The twenty-five 2009 Clean Energy Fellows were selected from almost 200 applicants in an extremely competitive process. We congratulate each of them on their selection for and completion of the program. Their short bios are below.
Michael Bayer
Michael Bayer is an experienced technology CFO/COO. Most recently a co-founder of mobile/communications software company RPM Communications (parent of Utterli), Michael was previously CFO of Revivio (storage software/appliance), LightChip (optical subsystems), and MotherNature.com (internet retailer), where he led the company's IPO and managed its operations. During his career, Michael has managed in companies from start-up to Fortune 100, raised over $150 million in venture, public, and debt capital, closed multiple company sales and business development partnerships, and managed all aspects of finance, administration, business development, customer service, and operations. Michael has a BS from Babson College and an MBA from Cornell University, and he is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Jeffrey Carbeck
Jeffrey Carbeck is a chemical engineer, materials scientist and entrepreneur. Prior to his career as an entrepreneur, he was a faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Princeton. In 2006 he co-founded Arsenal Medical and is its Chief Technology Officer. Jeff also serves as Nano-Terra’s Chief Scientist. The Boston Business Journal recognized him as one of 40 outstanding professionals under the age of 40. He attended the University of Michigan (BSE), MIT (PhD), and Harvard for two years of post-doctoral research. Jeffrey serves on the University of Michigan’s advisory board for the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
Brian Cohen
Brian Cohen is a serial entrepreneur from Atlanta, Georgia. Following thirteen years in the IT industry with EDS and Management Science America, he founded an Internet firewall appliance company in 1992. That company was sold in 1999 at a 27X return to investors. In 2001, Brian joined six person SPI Dynamics as CEO, raised capital, recruited the mangement team, and led the company to become the global leader in web application security. Hewlett-Packard acquired SPI Dynamics in 2007 in an all cash transaction that returned 8X cash-on-cash to investors. Brian believes that cleantech is the next great entrepreneurial marketplace. He is delighted to participate in the fellowship program, which he sees as an excellent vehicle to gain insight and exposure to a myriad of potential business opportunities.
Maureen Ellenberger
Maureen Ellenberger brings over 30 years of successful executive management and entrepreneurial experience in professional services, technology enabled solutions and online consumer service sectors. For the last 12 years, she has focused on creating and managing companies from startup and early stage, positioning them for growth and sustainability in rapidly changing environments. As CEO and president of Eggrock Partners, she grew the company from a business plan to a profitable $36 million firm focused on emerging enterprises and mid -market clients. Eggrock was sold in 2000 providing a 10x return to investors. Most recently, Maureen served as the CEO and founder of a Web 2.0 company, auctionPAL, which provided an easy way for consumers to sell online. Currently, Maureen is working with several early stage companies, providing fundraising assistance, market positioning and strategic growth planning in the consumer and energy space.
Brian Fitzsimons
Brian Fitzsimons is a successful entrepreneur. He is the Co-CEO and founder of DeskNet Inc., an enterprise customer communications and client reporting software products company that serves leading global financial services and insurance companies. Brian has been responsible for the company’s strategic direction, the development of the company’s products, channels and lighthouse accounts around the globe. Under his direction, the company created the 1st relational digital asset management system, 1st native XML rapid application development solution and the 1st native XML customer communications platform. Prior to DeskNet Brian Co-founded Micro-Technologies an integrator and developer of business process management software solutions for the largest media companies in the world. Brian holds two patents with one pending.
Bob Gatewood
Bob Gatewood is an information technology entrepreneur who was the founding CTO of Athenahealth, Inc. and later led product management and business development for the company. His interest is in building an information network and business service that accelerates the adoption of renewable energy. Possible ideas are a trading platform and logistics-management service for biomass feedstock, a service to guide developers through the permitting process for renewable generation projects, and a platform for improving energy efficiency in commercial buildings. Bob has an MBA from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a BS in aerospace engineering from the University of Virginia. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife and two daughters.
