David Tarver

David Tarver currently serves as a lecturer in the U-M Center for Entrepreneurship in Ann Arbor. He is also founder and board president of the Urban Entrepreneurship Initiative. David is a highly successful technology business executive with an incredible entrepreneurial journey and amazing success in corporate R&D, technology business startup, and social impact entrepreneurship. He began his professional career as a Member of Technical Staff and Group Supervisor at the legendary AT&T Bell Laboratories. After several years at Bell Labs, David launched Telecom Analysis Systems, Inc., a high-tech telecommunications instrumentation business. He sold that company twelve years later for $30 million and then, working as Group President for the buyer, built a telecommunications business with a market value in excess of $2 billion.

David left the corporate sector in 1999 with a hunger for community service. In 2001, he founded the Red Bank Education and Development Initiative, a community-based not-for-profit organization that catalyzed dramatic improvements in academic performance and opportunities for children in Red Bank, New Jersey.  David has served on numerous civic and nonprofit boards—including the Board of Education in Red Bank, New Jersey; the National Advisory Committee for the University of Michigan (U-M) College of Engineering; the National Commission on NAEP 12th Grade Assessment and Reporting; the U-M Alumni Association board of directors, and the Flint (Michigan) Receivership Transition Advisory Board.