December 14, 2001

To Whom It May Concern:

Kayvan has worked in my department for a little less than 2 years, including reporting to me directly for six months. In that time he has proven himself a valuable asset to Synopsys and a respected member of the team.

Kayvan started as a member of the infrastructure team supporting Rational Clearcase. He had an in depth Unix administration and software development skills but little Rational Clearcase administration experience. He pro-actively and quickly taught himself the specifics of our implementation and Synopsys support procedures. In a short time he was providing all front line support and for 2 months single handily covered all Clearcase support issues for all of Synopsys. Kayvan always exhibits timely and quality customer service and generally has very satisfied customers.

In addition to his support responsibilities, Kayvan has improved many of our procedures and services including; crafting view backup procedures, fixing many bugs in our multisite scripts, created support for Clearcase on Linux in Synopsys, and has contributed to a broad number of projects and services in my department. Kayvan consistently provides well thought out, clean, and elegant technical solutions. He has proven himself a prolific creator of novel solutions and is highly valued.

I am sure that any employer will be pleased with Kayvan's dedication, abilities, and character. If you would like to discuss Kayvan's performance with me in person, please feel free to contact me.

Thank You,

Steven Ruggiero

Director/IT Synopsys, Inc

Business Phone: 650-584-4738