Joel Smolen was born and raised in San Francisco California, a first generation American. He attended Washington High School and served as an Army Medic from 1960 to 1963. He graduated from City College of San Francisco and attended San Jose State University.

While in college, Joel had a wide variety of blue-collar jobs, including truck driver, forklift operator, painter, and crane operator, to pay for tuition and living costs. He was a member of the Boilermakers Union

Joel was a pioneer in the metallurgy and emerging electronics industry, and consulted and worked with Intel, Apple, IBM, AMD, and National Semi in the 70’s and 80’s

 He founded and was CEO of Applied Molecular Technology Corporation, which was sold to Boliden (Boliden AB), a  European metals company. Prior to that, Joel was founder and CEO of MicroMetallics Corporation, which was sold to Xstrata PLC, (LSE.XTA.L), a global mining, metals and manufacturing company with over 25,000 employees  world wide...

 Joel was also Senior Vice President of LMC Corporation, now part of Sims Metal Management ( NYSE.SMS), a worldwide ferrous  metals company with 6,000 employee’s  in the US and Asia... Joel also created two business parks, and built over a million feet of office space in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Joel lives with his wife, Bonnie, in San Rafael, and has five children. An avid outdoorsman and photographer, Joel has lead 14 mountaineering and photography treks to  Nepal and Asia, and has lead an expedition to the Arctic Circle. He is a member of the Libertarian Party, American Legion, ACLU, Sierra Club, and Amnesty International. Joel is also an active target pistol enthusiast.

He is a State Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) and manages a Venture Life Science Fund, which invests in public and private biotechnology companies, primarily in the area of emerging new life saving drugs. He is on the Board of Directors of Oncology Company, AmpiMed Corporation, Tucson, Arizona,

Joel manages the Axion Opportunity Fund, A Hedge Fund specializing in emerging worldwide business opportunities.

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Joel lives with his wife Bonnie and has five children.

He was the Libertarian Candidate for US Congress in 2004 for the 17th Congressional District, and is the current candidate for United States Congress for the 6th Congressional District, which Includes, Marin County and Sonoma Counties.

Joel is committed to protecting individual freedoms and personal privacy and to a significant reduction in the size and scope of government along with lower taxes for Californians, and all Americans.