Janet H. Lowe Honored As Cockrell School Distinguished Alumni
Engineer-turned-entrepreneur Janet H. Lowe, B.S. ChE ‘79, was recently named a Distinguished Alumni by the Cockrell School of Engineering at spring commencement.
Lowe, co-founder and principal of consulting company LTI LLC, was one of six alumni selected to receive a 2014 Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award. Established in 1957, the Distinguished Engineering Graduate Award recognizes honorees as highly respected professionals, dedicated engineers and supporters of higher education.
Seeking business skills to facilitate her entrepreneurial ambitions, Lowe left her industry job at Shell to earn her MBA from Rice University in 1988 and then accepted management and executive positions in marketing, sales, finance and strategy at Sterling Partners, Compaq and WilTel Communications. She eventually co-founded CPLEX Optimization, a software startup.
Lowe and her team grew CPLEX steadily, displacing IBM and all other competitors to become the leader in high-performance mathematical programming. After 10 successive years of high growth and profitability, she negotiated and executed the sale of CPLEX to ILOG SA, a Paris-based publicly traded corporation. For founding CPLEX, and for its contributions to industry, Lowe received the first-ever Impact Prize from The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. Lowe also co-founded and sold another startup, Compass Solutions, in 1999.
Lowe remained at ILOG SA as vice president of strategy and mergers and acquisitions, acquiring technology companies. In 2007, she negotiated and executed the sale of ILOG SA to IBM. She stayed at IBM as an executive, managing large and complex integration projects until 2010. That year, Lowe left IBM and joined her husband, Todd, in their latest business, LTI LLC, where they manage private investments and provide strategic consulting services.
Lowe serves on the Board of Trustees for Sierra Nevada College and the Sage Ridge School. She is a member of Sierra Angels and supports local young entrepreneurs as an investor, mentor and judge for business plan competitions.
Lowe and her husband live in the home they built on the shore of Lake Tahoe, where they raised twin daughters who are now freshmen in college. Lowe is a helicopter pilot who also skis, sails and hikes. Last year, she completed the 170-mile Tahoe Rim Trail and summited Mount Kilimanjaro.
Tags: 2014, Cockrell School of Engineering, distinguished alumni, Distinguished Engineering Graduate Award, Janet H. Lowe, McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, UT Austin