Wayne Embree is Executive Vice President–Investments and Venture Acceleration, Rev1 Ventures where he leads efforts to identify commercially-viable assets which can support launching startup ventures. Prior to Rev1 Ventures, Wayne served as Vice President, Entrepreneur Services at i2E, Inc in Oklahoma City supporting seed-stage companies and aspiring entrepreneurs. He co-founded Reference Capital Management and Cascadia Partners, both seed stage investment firms, in 1986. Wayne and his partners have raised and invested over $200MM into over 300 life science, information technology,
advanced materials/manufacturing and energy technology companies, and has played a major role in creating well over 150 spinout companies from research universities, hospitals, and corporate labs.
Wayne’s prior work experience includes economic policy work for the Oregon Legislative Assembly and former Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt. He also served as a tactical operations officer in the U.S. Air Force from 1975 through 1980, directing real-time command, control and communications systems where he was consistently given responsibilities reserved for higher ranks.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in Natural Sciences from Western Oregon University and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Oregon.
