Karen and Rick Hargrove are technology industry veterans and active angel investors.
Mr. and Mrs. Hargrove served as early executives at the Microsoft Corporation, where each played critical roles in the company’s ascent.
During her tenure with Microsoft, Karen worked in research and advanced development for the company’s digital office systems. In her leadership role, she led the formation and implementation of Microsoft’s vision for integrating personal computers with other office technologies. Mrs. Hargrove was instrumental in creating new business worldwide and overseeing the growth of Microsoft product technology. Prior to joining Microsoft, Karen worked on software development for ATL and on advanced hardware design and software development for Digital Equipment Corporation. Her broad oversight and experience include government security and encryption, Intel chip design, 3D graphics, digital books, font technology, and natural language.
Mr. Hargrove is a former Microsoft software engineer. He spent the early part of his career working on OS, kernel and driver development. He also served as a Principal Systems Consultant at Microsoft Consulting Services Group, where he created and defined the practice and worked with top Fortune 100 corporations to migrate legacy mainframe and mini-computer systems to Windows client-server architecture. Rick completed his career at Microsoft as Group Program Manager in the Enterprise Tools Group. There he led a system to help corporate developers build advanced client-server database applications -- a product that reached $2 billion in revenues.
Mr. Hargrove holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Kansas. Mrs. Hargrove is a graduate of the University of Kansas and serves as a Vice President of the Board of Trustees for the Naval Postgraduate School Foundation and chair of the funding committee.
As venture angels, Mr. and Ms. Hargrove share an interest in backing Green technology and continue to maintain an active involvement with deep tech innovation.