Sunday, June 24, 2012

10 Things You Should Know About Tim Cone

Off court with coach Tim Cone
He was nine years old when his family moved to the Philippines. He first lived in Baler, Quezon, where he attended public school and taught all his friends how to play baseball.

After 23 years and 13 championship titles with with Alaska, he shocked everyone with his big move and became head coach of the B-meg Llamados under the San Miguel Group. In just his second conference with his new team, he bagged his 14th PBA championship title. At 54, he is one win away from tying coach Baby Dalupan who holds the record for most PBA championships won. A statistician of sorts who compiles numbers and stats for the PBA and press, and often referred to as a “PBAologist” in the sports industry, Fidel Mangonon III says he holds the record for the most championships in a conference with imports, most number of wins overall, and most years as a head coach. Here are 10 things you should know about coach Tim Cone.

1. Coach Tim was nine years old when his family moved to the Philippines. He first lived in Baler, Quezon, where he attended public school, and he taught all his friends how to play baseball.

His father was a reforestation expert in the lumber business, whose partner had asked him to bring his company from Oregon (where they’re originally from) to the Philippines. Coach Tim’s two eldest sisters stayed in Oregon, while he and his elder sister moved here. “We sang Lupang Hinirang every morning, had gardening, had a rice paddy at the back,” he shares about his fifth grade in the Baler public school. Since he was big fan of baseball, he brought all his gear with him and says, “I ended up teaching everyone there how to play baseball!” After a year, his mom, sister and he moved to Manila and the two were enrolled in the International School Manila, where he eventually finished high school. His father continued to move from province to province, and during summer breaks, he would tag along. “I have lived in Baler, Surigao del Sur, Samar, Palawan, around three to four months at a time.” Coach Tim didn’t find it hard to uproot himself from life in Oregon to move halfway around the world, saying: “My mother made it into a big adventure, she was really good that way, always approaching everything in a positive manner.” He went on to attend college in the US, spending two years at Menlo College in California where he played basketball, before moving to George Washington University where he eventually finished.

Many times during the interview Coach Tim says, “I came home.” When I asked if “home” means the Philippines, he says yes. “I’ve always considered this my home.”

2. The first time Coach Tim touched a basketball was when he came to the Philippines.

“In the States it was always baseball, but basketball was the big thing here,” he shares of the days his father was the “star player” in different barangay ligas. He says he had never thought of a career in basketball because “when you’re growing up as a young man, you don’t dream of being a coach.” Unlike now, he says, when you have the likes of Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich, coaches that young people want to emulate.
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He was working with his father’s partner in a business venture selling meat, when he came across a friend from I.S., Fred Uytengsu. “He knew I was a basketball player from before and he said, ‘Hey, why don’t you come to a game? My father’s making me take over his team, we bought Alaska,’” coach Tim recalls. That was in 1986. They ended up watching games together, with coach Tim explaining the game to him, until a couple of years after, Fred recommended coach Tim to be an analyst for PBA’s TV coverage. “I was really bad at it,” he says about his yearlong stint. Around that time, Alaska had gone through six coaches within three years, until Fred asked coach Tim if he wanted to be the team’s consultant. From there, he became assistant coach, then head coach in 1989.

3. He really wanted to become a writer.

“When I was really young I wanted to be an astronaut, as I got older I wanted to be a writer,” he reveals. In college, he completed a double major in American literature (because he wanted to) and economics (because his parents wanted him to). After college, he worked as a trainee in a bank in San Francisco, but after over a year, he decided to come home. He lived with his father for a year at a ranch in Southern Quezon and “tried to write.” He was in his early 20s and working on a novel, tentatively titled His Alone Now, about a man in a broken marriage who somehow gets involved with the NPA. (“I never finished it so I’m kind of embarrassed about it.”) It was when he started coaching that he stopped writing. He still has his novel and short stories hidden somewhere but says with a shy smile, “I never show them.”

