[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 13098]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         A TRIBUTE IN HONOR OF THE LIFE OF MALIN KENNETH OSHMAN

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. ANNA G. ESHOO

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, September 7, 2011

  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the extraordinary life 
of Malin Kenneth Oshman, a visionary, a leader, a builder of 
businesses, a family man, and a most generous contributor to our 
community. A man of his brilliance and accomplishment is a rarity, and 
his family's great loss is also a great loss for our nation.
  Ken is reported to have said, ``The interesting thing is that there 
are so few important decisions. You don't have to go in the `right' 
direction. You don't have to enter the `right' business. What you have 
to do is have made a decision as to what you're going to do and then 
you just have to figure out how to succeed at it.'' Ken succeeded at 
many things, including earning B.S. and B.S.E.E degrees from Rice 
University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University, while 
working at Sylvania. He was a founder of ROLM Corporation, and was CEO, 
President and Executive Chairman of Echelon until he stepped down for 
health reasons. He served on many corporate boards and was a mentor to 
countless Silicon Valley leaders and an advisor to President Reagan.
  Ken's final corporate creation was Echelon, a company that is working 
to transform the electricity grid into a smart, communicating energy 
control network. At the company's 20th anniversary event, Ken spoke 
about the company's future opportunities and his hopes for it. His 
words demonstrate Ken's concern not just for his company, but for all 
of us. ``Today, the demand for energy has made it obvious that 
efficiency is the best, most accessible, and lowest cost alternative 
fuel in existence, and we believe Echelon is at the forefront in 
delivering the technology to make the world a more energy efficient, 
cleaner, and better place.''
  Ken's creations were not limited to high-tech businesses. Ken and his 
beloved wife Barbara donated $10 million to help create the Oshman 
Family Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto, a building many times 
larger than the 2,000 square foot building in Texas where Jewish 
families gathered when he was a boy. The Oshman Family JCC, which 
opened two years ago, has already provided thousands of people with 
living space, healthy recreation, intergenerational activities, child 
care and more.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in extending our deepest 
sympathies to the Oshman family . . . his childhood sweetheart and wife 
of 49 years, Barbara; his two sons, Peter and David, and their wives, 
Stephanie and Joanna; four grandchildren; and his brother and sister-
in-law, Rick and Tania Oshman of Texas. His loss will be felt deeply by 
his family, by the Silicon Valley he helped to found, and to all those 
who had the privilege of knowing him. He was a great and good man, and 
his life's work, in all of its diverse dimensions, will live long after 
him. I have always considered it a great privilege to know Ken Oshman, 
to represent him and to call him my friend. He made his community 
better and our country stronger.

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