Ralph Yarro III

Ralph J. Yarro is Founder/CEO and chairman of ThinkAtomic, Inc. an early stage venture accelerator and incubator of technology firms. He was previously chairman of the board and the largest shareholder in The SCO Group, Inc. and CEO of The Canopy Group, Inc.

From 1995 to 2004 he worked directly with Ray Noorda as part of the Noorda family companies, ultimately serving as president and CEO of The Canopy Group, Inc. He supported and/or served as Chairman, Board member, or Trustee of many of these companies, including: Altiris, Angel Partners, Arcanvs, Center/7, Caldera, Cogito, ClearStone, Cerberian, DeviceLogics, Direct Pointe, Digital Harbor, Data Crystal, Expressware, Embedix, Fat Pipe, Geolux, Helius, iArchive, Janus Logix, Keylabs, Learning Optics, Lineo, Linux Networx, Luxul, Maxstream, MTI, Mediphis, MyFamily.com, Net Schools, Nombas, North Face Learning, Perimeter Labs, Planet Earth Tools, Profit Pro, Power Innovations, Smart Bomb, Surf China, Traxess, Troll Tech, ViaWest, Vintela, Vinca, Vultus, WrenchHead, Willows, and many more. His SCO holdings amount to about 5.621 million shares, or about 31.4% of SCO's common stock.

Yarro holds a BA in political science from Brigham Young University.

In 2004-2005, Yarro was involved in a lawsuit. Yarro was fired for cause from his job as Director of the Canopy Group, along with two other Canopy executives, Darcy Mott (who had been the Chief Financial Officer) and Brent Christensen (who had been the corporate counsel), by the founders Raymond and Lewena Noorda. Yarro, Mott, and Christensen sued Canopy for US$100,000,000, claiming they were "illegally ousted" by a group led by Val Noorda Kreidel, Raymond Noorda's daughter.

The Canopy Group (now run by William Mustard) countersued, claiming that Yarro had misappropriated $20,000,000.00 by "a series of self-dealing and wasteful transactions." On March 8, 2005, the day before initial hearings, the suit was settled. The private settlement resulted in Yarro gaining all of The Canopy Group's shares in The SCO Group, that Yarro, Mott, and Christensen would be paid an undisclosed sum of money, and that they had ceased to hold any interest in Canopy and had resigned from all positions there.

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