4. He met his wife Cristina at a time he was actually first set up on a date with one of her best friends.

“I was living in Manila and I’d come up (to Quezon) for a weekend once every three weeks, but after I met Cristina, I didn’t want to live in the province anymore,” coach Tim reveals. They met on a double date, where he brought his friend Mark and Cristina brought her friend Malou, but he ended up being paired with Malou that night. After going away again for three months, he shares: “I came back and I was really interested in Cristina, I didn’t have her number and so I called Malou to get her number,” he laughs out loud and turns red. To this day, they are all friends, and they still laugh about that story. They’ve been married for 21 years and have three children, Nikki, 20, Kevin, 16, and Trevor, 6. As a family, they love going to the beach and they enjoy going wakeboarding together. “My kids are always joking me, ‘Dad, I’m not one of your players,’” he laughs.

5. He and legendary NBA coach Phil Jackson share the same mentor: the innovator of the triangle offense, Tex Winter.

“Tex Winter is the architect of the triangle offense, the one used by the Chicago Bulls that won the championships, the one used by the Lakers to win the Championships,” he shares. “He was the one that taught the triangle to Phil Jackson’s players, and taught it to Phil Jackson.” In the book Pacific Rims, author Rafe Bartholomew wrote about how coach Tim learned the triangle offense on TV, by recording games and going over it, forwarding, rewinding it, figuring it all out. So when Tex came to the Philippines to give a seminar in 2000, he was told about coach Tim and so they were introduced. “He came to our practices, and he said we’re running the triangle at a higher level than the Lakers are at this point, he made a big deal about it. Right then and there we struck up a relationship.” From then on, they were in touch every few weeks, and in fact, coach Tim also got the chance to watch and observe Laker practices and games upon Tex’s invitation.

Coach Tim started learning the triangle offense in 1991, and brought it to Alaska in ‘93. “We had our worst year ever and Fred took me out to lunch to fire me. Being a coach, I coached him out of firing me.” In ‘94 they had one of their best years, another best year in ‘95, and in ‘96 they won the grand slam.

6. On what made him decide to leave Alaska: “I just felt that I needed to do something different. I wanted to see what it would be like from ground up to start again.”

“I need to say straight out that I was always treated extremely well with Alaska. It had nothing to do with leaving Alaska, or I had a problem with Alaska, or I wasn’t being paid well,” he clarifies. He calls Alaska team owner Fred Uytengsu his mentor, and shares that he was taken very good care of during his 23 years. He says that it was an opportunity that was out there and that he wasn’t sure, if he waited two or three years to grab it, if he would still be “attractive” to other teams. The primary motivation for him and his family was really “to go out and do something different.” He admits also having been interviewed by the Smart organization, adding that in coaching a team for 23 years, feelers and offers really come and go. “A lot of people think that I left because I got a fabulous contract offer from San Miguel. I have the same contract as I did, same benefits, with very little change just adopted by the San Miguel Corporation.” He says that they presented a clear path for him, which appealed to coach Tim, and which made him decide to take the position as head coach for B-meg in late 2011.

7. The perfect player for coach Tim would be a combination of Johnny Abarrientos, Jojo Lastimosa, Bong Hawkins, and Sean Chambers.

“There’s nobody like Johnny. He was such a unique player. He had a unique understanding of the game and incredible skills, like a Michael Jordan. If he had been 6’2” or 6’3” he would’ve been a star in the NBA,” he says of the “Flying A.” Adding “Jolas” to his list, he praises “the toughness and leadership of Jojo, his ability to get off shots when he needed to.” He adds the brawn and strength of “the Hawk” Bong Hawkins and the ability of import Sean Chambers to build relationships and push players to be better. “You combine those four players and you’ve probably got the best player in the world.”

