Prior to founding Storm Ventures in October 2000, Alex spent twenty-five years in high tech at ROLM, IBM, Stratacom, and Cisco, where he held several executive positions. Most recently, Mendez operated as an SVP/GM at Cisco. He was part of the founding team of Stratacom, which Cisco acquired in 1996. He was also CEO and Chairman of Sanera Systems, which McData acquired in 2003. Alex was elected to the McData Board of Directors in December 2003. Alex holds a B.S.E.E. from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University. He likes to ski, travel, golf, and speaks both Spanish and German fluently.