Elena Grinev
Elena Grinev has played a leadership role in early stage businesses in both the US and Europe. Her career includes building service operations at Akamai, as the company grew from five to 1400 clients, and at IMlogic, as the base expanded from five to 125 accounts. Before that, she led multiple consulting projects at Cambridge Technology Partners over six+ years. Most recently at OILspace, Elena grew professional services by 60% over two years while working out of Moscow and London offices. More details at www.linkedin.com/in/elenagrinev. Elena holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science from Boston University, and she graduated from the Executive Program at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Born in Russia, she lives in Brookline with her husband and two children.
Brad Hafer
Brad Hafer is the Managing Director of Minuteman Advisory Partners, LLC, an outsourced corporate development consulting firm that works with VC-backed technology companies. Brad brings more than 20 years of business and consulting experience. His former executive roles include VP, Corporate Development at MatrixOne (sold to Dassault Systèmes); VP, Marketing & Business Development for Synchronicity (sold to MatrixOne); and VP, Corporate Development for SupplierMarket.com (sold to Ariba). Prior to his technology operating experience, Brad was a Principal with global strategy consultancy A.T. Kearney and started his career with IBM. Brad holds a B.A. in Engineering from Lafayette College and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
John Hanratty
John has founded and held executive positions at a number of venture-backed startups that delivered IT and networking products. Most recently, John founded Ampient Inc., which develops software to make data centers more power efficient. Previously, he was founder and VP of Products and Services at Bit9 Inc., a leader in application white listing software. John was founder and VP of Marketing at Paceline Systems (acquired by Motorola) that developed high performance data center networks. He was also on the founding teams at Agile Networks (acquired by Lucent) and Synernetics Inc. (acquired by 3Com).
Todd Hasselbeck
Todd Hasselbeck is a 2009 Clean Energy Fellow and the CEO of Common Voices, a communications software company that provides enhanced voice applications to VoIP and wireless carriers. He has recently served as a Board Member or Advisor to other technology firms including Gensym, Metrobility and Digital Envoy. Previous operating roles include four years at Cisco Systems, where Todd had responsibility for all revenue and product strategy for several of Cisco’s largest communications carriers. At Summa Four, Todd led all Sales and Support for this leader in VoIP switching which grew rapidly until its acquisition by Cisco in 1998. Earlier in his career, Todd served as Vice President of International Sales for Boston Technology, and held increasingly responsible operational roles at ITT and Alcatel in the US, Australia and the Pacific Rim. Todd is a graduate of Cornell University and resides in Rowley, Massachusetts.
Marni Hoyle
Marni Hoyle is a strategic marketing executive with twenty years of experience in venture-backed early-stage software companies. Her experience includes Profitlogic, acquired by Oracle in 2005, Torrent Systems, acquired by IBM/Ascential Software in 2001, and NewsEDGE, where she helped lead the company through an IPO in 1995 and two acquisitions in 1997-8 to an $80 million market leader. Prior to software, Marni directed a database research team at Harvard Business School in 1985-9 and also lived and worked in Beijing, China in 1980-1. Marni earned a BA in Chinese Studies from Yale University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Ken Jones
Ken Jones has over 20 years experience in seed-stage startups and mid-sized technology businesses, through all phases of product development, commercialization, marketing and sales. He is a Co-founder and Director of WaveRx, a venture backed medical device company that he led as President and CEO through the clinical trial phase. Prior to co-founding WaveRx, he was the CEO of a venture-backed electronics startup with operations in Scotland. Prior to that, he was the VP and GM of a $300M semiconductor systems division within a NASDAQ 100 company in California. Recently, Ken has consulted with companies in web-based services, medical device, and green technologies regarding business plan development, market assessment, product strategy, fundraising, and M&A activity. Ken is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Thayer School of Engineering where his graduate work involved hyperthermia systems to treat cancer.
Doug Levin
Doug Levin is the founder, former CEO and member of the Board of Directors of Black Duck Software, serving in these roles since December 2002. Previously, Levin was CEO of MessageMachines (acquired by NMS Communications in 2002) and X-Collaboration (acquired by Progress Software in 2000) – two VC-backed companies based in Boston. In addition he served in management roles for eight years at Microsoft Corporation. Levin’s expertise is in startup formation and pre-IPO executive management, finance, software development, marketing and sales. Levin has an advanced degree in International Economics from the College d’Europe in Bruges, Belgium and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was awarded 2007 CEO of the Year by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council.