8. On handling a surge of emotions on and off court: “You can’t afford to have dog houses.”

“One thing you learn in coaching: there is no such thing as a dog house. Dog house means when you’re mad at someone, you put them in a dog house, then just forget about them.” He says as a coach, you cannot hold grudges. He says it may be a cliché, but during games, you have to stay in the moment. “I can get mad at a player and, literally, turn around, and after 30 seconds, completely forget about it.” But sometimes, the player doesn’t forget, and that’s something a coach has to deal with later on. He says he and Jojo Lastimosa had that kind of great relationship. “We’d get mad and scream at each other, and three minutes later Jojo’s making a great play and I’d be applauding him.”

9. Coach Tim Cone in numbers:

63: Number of stitches he got on his forehead during a car accident he was in back in high school. He was in the passenger seat, and upon impact, his head hit the windshield.

7: Years he and wife Cristina dated before they got married. She’s five years younger than him, and was a college senior when they met.

50-plus: Number of ties in his closet.

11: Jersey number he wore in college.

13: Number of championship rings he got from Alaska. “I think I lost one already,” he shares. “Phil Jackson, in the playoffs, would wear a ring from a championships to remind players of the big picture. One year I did that, not only did I lose the ring, but we lost in the playoffs.”

10. On “letting go” of the idea of the glory days in the ’90s when he won the grand slam: “It’s a difference between being goal oriented and growth oriented.”

“I talk about it a lot with the team now. When you have goals, and you reach them, sometimes it makes you feel like you’re done with it. So where do you go from there? But if you’re growth conscious, then there is no limit,” he explains. With this mindset, he shares that every time you reach a goal, you continue to grow beyond it. It becomes a step into another step into another step. “Winning that grand slam, winning that championship, those are all goals were met. Fine, gone, done. Now, we’re here.”

* * *

I talked to a couple of players under coach Tim to ask how he was as a coach. “He’s a teacher more than he is a coach,” they all said. Coach Tim’s former players Johnny Abarrientos and Jeffrey Cariaso both work with him now as assistant coaches, and for your former superstar players to come work with you beyond their retirement as players is a testament to how much they believe in you. “The most fulfilling part about coaching is not the wining, its watching the individual players grow, not only as players but as people,” coach Tim shares. While other coaches are “X and O” coaches, coach Tim values chemistry. “Chemistry separates average teams from good teams, and good teams from great teams.” And in a basketball-crazy country like ours, coach Tim’s continuous goal of making these young men better is not only touching, but during games, exciting and heart-stopping.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

10 Things You Should Know About Tweetie De Leon

Tweetie de Leon: Would you believe she's 45?
Tweetie de Leon became a household name when she took on the role of Faye, the enkantada wife of Enteng Kabisote, played by Vic Sotto

Growing up as a dark-skinned Filipina, I often wondered why I was being bullied and teased for my morena complexion when, in fact, we are all Filipinos who understandably have brown skin. And then I came to know about Tweetie de Leon. A commercial and ramp model, TV personality, hall-of-famer in “Most Beautiful” lists, and most importantly (for me at least), a morena and proud Filipina. Now a blissful mom, wife, businesswoman (and still a model), the balance she has been able to achieve in her life is a dream made real. Here are 10 things you should know about Tweetie de Leon-Gonzalez.

1. She is a self-confessed nerd turned sports buff turned Philosophy major turned supermodel.

“I was very grade conscious, I studied hard, I enjoyed learning,” Tweetie says of her elementary days at the College of the Holy Spirit. Upon entering high school in St. Paul QC, sports took a big role in her life and every free time she had was spent playing volleyball. She went to UP for college and she shares: “I thought I wanted to follow in my mother’s footsteps and be a doctor. Philosophy was interesting for me because I’m genuinely interested in people and I’m more of a listener than a talker.” That was until she started to become more active in modeling and realized she was meant for something else.

2. She had no plans of acting, but the producers of Okay Ka, Fairy Ko were persistent enough to get her to try it out. What Tweetie said she would do for a few episodes, she ended up doing for six years.

