Erna’s Biography

Erna Grasz has led organizations, teams and individuals to success in fast paced, high stress, and results orientated environments for over 18 years. She is known as an organizer of chaos and a "turn-around" leader.

As a Vice President of Research and Development at Nellcor/Tyco healthcare she manages a team of 100+ scientists and engineers. Previously as VP/ General Manager at KLA-Tencor, a semiconductor capital equipment company, Erna managed the Automation and Robotics Business Unit. In her leadership roles she turned around non-responsive organizations to competitive, results focused stand alone businesses, where customers wanted to use the products and employees actually had fun coming to work. As a technical and business leader in Silicon Valley, she is sought out for her coaching and mentoring, both of groups and individuals.

Prior to the semiconductor industry, she led multi-million dollar programs at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a national defense laboratory. At LLNL, she represented the US State Department as a Science Advisor to Russia and the Ukraine, built class 100 clean rooms, and deployed numerous robot systems for land mine discovery, radioactive waste handling, and bomb removal. The land mine robot design has been recognized as innovative and a significant technical achievement on CNN, and Disney Discovery Awards. She is also internationally published for technical and management results

In response to numerous inquiries Erna developed a comprehensive series of seminars, workshops, keynote speeches. Known in the Engineering and "High Tech" communities for the professional development series initially developed for Institute of the Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE), her high impact programs provide real world knowledge, practical skills and immediate "on the job" application.

Erna is an award-winning speaker with Toastmasters International and is an ATM-Silver Certified Speaker and Communicator. She has published numerous articles on leadership, communication skills and project management having appeared in publications, magazines, and technical publications including IEEE, National Association of Female Executives (NAFE), and Society of Women Engineers (SWE).

Her advanced degrees are in Electrical Engineering and Engineering Management from Texas Tech University and Santa Clara University. Outside of the "day job" she is a fitness instructor, married, seeks adventure traveling worldwide, and creates opportunities to make a difference.