Patricia Meisner
Patricia Meisner is co-founder of RedTail Solutions Inc., a Software as a Service (SaaS) company, providing order to cash transaction support to manufacturers in the global supply chain. She served as CEO for 8 years during which time she raised venture capital, validated a new business model and brought the Company to profitability before leaving in 2008. Prior to RedTail, Patricia spent 15 years in biotechnology and diagnostics markets with a focus on sales and marketing. She graduated from Kenyon College (B.A. Biology, and holds an M.S. in Biochemistry and an M.B.A. from Case Western Reserve University.
David Mendels
David Mendels is a veteran of the software industry, with almost 20 years of experience at Macromedia and Adobe in a wide range of leadership roles, as well as an independent Director on the Board of Brightcove, a leading online video platform. As Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Business Productivity Business Unit at Adobe, and earlier as GM of the Web Publishing Business Unit at Macromedia, Mendels oversaw all aspects of the business for award winning product lines including Flash, Flex, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, LiveCycle ES, Cold Fusion and more. Mendels also served as Chief Strategy Officer, SVP Corporate Marketing and earlier in his tenure established Macromedia's first subsidiary in Japan. Prior to joining Macromedia, Mendels received a Master of Arts in Japanese Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Mendels is passionate about the environment and energy efficiency and currently engaged in a Fellowship with the New England Clean Energy Council.
Stuart Nixdorff
Stuart Nixdorff is vice president of business development at OutSmart Power Systems, an energy efficiency company that helps building owners use energy and assets more efficiently. Stuart is a well-seasoned professional with 20 years of sales, marketing and business development experience in start-up companies. Throughout his career Stuart has founded or co-founded three companies, generated over $100M in “first generation” revenue, and secured over $15M in non-dilutive strategic partner funding with companies including Tyco, Emerson, Hewlett Packard and IBM that contributed to the IPO of Coherent Communications and acquisition of SMaL Camera by Cypress Semiconductor (Nasdaq: CY). Previously, Stuart was co-founder of RedShift Systems, vice president of sales and marketing for SMaL Camera Technologies and Sound Vision. He also held senior sales and marketing positions at Kopin Corporation (Nasdaq: KOPN), Coherent Communications (IPO NASDAQ: CCSC, Acquired by Tellabs TLAB) and was the founder of NCS. He holds both a Masters degree in International Business and a Bachelors degree in Marketing from Shenandoah University. Stuart is an active angel investor investing as a seed round investor in 5 companies and a current member of LaunchPad Venture Group.
Bill O’Farrell
Bill O'Farrell has been starting and running tech companies since 1990. He was CEO of the Company that developed Adobe's After Effects, which was sold to Adobe Systems in 1994. Bill then co-founded and was CEO of the speech recognition company, SpeechWorks (NASDAQ:SPWX), which went public in 2000 and merged with Nuance (NASDAQ: NUAN) in 2003. He also co-founded and was CEO of OpenAir.com, one of the first software-as-a-service providers. OpenAir was acquired by NetSuite (NASDAQ:N) in 2008. Most recently, Bill was CEO of Public Display, which created the FuseCal.com web app. Bill is a graduate of Brown and Harvard Law School.
Mike O’Neill
Mike O’Neill is a senior business executive with more than 20 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. He was VP of Military/Aerospace & Communications Products with ON Semiconductor, and ran the digital & communications business units at AMI Semiconductor. As a General Partner with Kodiak Venture Partners, he focused on early stage investments in the semiconductor & communications markets. Mike was part of the leadership team at early-stage startup Philsar Semiconductor and saw the company through its acquisition by Conexant Systems. He began his career at IBM, and received a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Imran Qidwai
Imran Qidwai has over 20 years of software engineering management and entrepreneurial experience, with recent focus on mobile entertainment & data services. As VP Engineering he co-founded mobile startup MessageMachines, acquired by NMS Communications in 2002. In 2007 he helped raise a sizable angel round as president of Web 2.0 startup Scrybe. During 2007-08, he was acting CTO of two New England VC and angel funded startups. Since 2005 he has also used his broad industry experience to help tech sectors in several emerging economies under USAID projects. Employers include Lotus, Digital Equipment, NMS, Philips, ICL and SoftLinx. He has a BS (EE), a post-graduate diploma in Digital Electronics from PII, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and a MS in CICE from University of Michigan.
