Jeff and Valerie Morgan -- quite a couple Jeff and Valerie Morgan -- quite a couple (October 20, 2004)

By Marion Softky
Almanac Staff Writer

By nature and nurture, Jeff Morgan is a product of Silicon Valley.

His father, James C. Morgan, built Applied Materials into a world leader in semiconductor equipment manufacturing; he is still chairman of the board. Among many honors, he won the National Medal of Technology in 1996, and now serves as vice chairman of President Bush's Export Council.

Jeff's mother, Becky Morgan, is even better known on the Peninsula as a state senator for nine years, and president and CEO of Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network.

Jeff grew up in a Palo Alto Eichler, graduated from Palo Alto High School, and followed both parents to Cornell University, where he got a degree in 1984 in urban and regional planning.

He spent the next 16 years as an executive with a series of high-tech firms, from HP and Sun to start-ups. He lived in Japan for a while, and, with his father, co-authored a book, "Cracking the Japanese Market."

He also developed a taste for international work, and migrated into international sales and marketing. "I didn't have any interest in going to Dallas again," he says.

Meanwhile, Mr. Morgan met Valerie Disle, a young French video producer visiting friends in Palo Alto. They married in 1989, and live with their three children in west Menlo Park.

Ms. Morgan is taking a respite from making corporate and marketing videos to take care of the kids and help her husband with some filming needs. She recalls her two most exciting film experiences.

For a while, she assisted director Agnes Varda with filming the 1994 "101 Nights," a history of film actors. She had to modify scripts day-by-day, and deal with actors such as Robert de Niro, Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni.

"[Agnes Varda] was a very strong-headed woman who changed her mind all the time," she says. "It was a great experience."

Later, Ms. Morgan volunteered to help local filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman with "The Fragile promise of Choice: Abortion in the U.S. Today." "That was very inspiring," she says.

Mr. Morgan, after earning a master's degree in management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1998, found himself becoming restless with the high-pressure, high-tech world of international sales.

He recalls a lunch with the head of Nature Conservancy, who asked him, "Jeff, why don't you do something to help the world?"

Another defining moment came on a visit to the famous Maya center at Tikal in Guatemala. Talking to the son of one of the early local guides, he learned the son is now attending law school -- an occupation far beyond his father's dreams.

At that moment, Mr. Morgan realized how tourism could change not only a site, but the lives of the people around it. People who were living on dirt floors 10 years ago now have regular houses with running water. "That moment changed my life," he says.

The Global Heritage Fund itself grew out of a lunch with Stanford archaeology professor Ian Hodder, who helped recruit experts for the board of advisors. "I quit my job as vice president for marketing at NextSet in March 2002," Mr. Morgan says.

Ms. Morgan has joined her husband on two trips. They leave the children with her parents in Paris, and set off. Last summer, they visited Libya to see the largest Greek temple in the ancient world in Libya, and before that, an ancient temple in India.

"It was mind-boggling to see Jeff at work -- to see him dealing with people from another culture," she says. "He loves to learn and can remember everything."

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