One of Tweetie’s friends had a brother who was a talent agent. He decided to take photos of her one afternoon when she and her friends were just hanging out, and these photos landed her her first TV commercial for Royal Tru Orange at the age of 14. She went on to do more VTRs, got some rejections, got some projects, all while she was still in school. She eventually became a ramp model, and some of the first designers she walked for were Louie Mamengo, Larry Silva, and Christian Espiritu.

Tweetie became a household name when she took on the role of Faye, the enkantada wife of Enteng Kabisote, played by Vic Sotto. “My mom had a private landline beside her bed, I got a call there from Tony Tuviera,” she recalls. She politely declined the offer but still got calls from their office nonstop. She admits having felt very awkward during the first few taping days but says that the group made her feel like family. “We had a mom, we had a baby –– we were a motley crew that got along so well. We had long hours mainly because we were laughing all the time, but then even if it’s a sitcom, when it came to buckling down to work, everyone delivered.”
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3. On dealing with suitors growing up: “I hardly had any, promise! I was not not ligawin.”

She says it was her eldest sister Lilith who had many suitors and received flowers all the time, while she hardly got that. “I received a set of jack stones when I was in Grade 2, but what was that, you know,” she laughs. She was a Senior in high school when she realized someone was interested, but her first relationship came in college. “I really had just one serious boyfriend before I got married. It lasted for eight years –– now you know why there was just one,” she reveals. “I would say I was a late bloomer.”

When asked if Bossing Vic ever tried to court her: “No, no, sorry to disappoint. I’m offended that he didn’t,” she jokingly laughs out loud. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” She goes on to say that when she started working on TV, Vic was the one who reassured her that she would be safe from whatever sticky showbiz situation might come while she was in the environment of the show.

4. Tweetie de Leon-Gonzalez in numbers:

5,000: Pesos she got as talent fee for her first ever TV commercial.

2: hours a day she works out. “Three times a week I play squash, other days I go to the gym and run, Sundays, I rest.”

7: Hours of sleep a night. “For me everything is solved by sleeping!”

4: Glasses of water she can drink in one meal. “I get very thirsty easily, and nothing can quench my thirst other than water.”

100+: Number of magazine covers she has done in the 30 years she has been modeling.

5. Tweetie admits to being a “pleaser” who “hates offending anybody.” But she has done “crazy” things in her younger years, the worst of which was driving intoxicated –– if that had ended in an accident, she wouldn’t have come out of it alive.

“It’s not something I would laugh about, even in hindsight. That’s what woke me up from the crazy days,” she says of the time she was fresh out of a long-term relationship. Prior to this, she never really liked going out. She had come from a night out with friends in Makati and was driving home to Quezon City, overspeeding, overtaking, weaving in and out of lanes, until she caught herself in a bad situation. Tweetie recalls that she couldn’t slam on the brakes or else she would turn-turtle, she couldn’t change lane because there were cars approaching, she just prayed out loud, and miraculously made it out safe. She remembers driving at 40 kph. from that point on, with her whole body shaking. When she got home, she saw a car waiting by the front of her house, that she was sure she saw leave the bar the same time as her. As she was by the front door, the car sped off. I asked if she knew who it was. “Yes,” she pauses still in disbelief, “it was Mon.”

She and her now-husband Mon were dating when he had invited her to his house for lunch. She recognized one of the cars parked and asked Mon if he was the one that night at her house. He said that it was him, and tells her to never drink and drive like that again. “At that time, we weren’t even going out yet. He is an angel to me in many ways.”

6. Tweetie and Mon got married ten months after they started dating. He proposed to her just one month prior to the wedding.

They knew each other years back but never really paid attention to one another. “I thought he was another snooty mestizo,” she jokes. They met again when Tweetie was 27 years old and she reveals that just after two months of dating, Mon was already talking about marriage plans. She didn’t take it seriously at that time, but then a few months after, he actually started to make arrangements with the church and the suppliers. She shares: “Friends would congratulate me; I said why, they said ‘I heard you’re getting married’, I said ‘to whom’, they said, ‘Mon said!’” When I asked her the reason she didn’t ask him why he hasn’t formally proposed, she says: “Our relationship was really different. It was a very, very light relationship. Nothing about it felt wrong or heavy, I was just going with the flow. I didn’t even have to say yes.” But sure enough, the proposal did come. Everything was in place for the wedding, he took her to a nice dinner then to a special area at a hotel lounge, and popped the question. “He was just too cute, he was still so nervous about giving me the ring even if he knew it was a yes! He even lost it!”

