Colin Sweeney - My Story

That accent comes from my birthplace, Rotherham, an old steel and coal town in Yorkshire where I grew up, and from the Manchester area of England, where I went to university to study Physics.

After graduation I got a job in the semiconductor industry. For 7 years I worked as an engineer, for a division of Phillips that produced devices made from a compound called Gallium Arsenide.

These devices are used in high frequency communications and military applications. That experience proved extremely useful when I was hired by a Massachusetts company, Alpha Industries, who sponsored my work visa and helped me relocate to the USA in 1985.

My experience helped the company solve several production problems with a key process that was an important part of a government sponsored program. After 9 months we were producing more per month than had been produced in the previous 2 years! As a result of that success the company offered me a full time position and sponsored me for a green card. I became a US citizen in 2000.

I worked at Alpha for 18 years, first as an engineer and then in management. Over the years I ran the wafer FAB, ran operations and was also responsible for 2 business units, ending up as a General Manager.

In the early 90’s Gallium Arsenide became a key component in mobile phones, so the business experienced enormous growth and stock price increase for the rest of that decade, as the mobile phone market was expanding at 40% a year. In the early 2000’s the rate of growth slackened somewhat and the industry experienced some consolidation. One result was that Alpha merged with a West Coast company to form Skyworks Solutions.

I decided that it was “now or never” for me to make a change. So I left the company in 2003 and started my own business as an Internet Consultant. I retired in July 2023. 

I met my wife Linda in 1986, we were married in 1988. 

We currently live our log cabin in Mariaville, ME. In Mariaville, we are a mile down a dirt road in a town of 500 people, but we still have high speed Internet connections.