Bio:

Dan Vilenski is former chairman of Applied Materials Israel, having served the company since 1997, when he began as Corporate Vice President to 2006.
Mr. Vilenski is responsible for the successful integration in Israel of three independent subsidiaries for leading American high tech companies: Kulicke and Soffa (K&S), KLA Instruments and Applied Materials. All three firms operate in the field of semiconductor capital equipment and employ a combined total of 1500 employees in Israel.

Mr. Vilenski served for four years (1993-1996) as Executive Director of the Israel - US joint Bi-national Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation, spearheading innovative industrial cooperation between Israeli and US high tech companies. During the period of his management, the BIRD Foundation created about 160 unique cooperation programs, many of which proved highly beneficial. He is a familiar figure among Israeli industrialists and continues to support Israel's Ministry of Trade and Industry in selected activities.

Mr. Vilenski received his B.Sc. in 1964 and his Mechanical Engineering M.Sc. in 1967 from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. From 1967 to 1969 he was a staff member at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and subsequently began as a design engineer at Kulicke and Soffa in Philadelphia. He eventually served as a Vice President at K&S. From 1985 to 1992, he served as the Vice President and General Manager of KLA Instruments in Israel.

He is active as a volunteer for numerous educational activities, including the interactive Museum of Science in Haifa and several entrepreneurship programs for young students. Mr. Vilenski serves on the Board of Governors of the Technion and is board member of the Israeli National Nanotechnology Initiative.

Bio:

Carl Johnson is the President and co-founder of INFRASTRUCTURE based in Carrollton, Texas. His Wall Street experience includes 7 years with Merrill Lynch and 3 years with Piper Jaffray Incorporated. For the past 12 years as an analyst with INFRASTRUCTURE, Carl has studied the semiconductor, semiconductor equipment / materials and related industries. He oversees the distribution and content of all publications released by the organization. He has written columns for several trade and financial publications, and has publicly spoken about investing and trends in the technology industry at numerous events. Carl is currently serving as Chairman of SEMI's Strategic Business Conference Committee and is a member of SEMI's Southwest Steering Committee.

Bio:

Associate professor of chemistry at Oklahoma University, obtained her PhD in chemistry at UT-Austin with MJS Dewar, did her postdoctorate at Purdue with HC Brown, and joined OU in 1983.

Dr. Nelson researches three global challenges – energy, environment, and scientific workforce development, and frequently speaks on their interrelationship. Dr. Nelson has over 90 publications and several honors, including Fulbright Scholar, NSF ADVANCE Leadership Award, SACNAS Distinguished Scientist, Women's eNews "21 Leaders for the 21st Century", AAAS Fellow, Guggenheim Award, NOW "Woman of Courage", Ford Fellow, Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award, NSF Creativity Extension, and many keynote talks.

Dr. Nelson's chemical research involves functionalizing single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), with applications in energy research and technology development, and yielded the first COSY NMR spectrum of covalently functionalized SWNTs.

Bio:

Mr. Custer is a frequent speaker on China and Asian business relationships for universities, civic groups, and business organizations. He has spoke for Chinese organizations and other governmental agencies to speak on entrepreneur talent development for Senior Executives in China. Most currently he is completing his continuing education in Executive and Professional Coaching. Coaching executives on Asian operational requirements and expansion into the International market has become his primary role and combines all his experience and talents for a global world.

Patrick Custer is the Managing Director of Venture Pacific Group as well as the Senior Partner of China Access Partners. VPG is a specialty advisory company focused on cross pacific investments between the US and China. China Access Partner is a China advisory service with primary participation in organization such as China Access 2008 and others. He has made extensive travels to China and all of Asia over the past 25 years.

On the corporate arena, he has assisted China companies involved in the US as well US companies entering Asia and other parts of the world. Projects require assisting US and Chinese with the research, negotiations, financial structuring, staffing requirements, establishment of an operational base, and the long term advisory as the project progresses. Over the past years he has been involved in startup companies in China and Asia and in the major expansion plans of major US companies into China. He is currently the Chief Technical Advisor and a board member for the Pacific Rim Forum.

Patrick has been the Chairman and CEO of several companies in the US such as Curtis Mathes Corporation, The Donny Osmond Entertainment Corporation, and uniView Technologies. He has held additional Board of Director positions at Texas American Bank, Hamilton-Vanguard, Jefferson Bank and Trust and others.

His technical experience began at Texas Instruments and Honeywell where he performed as an engineer as well as various senior management positions. Financial background was formed around his tenure at EF Hutton where he concentrated in International Monetary Exchange and Foreign Monetary Policies for Asia.