They have been together for 17 years now with four children: Sabina, 15, Lorenzo, 14, Nicolas, 12, and Alfonso, 7. Tweetie says that she and Mon have a good balance, with her kids commenting, “You’re strict mom when it comes to school and manners, dad is strict about going out and playing computer games.”

7. On the biggest difference between models then and now: “We were self-sustaining models. We were trained to troubleshoot, all faculties are covered by the models.”

“We didn’t have stylists, we didn’t solely rely on make up artists, we didn’t rely on sponsors for shoes or accessories, we come to work carrying our model’s bag with everything in it,” she explains. They were trained to do their own hair and makeup, to have everything they need with them, and being late was never an option. More than that, they had their roots colored, threading done for eyebrows and upper lip, nails done, even before they head to work. On the other hand, she says models today are provided with stylists, nail technicians, and a complete team to prep them for a shoot. “You just need to wake up, shower, and show up,” she says. “It also shows that the industry is maturing in many ways.”

8. Tweetie’s top beauty tips:

1. Sunblock: “That’s across the board no matter what age you are!” She also recommends Retinol-based products for older women.

2. Water: “I’m big on water. It solves all problems, honestly, and it clears your skin.”

3. Stay happy: “Keep it simple, keep it real, keep happy. Nothing else can make you look more radiant than when you’re feeling good about yourself, than when you’re happy from within. It doesn’t matter how old you are.” When people asked her why she revealed her age in her TV commercial for Ponds, she says there is no reason to hide it. “I feel I look and live a better life now!”

9. After giving birth to four children, Tweetie maintains an admirably fit physique through three things: “Quantity and quality of food intake, cardiovascular activities, and strengthening exercises.”

1. She has never indulged in fad diets. “It will rebound in some way,” she warns. “I also give in to treats. I don’t want to deprive myself!” She shares that the balance is in the exercise and that your food intake must be commensurate to your exercise. “It really needs to be a lifestyle,” she advises.

2. Sports are a big part of her life and she tries to learn a new sport regularly to keep the challenge up. Aside from squash, she has gotten into cycling, running, scuba diving, boxing, kickboxing, yoga, and taebo.

3. She strongly believes people should realize that the goal is not to lose weight, but to keep fit and healthy. “Being thing doesn’t mean you’re healthy and you look good.” She says that to lose the pounds and the inches, it has to be a combination of a balanced diet, cardio, and strengthening work outs.

10 . Despite having a lucrative modeling career and accessories business, at 45, Tweetie says she sees herself slowly loosening the reins on those, and spending more time with family.

“Not that I’m not enjoying myself, I’m enjoying myself immensely! But I’d like to be able to have a free hand in doing what I have to do at a given time,” Tweetie reveals. Throughout the interview, she shares how much she is enjoying her kids right now, and how she feels bad that school is starting again which means they’ll be busier. “I say to myself I’ve been working since I was 14, then I find myself thinking more and more about home, family, and the future of my kids.”

We all have people we look up to, and those who are close to me know that I call Tweetie my “life peg.” It was a dream come true to be able to do this interview with a woman I admire for how she handles herself, what she has made of her life, and how she cares for her family. I asked her if its true that you are happier when you are 40 than when you are 30, or 20. “Definitely,” she says. “You understand yourself better, you’re more secure, you look more introspectively than trying to measure up to other people. And by that time, you have a husband, you have your kids, they validate your person, your character, and your existence, really.” While some dislike the thought of growing older, with Tweetie’s words in mind, I actually cannot wait to turn 30. Or 40, for that matter.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

10 Things You Should Know About Dado Banatao

Where in the world is Dado Banatao?
Known as the “Father of Semi-conductor,” Dado Banatao was friends with Steve Jobs back in the day when Silicon Valley was just a “bunch of orchards.”: “In the really, really early stages of personal computers, there were a lot of tinkerers and engineers who wanted to build these computers themselves at home, so it was more like a hobby.”

