College in North Carolina, and the Pinellas Education Foundation, in addition to serving in key staff roles for two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Michael Bilirakis and Congressman Bill Grant.

 

Jay is a graduate of Indian River State College, where he earned his associate in arts degree, and Florida State University, where he earned a bachelor’s in political communication. He and his wife, Carrie, an attorney, have four children and reside in Orlando, Florida.

Dr. John Allgair leads the Advanced System Integration and Packaging Program at BRIDG which is focused on providing robust, cost-effective platforms for the heterogeneous integration of silicon, III/V and photonic devices to enable smart sensor integration.  

 

Over his twenty-year career in the semiconductor industry, Dr. Allgair has worked in roles focused on business growth, innovation and bringing new products to market during tenures at GLOBALFOUNDRIES, AMD, SEMATECH, Freescale and Motorola.  His semiconductor engineering background includes advanced packaging integration, secure manufacturing, factory design, FinFET process integration, yield enhancement, lithography, materials characterization and engineering management.

 

Dr. Allgair serves on the SPIE Advanced Lithography program committee, the NDIA Electronics Division DIB Policy committee and has multiple publications in peer reviewed, industry journals.  He received a PhD in electrical engineering with an emphasis in semiconductor physics and processing from Arizona State University.

Linda Cappadona is Vice President of Program Management for BRIDG with extensive experience managing the cost, schedule, performance, and customer relationship of portfolios in both commercial and DoD space.

 

Prior to joining BRIDG, Linda worked for Northrop Grumman Corporation for more than 17 years, where she was responsible for over $1B in delivery orders for Precision Targeting and Infrared Countermeasure systems with the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force. Throughout her career she has held roles of increasing technical and leadership responsibility in the areas of engineering, manufacturing, quality, and program management at Lockheed Martin, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and Adaptec.

 

Linda holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Phoenix. She is also a graduate of both the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business Capture Strategy Executive Program and the Leadership Orlando program.

 

Outside of the office, Linda is passionate about serving others and her community. In addition to her role as an outreach coordinator for the Veteran’s Prostate Cancer Awareness Foundation, her commitment to veteran advocacy extends to the eradication of veteran suicide through support of the Top Gun Fighter Foundation and the No Fallen Heroes project.  She also participates as a volunteer board member for True Health, a private, nonprofit community health center that serves low-income, uninsured, underinsured, and underserved populations in Central Florida.

Russell Foster brings over 35 years of semiconductor industry design, development, and production experience to the BRIDG team. In his role as vice president of test and measurement at BRIDG, a U.S.-based not-for-profit, public-private partnership focused on microelectronics manufacturing and development, Russ is responsible for all test and measurement activities for the organization.

 

Prior to joining BRIDG, Russ was vice president of subsystem engineering at the heterogeneous semiconductor company, Skorpios Technologies, that he cofounded. There, he was responsible for the development of optical communications products developed on the Skorpios Heterogeneous Integration Platform.

 

In addition to his time at Skorpios Technologies, Russ spent over 10 years as member of technical staff at Bell Laboratories in Allentown, Pennsylvania where the first transistor manufacturing plant in the U.S. was located. Russ also cofounded the fabless semiconductor company, AANetcom, during the early days of offshoring chip manufacturing to Taiwan. His career also includes more than 15 years in the Optical Communications industry, on the semiconductor side, where he held roles as co-founder, product engineer, principal engineer, director of engineering, and vice president of engineering.

 

Russ earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Monmouth University and a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Delaware.

With more than 20 years of experience in strategic marketing, communications, economic development, and international relations, Gloria has focused her career on advancing the local, national, and global competitive advantage of the Orlando region and the companies where she has worked.

 

Most recently, Gloria’s diverse background positioned her to lead marketing, communications, and community relations efforts for BRIDG, a US-based not-for-profit, public-private partnership for microelectronics manufacturing and development.

 

Previously, Gloria worked for the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission (now Orlando Economic Partnership) in varying roles. Her responsibilities ranged from directing large-scale transformational initiatives and legislative priorities for the region to managing projects focused on digital media, simulation, innovative technologies, international trade, and cultural affairs. Her experience also includes marketing and business development for CHEP, a global provider of pallet and container pooling services, along with publicity and public relations for AAA and Pinecastle Records/American Bluegrass Network, a record label and syndicated radio show.

 

Gloria has actively served the Orlando region through current and past affiliations, including participation on advisory boards and committees for Boy Scouts of America, MicheLee Puppets, Jonathan’s Landing, Florida Photonics Cluster, Orlando Economic Partnership, Orange County Government, Orlando Science Center, Orange County Regional History Center, and Visit Orlando. Gloria also served as a mentor to students in the UCF Nicholson School of Communication and Media Mentorship Program and is part of the volunteer family at Give Kids the World.

 

Gloria was recently honored as a Community Game Changer by the Osceola Magic NBA G League, inducted into the University of Central Florida (UCF) Nicholson School of Communication & Media Alumni Hall of Fame, selected as a UCF College of Sciences Distinguished Alumni, and chosen as one of Orlando Business Journal’s 2018 Women Who Mean Business. She received her bachelor’s degree in advertising and public relations from the University of Central Florida and is a Thunderbird School of Global Management certified export trade specialist.