Patrick was educated in electrical engineering and finance at Texas Tech University as well as additional studies in the Executive and Professional Coaching Program at University of Texas at Dallas. He is also a Vietnam Veteran.

Bio:

Stephen E. Scheve graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Kansas and is a senior partner at Baker Botts L.L.P. He currently serves as his firm's Pharma Practice Group Leader. Steve concentrates on the defense of products liability and toxic tort cases. His emphasis over the past 27 years has been in the pharmaceutical industry. Steve has defended and tried cases throughout the country and has acted as national coordinating counsel for clients in multiple litigations. In each of the past seven years, Steve has been identified in the International Who's Who of Product Liability Defense Lawyers. Steve was recently named as "Texas Super Lawyer" by Texas Monthly and Law & Politics. He has served IADC as Chair of the Drug and Medical Device Committee, CLE Board Chair, and Trial Academy faculty member. He is also past President of the Missouri Organization of Defense Lawyers. In 1995, Steve was awarded DRI's Exceptional Performance citation.

Bio:

Josh is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Lux Capital, focusing on investments in nanotechnology, semiconductors and life sciences. Josh manages Lux Capital’s investments in Nanosys and Cambrios, and serves on the Board of Directors of Crystal IS and Lux Research. Before forming Lux Capital, he worked in Salomon Smith Barney’s Investment Banking group, where his experience included a $4 billion hotel merger and a defense against an unsolicited LBO. Josh has also worked in capital markets while at Merrill Lynch on its Financial Futures & Options/Government Strategy desk and at Prudential Securities in its Municipal Finance department.

Prior to venturing into the financial world, Josh conducted and published cutting-edge AIDS/immunopathology research in Cell Vision and The Journal of Leukocyte Biology, leading medical/immunology journals. Josh graduated with distinction from Cornell University with a B.S. in Economics and Finance. He has been an invited guest speaker, lecturer, and panelist on nanotechnology for CNBC, CNN, Harvard, Yale, Wharton, Columbia, Cornell, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse First Boston, Capitol Hill, government labs, and officials in France, Canada, UK, Spain, Singapore, and Germany. Widely recognized as one of the preeminent minds in nanotechnology and finance, Josh has been invited by the White House and Canadian Government to advise government organizations on funding strategies.

Josh is a co-founder of The NanoBusiness Alliance, a columnist with Forbes Magazine and Editor of the monthly Forbes/Wolfe Emerging Tech Report.

Bio:

Dr. Jonathan Linton is the Power Corporation Professor in the Management of Technological Enterprises at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa. Dr. Linton is the editor-in-chief of Technovation: the International Journal of Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Technology Management and the Director of the Emerging Technologies and Innovation Management Laboratory at the Telfer School. He also is on the Editorial Boards of IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management and Technological Forecasting and Social Change and was formerly on the Faculty of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Brooklyn Poly. He has published over one hundred articles in academic and practice-oriented journals. Dr. Linton’s research focuses on the challenges to operations associated to emerging technologies and innovation.

Prior to entering academe, Dr. Linton consulted for a number of years and was an advanced manufacturing engineering at Ford Electronics Manufacturing. He has consulted to a variety of firms and governments in North America and Europe on issues related to the management and integration of technology. While Dr. Linton’s research and work focuses on management of technology, he is still a registered Professional Engineer.

Bio:

J. Andrew Braswell is Director of Research for iNano Capital Advisors, where he oversees all of the firm's published investment research, including pure-play coverage, theme-based reports, and the weekly iNano Focus. Andrew also collects and analyzes primary data generated by the Shore Council on Nanotechnology, iNano's proprietary, global nanotechnology expert network. Andrew has been a featured speaker on nanotechnology for numerous conferences, presentations and media interviews, including CNBC’s Squawk Box. Andrew earned his BBA from the University of Miami in 2002, where he minored in English and completed coursework in Engineering and Chemistry. Andrew holds the Series 7, 63, 86 and 87 licenses.

Bio:

Marikar has extensive experience in planning and developing new business opportunities through cross-sector alliances in a global setting. Working at major global corporations, Marikar’s purview has included materials, chemicals, electrical⁄electronics and energy technologies. Product⁄industry areas of involvement include batteries, capacitors, fuel cells, films, coatings, plating, corrosion, carbon-graphite, plastics, ceramics, and composites.

Dr. Marikar spent the first four years of his industry career working on advanced batteries at Gould Inc., in Chicago and the next seventeen years at Celanese which later became Hoechst. At Hoechst he was responsible for developing the business in Fuel Cell Membranes, recently spun off as a new company. Prior to that, he was on an expatriate assignment at company headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, seeking technology linkages among the Hoechst businesses in Europe. At Hoechst Celanese, he was manager of External Technology, responsible for assessing and accessing technologies and growing new businesses. He surveyed the technology assets of the corporation and articulated strengths and needs, and visited most major national laboratories and funded programs at universities.

