Chromatography & Mass Spectrometry Division

Leading equipment and process development for 2nd Gen Superconductor coatings scale-up to 1 kilometer lengths for high-field magnets, & high-current transmission cable applications;•Managed the design & development work of; mechanical, electrical, software, process engineers, & technicians. •Developed custom vacuum process equipment from lab-scale to production-scale in multiple generations, with a combination of outsourced suppliers and internal engineering staff within a rapid stage-gate process. •Established new quality capabilities for enhanced metrology, instrumentation, and data mining using SAS-JMP scripts and SQL database. •Thin Films Expertise: PVD, Reactive Co-Evaporation, Ion Beam, Laser Ablation, chemical solution deposition • Presented quarterly to the B.O.D., status of ongoing technical R&D work and roadmap implementation plans. •Transitioned company from CA to Austin, TX & rebuilt a new technical team for opex cost reductions. •Standardized automation platform: Beckhoff PLC with EtherCAT distributed I/O, Indusoft GUI/SCADA for rapid operator screen development, and network-based SQL data storage for data capture of coordinated motion controls, system performance metrics, and recipe development.

Design & build of state-of-the-art, high productivity capital equipment for the thin-film solar manufacturing industry worldwide. Inline vacuum deposition systems for glass and roll-to-roll substrates. Particular emphasis on CIGS solar coatings on large format glass, and flexible polymer/foil substrates through thermal co-evaporation and Metal/TCO coating via vacuum PVD processing. Multi-site (MA, NY, MN) engineering team management for common components which were used in a variety of product lines.

Manager of start-up engineering team developing CIGS thin-film solar panel processing equipment capability. Started with lab scale 2 inch R&D through 1.2 meter production scale in (3) generations over a 3.5 year period. Managed multiple system design & automation programs with internal and external teams to build a 40 MW/year thin-film glass coating production facility with a +$65M capital budget. Modeled CAPEX cash flows for pro-forma operations planning. Developed core processes such as; reactive sputtering, thermal co-evaporation, liquid flow-cells, laser patterning, and robotic material handling automation. Established U.L. compliance capability on solar products by creating a proprietary edge-deletion technology with multiple suppliers. Achieved low COGS, high reliability, and high productivity in automated/robotic factory systems through extensive use of CAD, FEA, and other analytical software tools. Standardized all machine-level controls hardware and software platforms as well as factory-level (MES) control & data platforms to facilitate long-term internal software development capability. Interviewed and participated in the hiring of the first (100) employees in mfg. ops, engineering, product design, quality, EH&S. Worked with key suppliers on new products that are now being offered to the entire solar marketplace.Experience in;Automated solar cell manufacturing, test, & packaging using sputtering, evaporation, aqueous deposition, laser patterning technologies. Integration of materials handling systems to deposition systems via robotics.

Developed a portfolio of 1.2-3.6MVA grid-connected 480VAC UPS products with environmentally-friendly, flywheel kinetic energy-storage including backup generator grid-frequency synchronization capability. Developed custom power electronics, AC & DC power distribution systems, FPGA controls with a fully-redundant optical communications bus in high electromagnetic noise environment. Created product requirement specifications with the internal marketing team and Caterpillar, Inc. Achieved UL-1741 and CE-mark compliance while meeting numerous global voltage/frequency power standards under a common hardware and FPGA control architecture. Served as technology liaison between ACPW and Caterpillar, Inc. on OEM issues including; reliability, global spares/service support, and customer-special features. Assisted sales team to close large contracts with customers such as; Delta Airlines, VISA, and UniVision. Formed teams with engineering, operations, & supply-chain personnel to establish a low-cost manufacturing capability during the transition from pilot phase to volume production.

Developed and managed product designs for automated 200 & 300mm Centura robotic vacuum cluster tools integrated circuit wafer processing. Created flexible, open-architectures for the HW & SW integration of Etch, CVD, PVD, & Epitaxial wafer processing chambers. Managed product architecture team and technology roadmaps for +$250M/yr. product line. Created and enhanced business processes to achieve high-productivity and increased reliability while reducing costs through supply-chain mgmt. and near net-shape design. Improved factory workflows with module-level testing and lean manufacturing techniques.