Peter Goldsmith

Chairman, LISTnet

This leading advocate for the region’s tech business sector recently stepped down as president of the nonprofit group he helped found two decades ago, but he is still very much involved in its mission of ensuring the local tech industry’s growth and success. Over the past 20 years, he’s grown the Plainview-based organization from 100 members to nearly 800, including some non-technology companies that have IT departments. Not bad for a group founded to fill the void in Long Island’s tech industry after Grumman closed its major manufacturing operations in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Besides networking events, the group also holds its highly attended LISTNet Awards celebrating the best and brightest in the field. In March 2016, LISTnet formed the Digital Ballpark a co-working and event space in Plainview, and in one year it was filled with 24 Tech Companies. LISTnet is in the process of opening another Digital Ballpark in Wyandanch. He is on the Board of United Way and he was awarded an honorary Doctorate degree from Briarcliffe College, received the “Have a Heart” Award from the American Heart Association, the Touro Law School’s “Friend of Justice”, the Rough Rider Award from the Boy Scouts of America, and the Kings of Long Island Award from Star Network.