How We’re Building SoCal

OCTANe was organized in 2002 with a strong idea: to unite regional biomedical and information technology companies, major university research institutes (University of California, Irvine and Chapman University), and a population of highly educated and entrepreneurial residents that together would build transformational businesses. Its founders, Tom Moebus (UCI), Dwight Decker (Former Conexant Systems), Jim Mazzo (Zeiss), Mike Mussallem (Edwards Life Sciences) and Matt Massengill (Former Western Digital), began working to create an organization capable of bringing all of these important communities together, and build a vast network of resources, expertise, and capital. The result is a catalyst that drives an unparalleled community of innovation and commercialization in Orange County — home to thousands of biomedical, technology, and clean tech companies.