Clinton Lazzari

Clinton Lazzari is an operating partner at Playground Global with a focus on electronics engineering, product design, manufacturing operations, and program management, bringing more than 20 years of experience in all aspects of shipping global products from architecture to manufacturing.

Prior to joining Playground, Clinton was a senior hardware engineer at Google, where he managed the launch of several consumer product designs from architecture to production including electrical design and specification, trade-offs between software features and thermal limitations, compliance certification, manufacturing test criteria, and processes, and more. Clinton designed the first consumer electronics to advance the Android operating system to devices beyond the smartphone and tablet.

He also designed, developed, and debugged the digital and RF systems for X Lab’s Project Loon, the ambitious skunkworks project that brought high-speed internet to remote areas in the world via weather balloons. Clinton managed external contractors, designed subsystems, and guided a team of junior engineers.

His professional experience often blends the most difficult elements of program management, operations, hardware engineering, and product design. As an engineering and business consultant, he has worked with a wide range of industries on projects that include medical devices, industrial power tools, consumer electronics, robotics, aerospace control systems, and much more.

Outside of work, Clinton lives in Medford, Oregon with his wife Brooke and three children, Neasa, Reid, and Teagan, where in his spare time he runs a company that designs, builds, and sells electronics for hobbyist building remote control model aircraft. He has a cat named Midnight that runs the house, and when he’s on vacation, he can be found using his airline miles and travel points from traversing the globe to take his kids to various renown zoos across the country.