Richard Poppen

Richard Poppen is a mathematician, systems architect, and innovator, holding over 30 patents. Over 40 years, he has worked at Silicon Valley companies from startups to large corporations. Rich has been a senior architect at a Fortune 10 company since 2013. He continues to be instrumental in creating and implementing navigation devices and applications used by millions of consumers every day.

Rich has been an LGBTQ+ activist since 2002, when he became a notary public to help register domestic partnerships, the closest approximation to marriage available to same-sex couples in California at the time. As the partner of an immigrant, Rich lobbied his congressional representative in 2006 to support the Permanent Partners Immigration Act.

After the loss of marriage equality with the passage of California’s Proposition 8, Rich joined the board of directors of Equality California, the largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization in the United States, where he served for twelve years. Additionally, Rich serves on the board of BAYMEC, an LGBTQ+ PAC active in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey counties.

Rich holds a B.A. degree from Pomona College in Claremont, California and an M.S. from Stanford University. He lives with his husband in San Jose, California.