Team

Terry Ryan was co-founder of Ascend Communication in 1989 with her husband Rob Ryan. Ascend invented and manufactured the infrastructure for the World Wide Web. Ascend’s equipment reduced the cost of providing Internet services by 100x thus making the Internet commercially viable. Ascend went public in 1994. It held over 90% of the market share for internet equipment when it was sold in 1999 for $24 Billion Dollars, a high tech exit that still holds the record for venture backed companies. Three years ago Terry made a 3D interactive film for high school students with husband Rob, called “License to Dream.” This film encourages young people to think about starting their own business and gives step by step directions. It is part of the award winning Life Changing Experiences Series and has aired in high schools in 18 states and three countries. She is a founder and currently President of Entrepreneur America Mentors, LLC, which has mentored three Start Ups with Billion Dollar Exits as well as many others. She is also the Managing Director of the Rob & Terry Ryan Foundation which is transcending into an Operating Foundation in 2019. For the past decade, she has served on the Advisory Board of Keck Observatory, home to the two largest telescopes in the world.

Earlier she was a Founder and Director of SoftCom in 1983, sold to Hayes Microcomputer in 1985. She is a Graduate of Cornell University, 1969 and Boston College Law School, Magna Cum Laude. After graduating from Law School, she was an attorney at Thelen, Johnson, Marin & Bridges in San Francisco and later served as In House Counsel for Tymeshare/Tymenet, an S&P 500 company, in Silicon Valley. She became Division Counsel when it was acquired by McDonnell Douglas. She was the highest-ranking woman at McDonnell Douglas until she left to form her own company.

More recently Terry sings alto in the Montana A Cappella Society which has performed from coast to coast in the U.S. as well as Europe. In 2012 this group was juried into the Cork International Choral Festival in Ireland, the oldest and most prestigious of the A Cappella Choral Festivals. In June 2019 the group tours Italy, including performances at the Vatican and the Invitation only Choral Festival in Montecatini, in Tuscany. Terry has sung with the group for fifteen years.

Terry started playing viola in her seventieth year and is now in Chamber Orchestra of Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. She also performs with The Bitterroot Baroque Society in Hamilton, Montana, playing a specially made Baroque viola.

When Husband Rob was formally Hanai’ed by the Head of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, Terry was given the Hawaiian name of Kau Lua Koko, which is the Hawaiian name for the red giant star Betelgeuse in the Orion Constellation. This influenced her recent decision to donate funding to the Makali’I Voyaging Canoe.

Terry is Vice President of Membership for Toastmasters in Waimea, Hawaii, an international public speaking and leadership club. In 2019 she was elected to the Board of Directors (called “Overseers”) of the Hoover Institution at Stanford.