Flossie Lin: 2024 Distinguished Achievement Award recipient

MSMS&E ’75, PhDMS&E ’82 (BS physics ‘71, Chun Yuan Science and Engineering Institute; MS physics ‘74, Georgia State University)
President, Apex Property Group

A materials engineer and entrepreneur who has pioneered breakthrough thin film technologies and created opportunities to support people worldwide through education and counseling.

Flossie Lin has been a cutting-edge materials science researcher for companies including IBM and HMT Technology. She’s also excelled as a real estate developer and philanthropist.

Lin, a native of Taiwan, earned an MS and PhD in materials science and engineering studying the formation, structural defects and the effects of temperature and process on intermetallic compounds.

Her training led to a position at IBM in 1979, where she worked in thin-film disk process development. There, she helped develop the layer-by-layer deposition process for building the disks, which are used in hard-drive memory devices.

In 1992, Lin brought her talents to the startup company HMT Technology as the head of thin-film disk development and manufacturing process. “My background from Wisconsin helped me a lot to understand the parameters, the properties and analysis of these materials,” she says. “We needed to have very specialized equipment and I used the basic knowledge I learned from Wisconsin to help develop the manufacturing process.”

After many successful years in that position, Lin and her husband I-Fong decided to change gears. “I realized the real estate market was very hot in the Bay Area,” she says. “So instead of continuing with high-tech development, we created a company for real estate investment.”

Over the past 25 years, Apex Property Group and its subsidiaries have invested in, developed and managed many properties in California, with Lin still serving as president of the endeavor.

The Lins also founded and manage the Fongsong Life Foundation, a nonprofit that provides grants to educational organizations. “Translated from Chinese, Fongsong means something like ‘helping people have a better life,’” says Lin. “I really believe education can help people grow, and in many rural areas they don’t have good education. So we provide scholarships and teaching activities, and give them a better chance to go to school.”

She has traveled extensively in China and Africa, visiting schools to understand the best ways to improve rural education. She and her husband also enjoy exploring the world and spend part of the year in Hawaii and Alaska.

How did your engineering education enable your success?

I would say my engineering education is responsible for 90% of my success. I learned a lot about troubleshooting solutions and techniques for getting more knowledge. Investing is not directly related to my education, but the engineering way of thinking helped me a lot. If you don’t have the basic skills to develop strategy, think and plan, you will never get success. So I really appreciate the UW-Madison educational experience.

What do you enjoy about your career?

I’ve enjoyed all the parts of my career. In the first 20 years, my direction was working in the high-tech area. I enjoyed research and development, and in real estate development I have enjoyed understanding more about the economy of the world, learning to make investments, finding new opportunities and organizing projects. They both are interesting to me.

Of which professional accomplishment are you most proud?

At IBM we did highly confidential research, so we didn’t publish many papers publicly. But I earned some internal awards from them and from HMT, so I feel pretty good about that.

Which do you prefer?

Winter or summer in Madison?
Well, in winter the snow is beautiful, and in summer we did a lot of fishing and canoeing … so I like both! We still have a canoe which we bought in Wisconsin that is in our front yard. When we come to visit, we may take a day just to canoe on the Wisconsin River.

State Street or the Lakeshore Path?
The Lakeshore Path.

Observatory Hill or Bascom Hill?
Observatory Hill. It overlooks the lake, right? I miss the lake.