Walter H. Hinton

WALTER H. HINTON is Vice President and General Manager of Network
Storage for StorageTek. He is responsible for the planning and
development of the company’s SAN and NAS products. Mr. Hinton has been
with StorageTek for six years. During this time, he has become known
inside and outside the company as the father of the SAN. Shortly after
StorageTek’s acquisition of Network Systems Corporation in 1995, Mr.
Hinton moved to Minneapolis, creating the strategy and leading the R&D
team that built the highly successful StorageNet family of products.
Most recently he served as Chief Strategist for the company. In this
capacity, he helped create the Storage Network Industry Association
(SNIA). Mr. Hinton also constructed StorageTek’s relationships with Sun
Microsystems, CrossRoads Communications and Brocade Communications. In
this new capacity, he will further his commitment to the delivery of
network-based storage management. This work will feature a radically
disruptive new technology called the Network Storage Controller.
Currently in the early stages of integration testing, this product
family creates a new category of networked storage that is poised to
redefine the industry. In addition to StorageTek, Mr. Hinton’s
experience includes several key positions in marketing, development and
program management at McDATA Corporation as well as NEC America’s
Switching Systems Division. He is an Oxford Honors Scholar and holds a
BA from William Jewell College along with an MBA from the University of
Denver.