In person, he is an extremely simple man, unassuming, clad in a basic button-down polo and dark trousers. With how low key he is, you would hardly be able to tell that he is a billionaire visionary based in Silicon Valley. He shies away and politely begs off talking about net worth and material assets, and instead lights up and laughs a lot when talking about his work. He is responsible for consumerizing a specific technology used exclusively back then by the US military, and today, we have it on our phones and cars and we call it GPS. According to MorphLabs CEO and co-founder Winston Damarillo, 30 percent of every computer and laptop in existence carries technology and ideas developed by this man.

Here are 10 things you should know about Dado Banatao.

1. He who is known as the “Father of the Semi-conductor” and “Filipino Bill Gates” (he is not so fond of the latter) is the son of a farmer from Iguig, Cagayan and used to walk a dirt road to school every day. He went on to study in Ateneo de Tuguegarao, Mapua, then Stanford.

His father first worked as a farmer, then left for Guam to become an OFW when Dado was around nine years old. He recalls that he was probably too young for it to affect him, and all he knew was that his father was not there all the time but that he would come home once a year. His favorite pasalubong? “Rubber shoes. That was fun!” He graduated valedictorian from elementary school. He left their barrio to go to Tuguegarao to attend high school, where he lived in a boarding house on weekdays and went home on weekends. “It was a little room with a basic bed and little table, and that’s where I studied every night. When I was done, I’d go to bed. It was such a simple life.” Dado was very driven at an early age, studying, reading, and doing his homework on his own even if nobody was watching over him. He loved and excelled in algebra, trigonometry, and physics, which prompted his dean to advise him become an engineer. He then moved to Manila and lived with his aunt and graduated cum laude with a degree in Electrical Engineering from Mapua.

“I’ve always been inclined to learn more. I felt that my training in college was not sufficient,” Dado explains. While working in the US, he was accepted in a graduate study program where he could work full time and earn a salary, but at the same time study at the University of Washington at the expense of the company. “I saved for my eventual expense when I went to Stanford,” he says. He was not on any scholarship at Stanford, instead he saved up and paid for his own master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and finished in less than two years.

Unlike the young, less fortunate Pinoys today who say they study or work hard to get themselves “out of poverty,” Dado’s motivation to excel in school was different. “We had no notion of wealth, we didn’t even know there was such a thing as a wealthy person. We studied because our parents told us it was important.”

2. Dado’s childhood wish was to become a pilot. In his early 20s, he was hired as a design engineer for the development of the Boeing 747. As fate would have it, today, he is able to fly his own plane.

“I was literally 19 years old when I got my engineering degree, and at that age, I was looking for something more interesting. I had high expectations,” Dado shares. He says he was offered a couple of jobs after college but he found them boring (“I didn’t see myself doing it every day”) and he was actually discouraged. Until he saw this advertisement for Philippine Airlines saying they were looking for pilot trainees. They were 10 in their batch at the PAL Aviation School, and after a year-long training, he was offered a job at Boeing. He took the job and moved to Seattle.

“They were in the final stage of integration and a lot of systems have already been designed, but there was quite a lot of work left,” Dado recalls. He says that there were a few other Filipinos working on the 747, but it was his team that was in charge of finalizing design, control surfaces, and engine systems indication (to name a few). There was grand event for the Boeing 747 launch and Dado shares: “To see it do its first flight was amazing. You cannot imagine such a big airplane lift up. It was very inspiring.” He says that the event was very exciting, but that he found his work there to be boring. “So I went to graduate school.”