Most recently, as director of business development Marikar opened an office for SGL Carbon in New Jersey and built a multi-million dollar business in Fuel Cell Components based on German R&D, playing multiple roles of strategy development, global market assessment, competitive benchmarking, establishing supply chain partnerships and eventually seeking venturing options on a team with AT Kearney. Marikar was the founding chairman of the Materials & Components working group of the US Fuel Cell Council.

Marikar served on an industrial advisory committee to the US National Science Foundation. He was the first chairman of the US Industrial Research Institute’s External Technology Directors’ Network; and represented Hoechst on the European Industrial Research Management Association panels on benchmarking and financing R&D. He has written on competitiveness and organized a conference on University–Industry collaboration.

With basic degrees in chemistry and a Ph.D. in engineering (Metallurgy⁄Materials Science) from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Marikar taught corrosion, and worked at Imperial College, London and RPI in Troy, NY. He has 23 patents, 10 of them in the USA, in batteries, fuel cells, coatings and nanomaterials.

Marikar has lived on three continents.

Bio:

Ken has more than 20 years experience as a broadcast journalist and a senior public relations counselor. Prior to setting up his own business eight years ago he was a vice president at Powell Tate, specializing in media training and crisis communications.

Currently he is serving as communications director for the National Nanotechnology Initiative. He has had extensive experience in designing and directing national public affairs and publicity campaigns, for a wide range of advocacy organizations and corporations from the trial lawyers to the life insurance industry. Ken also is an expert in crisis communications, media relations, media training and message development.

Ken has served as a senior communications counselor at the Brookings Institution, AARP, the American Council of Life Insurers, the American Highway Users Alliance and the American Association of Justice (ATLA). He has conducted media outreach to network and local broadcast and print news organizations, and has appeared as a spokesman on network news programs such as Nightline, CBS Morning News, CNN and Primetime Live.

In 1984 he served as press secretary and spokesman for the Kent Hance U. S. Senate campaign in Texas.

In 1976 Ken began a career in broadcast journalism spanning nearly 15 years, working in local television news throughout the nation. He also was a Washington correspondent for KRON-TV in San Francisco, American Broadcast News and Outlet Communications.

A graduate of Southwest Texas State University, Ken served in the U. S. Army from 1969 to 1971.

Bio:

Carolyn McIntosh counsels clients on complex environmental compliance and environmental litigation. She has extensive experience handling compliance and permitting matters, including air, water, and solid and hazardous waste permitting. Ms. McIntosh served as an assistant attorney general for the State of Colorado and, later, as a special assistant attorney general to the State of Montana regarding Superfund matters. She has served on numerous local government boards, including 12 years on the Lafayette City Council - four as the Mayor. Ms. McIntosh is a partner in the Denver office of Patton Boggs LLP. She can be reached at 303-894-6127 or cmcintosh@pattonboggs.com.

Bio:

Eric Berger has covered science for the Houston Chronicle since 2000, a beat that includes everything from hurricanes to nanotechnology. With an undergraduate degree in astronomy and a master’s in journalism, Berger understands the challenges that go with explaining modern scientific research to the general public. He also has embraced interaction with readers, beginning the SciGuy blog in early 2005. For this he was a finalist in the Weblog Awards for “best science blog” in 2006 and 2007, a finalist for the Online News Association’s “best beat coverage” in 2007, and won the 2006 Texas Associated Press Managing Editors award for "best blog."

Bio:

Dr. Kulinowski is a Faculty Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Rice University and Director for External Affairs for the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN). She currently serves as the Director of the International Council on Nanotechnology (ICON), an international, multi-stakeholder organization whose mission is to develop and communicate information regarding potential environmental and health risks of nanotechnology thereby fostering risk reduction while maximizing societal benefit. She directed an effort that resulted in the web publication of the first publicly available database of citations to peer-reviewed papers on nano environment, health and safety (EHS) research. Other activities of ICON include a survey of best practices for nanomaterial handling in the workplace and an international assessment of research needs for nano EHS. Dr. Kulinowski earned a B.S. in chemistry at Canisius College and M.S. and Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Rochester.

Bio:

Mike Lockerd has had forty-plus years of professional experience included over 32 years with Texas Instruments Incorporated in technology development and business unit general management, plus managed several different business strategies in the government electronic systems area. He directed TI corporate strategic planning for 5 years and served as Chair of the Corporate Technical Council for 15 years, early retiring in 1997.

