Sanmina-SCI components and services can be found in some of the most sophisticated electronics in the world. Founded in 1980, the $6.5 billion company sells physical components and a range of technology and business services to original equipment manufacturers working in industries from communications and autos to health care and clean energy. From its San Jose base, Sanmina-SCI brings in more than 70 percent of its revenue from outside the United States and today employs 45,000 worldwide in more than 20 countries.
THE QUICK BIO
Michael Tyler is general counsel of Sanmina-SCI, which he joined in 2007 after seven years as senior vice president, chief legal and administrative officer at Gateway Inc. Before that, he was senior corporate counsel/international at Northrop Grumman Corp. from 1995 to 2000. Tyler graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s (1979) and a master’s (1980) in modern European history and a drive toward law school that he admits was sparked by the movie The Paper Chase. After getting his law degree in 1983 from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, which included an externship with U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter, Tyler moved to England to study comparative law at Cambridge, receiving his LL.M. in 1986. After Cambridge, he clerked for Judge Arthur Alarcon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1987 to 1988, an experience he found particularly useful because it helped to demystify the entire litigation process and provided rigorous additional training in legal reasoning and writing. In 1988 he joined Hufstedler, Miller, Kaus & Beardsley and moved in 1991 to Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe. Both firms are now defunct.