Fast forward to when he was 53 and Dado still cannot believe he was able to buy his first plane. He begs off answering specific details, but says that they’re used for family trips and important business matters. When I asked what it felt like when he flew his own plane for the first time, he smiles from ear to ear like a child playing with his favorite toy and says, “It was awesome.”

3. He decided to base himself in Silicon Valley at a time it wasn’t even called Silicon Valley yet. That was in the early ‘70s and Dado was 26.

“It was just a bunch of orchards back then,” he recalls smiling. He says that most engineers had no idea it would explode in 30 years, the way Silicon Valley is today. He saw some established companies that were already doing the things he liked to do, plus he was very comfortable there, which is what sealed the deal for him to live in the area. “In my graduate program, I combined solid state circuits and computer architecture. What it means really is the idea of putting a computer in a chip,” he explains. He was interviewed and was offered a job at Intel, American Microsystems, and National Semiconductors (the only companies that were doing Dado’s vision of putting the knowledge of software and hardware together) and he chose National Semiconductors because he felt they had the best program.

He often says that if Silicon Valley were a country, it’d be Top 11 in the world in terms of GDP, which is why he highly encourages the Philippines to invest more in math and science in schools, and in research and technology, because he believes it is a great step towards national development.

4. Dado was friends with Steve Jobs. They were both part of a small group called the Homebrew Computer Club.

“In the really, really early stages of personal computers, there were a lot of tinkerers and engineers who wanted to build these computers themselves at home, so it was more like a hobby,” he says of their club. He says Steve Wozniak of Apple was “a true engineer, a real techie,” and that Steve Jobs’ strength was “how to apply things better, and his designs reflected that.” He shares that the company he was working with back then created their own personal computer, and that for a good three to four years in the mid ‘70s, they were outselling the Apple computer. “We had the same ideas and a lot of those, we were talking about it in the club,” he fondly recalls. “I can still imagine those evenings where one guy would bring his program and say, ‘Hey, see what I can do here’ and another would go ‘No, I can do better’ and it was that kind of club we were daring each other.”

When I joked if he considers himself more of a nerd or a geek, he says: “You start out as a nerd then you become a geek. By that time, I was already a geek,” he laughs.

5. Dado Banatao in numbers:

150: grade of his glasses for his right eye, his left eye is 20/20.

25: centavos (in pesos) it cost him to buy a small bowl of pancit for lunch back in college. To get to school, he took a bus then a jeepney to his campus in Doroteo Jose.

18: around the age he experienced celebrating his birthday for the first time. And he doesn’t really think it was a celebration, it was just a get together with friends and someone brought bibingka. “Growing up, we didn’t celebrate birthdays. The way we’d celebrate is we would go to church that day. It was so basic.” Today, he and his family never fail to celebrate a birthday, but Dado says its still a very simple celebration.

151: number of scholarships to be given away to Filipino science or engineering students this year by the SuperFund project. Each scholar gets a total of P1,000,000 for five years.

unknown: the number of cars he owns. “I like cars,” he says with a shy smile.

6. On what for him is his most significant invention: “Let’s not use the word invention, for me, innovation is more important than invention.”

“When scientists or engineers invent things, there must be millions of those around the world but we never know of them because it deals only with one little thing. Unless you mix other things to it, it is not useful,” Dado explains. He says that in innovation, you take many concepts and put them together, with a specific application and market already in mind. “What I did at Stanford became very important because I combined computer science and solid state devices,” he says. According to him, the trick was keeping the system the same but throwing away all the useless things. “I found a way and realized how it can be redesigned properly.”

7. After 10 years as an employee, he started his own companies that did very well, and eventually ended up selling some, reportedly one for a $430 million and another for over a billion dollars.

Dado went from individual contributor to first level manager to manager of an entire operation in his early years as an employee in Silicon Valley. “Those are all confidence building events that made me think I can do really challenging things and deliver the product. I think most entrepreneurs go through that process,” he shares.

