William D. "Bill" Budinger is the founder of Rodel, Inc., where he served for 33 years as its chairman and CEO. Rodel was instrumental in developing portions of the semiconductor manufacturing process and is currently the global leader in high-precision planarization technology for semiconductors, silicon wafers, and storage media substrates. Rodel grew from its origin in a garage to a major manufacturing company with plants in Delaware, Arizona, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, France and Malaysia serving both U.S. and foreign markets. It was a privately-held company until it joined Rohm and Haas’ Shipley Electronics Group in 1997 – 2001, and is now part of Dow. Mr. Budinger is also an inventor and the holder of more than three dozen patents.

Mr. Budinger has been honored as the SBA Small Business Person of the Year, the Eastern Technology Council’s Legendary CEO, and received the Henry Crown Leadership award. He was co-founder of the project to protect and restore Thomas Edison’s New Jersey laboratories and workshops. He also helped found the National Small Business Technology Council to assist entrepreneurial technology companies working with the federal government. He was an elected delegate and chair of the White House Conference on Small Business, and a panelist for Mikhail Gorbachev's State of the World Forum.

Mr. Budinger has been a guest lecturer at several universities including MIT and Harvard. His writings have appeared in various law journals, as well as trade and public policy magazines. He drafted major portions of the 1998 patent reform legislation and has testified on patent, trade, and labor law reform before various committees of the U.S. House and Senate.

Most of Mr. Budinger’s time now is spent on public policy issues and helping the Rodel Foundations in their mission to improve P-12 public education. The Rodel Foundation’s work in Delaware helped that state win the Federal Education Department’s Race to the Top competition. Mr. Budinger also founded and chairs the Aspen Institute’s Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership, which provides two year fellowships for state and federal elected officials to grapple with government reform and leadership. He continues to serve on various non-profit boards, including the several Rodel Foundations, the Grand Canyon Trust, the Aspen Institute Executive Committee (where he chairs the Seminar and Socrates Programs), and Brookings’ Governance Studies.