Tandhoni Rao
Tandhoni Rao is a recognized technology pioneer with over 20 years of product development and senior-level management experience in the semiconductor and wireless communications industry. He was Founding CEO and later Vice President of Engineering and Product Strategy for Radiospire Networks, Inc. a fabless semiconductor company that designed and delivered multi-Gbps wireless chipsets for short-range, high-bandwidth applications. Earlier, he was Co-Founder of 3G wireless infrastructure equipment startup Envoy Networks (acquired by Texas Instruments, Inc. in February 2002), serving as its CTO and VP Engineering. He began his career with Texas Instruments where he held both product line management and systems engineering management positions related to its mixed-signal chipset product lines. He has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech, an MBA from the University of Texas, Dallas and MSEE and BSEE degrees from the University of Delaware, where he was an Alison Scholar. For his career achievements, he was named University of Delaware’s College of Engineering 2008 Outstanding Alumnus. Dr. Rao is a frequent industry speaker, has authored numerous articles for technical and trade publications, and holds 5 U.S. patents with 15 patents pending.
Paul Sereiko
Paul Sereiko has over 25 years of experience in technology, marketing, business development, and business planning across companies ranging in size from startups to global multi-nationals. He has personally raised or been associated with raising over $40M in private financing and has completed one NASDAQ public offering. Paul has developed, launched, and marketed over 20 technology products in his career in the computing, embedded software, and wireless sectors. Over the last decade he has become an industry expert in the emerging standardized wireless sensor networking market … the so-called Internet of things. Paul graduated from the University of Illinois' Computer Engineering program and received his MBA at Northwestern University's Kellogg school with concentrations in marketing and investment finance.
Peter van der Meulen
Peter van der Meulen founded BlueShift Technologies to introduce the use of continuous flow semiconductor processing to the semiconductor industry. His linkable vacuum robotic system allows equipment makers to connect robots together to build large processing machines. Prior to founding BlueShift, Peter was VP, GM of Brooks Automations’ Factory Interface Systems, and ran marketing and sales for their Vacuum Systems Businesses Unit. He helped design the E500 Ion Implanter at Varian Ion Implant Systems, which sold more than 800 units. Peter has a background in physics (MS Eindhoven University) and business management (MBA Babson College) and holds 6 patents.
Peter Vicars
Peter Vicars has a highly successful global track record and over 30 years of experience as a senior executive with in the computing and telecommunications industries. A visionary and technologist, with strong operational instincts, who stimulates growth and increases revenues through problem identification and resolution, focusing and exercising corporate strengths and core competencies, building and maintaining strategic relationships, and directing key acquisitions and integration activities. A native of South Africa where water was a scarce resource, Peter came to the understanding that water may be our next oil.
Jeffrey Weiss
Jeffrey Weiss is a board member at Scalable Display Technologies, and Andera Software, a member of the Clean Energy Venture Group, and a Venture Partner at Point Judith Capital . He assists new companies in building their management teams, raising capital, and refining their business strategy. Jeff was a founder of several companies including Digital LightCircuits, Omnia Communications (acquired by Ciena), and Magnalink Communications (acquired by Telco Systems). He has also been involved in engineering or management roles at Motorola Codex, Sphere Technology, Cryptall Communications, and IBM's TJ Watson Research Laboratory. Jeff graduated from MIT with a B.S.E.E., and from Columbia University with a M.S.E.E. Jeff was elected and served four years on Lincoln RI's public School Committee (two years as chairman). Jeff serves as a member of the Curriculum Advisory Committee for Brown University's Electrical Engineering program, as an MIT Educational Counselor and on the finance committee of Northern RI Community Services.
Lorraine Wheeler
Lorraine Wheeler is a successful serial entrepreneur. She was co-founder and CEO of Actual Software. Palm purchased Actual in 2000 and shipped its email product, now called VersaMail, on millions of Palm units. Subsequently, Lorraine was on the founding team of Zeemote, a venture backed company specializing in wireless controller technology for mobile devices. She holds a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Illinois and a BS in Computer Science and a BS in Management from MIT. She was named a top innovator (TR100) by Technology Review and a "Woman to Watch" by Mass High Tech.