His first start up company, Mostron, was put up with $500,000 pooled together from friends and founders of the group. They developed a PC motherboard that unfortunately was not so successful. “I felt really bad because that was my idea, but all the customers wanted to buy were the chips that I designed,” Dado reveals.”I learned a lot from there.”

With the same idea from his first startup, with adjustments made, and with someone investing a million dollars in his idea, Dado put up his second startup company with a former boss of his, Chips and Technology. He basically designed the very first chip set for the PC. “It enabled a lot of engineers who wanted to design the PC system to come up with their own design because we took care of the nitty-gritty for compatibility,” he shares. The company grew very, very fast and from the time they started it, they took it public in 22 months, and in four years, the revenue was $650 million.

S3 was (as the name implies) his third start up company. “I was very disappointed with the graphics performance of the PC, it was very slow,” he recalls. After setting up a meeting with Microsoft and a separate meeting with Intel to pitch his idea, he started his redesign of the chip he needed to make the computer run faster. The technical term is “bus,” borrowing from the concept of an actual bus, because it is a collection of signals and data being shipped from one place to another. “Today that bus is called PCI, and it is everywhere. Companies use it now as a standard bus.”

In 1997, he was given the Master Entrepreneur of the Year Award sponsored by Ernst and Young, Inc. magazine and Merrill Lynch Business Financial Services.

8. He met his wife Maria when he was 23 years old, and they’ve been together ever since. He is now 66.

Dado and Maria met through common friends in Seattle, and after dating for a few months, they went “exclusive.” He recalls how she asked him one day if he has a savings account, and when he said he didn’t, she actually opened an account for him which forced him to save. (That and this forced savings program at Boeing were what made him afford his tuition at Stanford.) While he was in California for his master’s, she was taking up her master’s in Education at the University of Washington. Since it was a long distance relationship, they had this strategy to save money. “Instead of calling each other, we had a code of number of rings on the phone. I had a roommate back then and I had to tell him to not pick up the phone right away. He was laughing at me.” He did get to visit her during Christmas and spring break, on which he took eight-hour drives just to see her.

They got married in 1972 and today, they are fulfilled parents to three children, and even happier grandparents to six grandchildren, with another one due in August. When I asked him what the one most important thing he wants his kids and grandkids to value, he says, “Education.”

9. The mobile phone he uses today has been his phone for the past 12 years. A (“really old”) Motorola Razr.

“There’s a new one but that’s a smart phone, I have the really old model,” he says smiling. He has no favorite gadgets, but has an iPad, a PC laptop, and a Mac laptop. “I hardly use these things frankly, apparently I stay away from them” he reveals. When I tell him how people (myself included) would think that he would have the most high-tech phones and gadgets considering he is the authority on technological advancements, all he could do was smile and shrug his elbows.

“I’m not into gadgets, the closest thing I guess, its more of what I drive and what I fly,” he then smiles that shy smile once again.

10. Today, both his business and advocacy are geared towards helping young students and entrepreneurs who are set on making their mark in the field of science and engineering.

Because he had generous teachers and investors who helped and guided his drive to reach his goals, he does the same today for others. Tallwood Venture Capital is a company Dado put up that invests exclusively in semi-conductor related technologies and products that can make a significant impact in the market. There is one story about a simple family business who gave Dado a cold call to pitch their idea, and after checking out the facts and their credibility, through Tallwood’s investment, that small business grew its worth to about a billion dollars.

Dado is also committed to helping students who want to pursue a career in science. He is the chairman of PhilDev, an organization that strives for a globally competitive Philippine economy by supporting students and programs in the field of engineering. The SuperFund provides college scholarships in the Philippines, they also support high school scholars in his hometown Cagayan, they have the Asia Pacific Fund that gives grants to Filipino college students in California pursuing degrees in science and engineering, and they regularly hold forums and camps to mentor budding entrepreneurs. On their recent forum in Cebu, he says, “I loved the energy of the young entrepreneurs, and we gave a lot of advice. They’re very undaunted, they dream.”