Subsequently, he spent six years founding two technology-based startups as President and CEO. He retired again in June 2005 and resumed his consulting practice, Mike Lockerd Associates, LLC; and shortly after that became manager of the proposal for the Alliance for Higher Education to form the N. TX RCIC. In September 2005 his “third career” began as Executive Director of the North Texas Regional Center for Innovation and Commercialization (N. TX RCIC) supporting the Texas Emerging Technology Fund.

Bio:

Steve Fluckiger practices in the areas of Private Equity, Mergers and Acquisitions and Life Sciences and Biotech Practices. During his 27-year career with Jones Day, Steve has assisted in numerous domestic and international mergers, acquisitions, and dispositions, as well as Special Board Committee representations, for clients in the technology, financial services, manufacturing, retail, and oil and gas industries. He has represented issuers and institutional and venture capital investors in over $2 billion of private and public equity and debt securities transactions and advised issuers, investors, and investment advisors on a wide variety of securities compliance matters. Steve also has substantial experience in representing emerging growth and middle market companies in the life sciences, information technology, outsourcing, software, and manufacturing industries in their day-to-day general corporate matters. Steve chaired the advisory board of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences and Technology, a multidisciplinary biomedical research consortium. Steve serves on the advisory board of the Cecil H. and Ida Green Center for Systems Biology Science at University of Texas Dallas and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, is a past chair of the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, served on the advisory board of the North Texas Life Sciences Society and chaired the CEO Lifesciences Roundtable. Steve is a member of BioDFW, the Texas Healthcare and Bioscience Institute, the Health Industry Council of the Dallas/Fort Worth Region, the Life Sciences Committee and Technology Business Council of the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce, and the Medical Device Action Alliance. Steve is a member of the Dallas and Texas Bar Associations and serves on the Texas Bar Association's Venture Capital Committee.

Bio:

Fred Patterson ("The SBIR Coach") has been involved with guiding companies through technology development into commercialization for over forty years, including having worked with the SBIR Program and all of its aspects virtually since its inception. In addition to SBIR and other Federal government sponsored funding programs, Fred also works with several State sponsored technology accelerator initiatives, including the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. Fred also works with many Angel, Venture Capital, and other private sector investment sources to help his clients prepare for the challenges of seeking, securing, and managing funding for commercialization and growth.

Bio:

Mike is a recognized expert in project management and operations with over 25 years experience. Mike has worked with a wide range of high-technology/nanotech clients including TekSunPV, Dell, Intel, AMAT, KLA-Tencor, and TEA. Mike has spoken at numerous industry conferences including Field Service 2007 & 2008, Interphex 2006 & 2008 as well as KLBJ 590AM talk radio. He has been featured over 40 publications including the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Renewable Energy World, and Sun & Wind. Mike holds a BS of Engineering from the United States Military Academy and an MBA in Technology Management from the University of Phoenix.

Bio:

Jennifer Kalmbach is agileTCP’s global engagement manager with focus on cycle time improvement programs in both aging and next generation fabs.

Her specialty is identifying and fulfilling site specific customer goals through equipment manufacturing, maintenance and workforce development.

Bio:

Patty Pool is the Executive Director of the Center for Workforce Learning at Grayson County College in Denison, Texas where she oversees customized training and continuing education. Dr. Pool assists area businesses in applying for Texas Workforce Commission training grants. Her leadership has been instrumental in 200+ percent growth of the division in 2 years. Her previous experience includes serving as a university professor of business marketing and management, director of marketing at a regional hospital and as a consultant in the telecommunications industry. She earned her MBA from Texas A&M Commerce and PhD from the University of North Texas.

Rear Admiral Bill Retz completed 32+ years of Naval service as a Surface Warfare Officer. After leaving active duty, Admiral Retz was employed as Vice President ARAMARK Corp in Philadelphia and later opened his own consulting business. He was named CEO of NOFIRE Technologies Corp., a public company specializing in the manufacture of fire retardant coatings and engineered products. He later became Executive Director of the American Competitiveness Institute specializing in the development of advanced circuit boards and electronics. He holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Business from the University of New Mexico and George Washington University.

Tony Kaai has served as President of the Denison Development Alliance and the Denison Industrial Foundation since June 1, 2000. His business recruitment efforts have added approximately 3,000 jobs for Denison over the past 5 years. Tony came to Denison from Muskogee, Oklahoma where during his eight–year tenure as President of Muskogee Development he played a significant role in the expansion and relocation of 18 companies that created over 2000 new jobs. Tony is a graduate of Oklahoma State University, a Certified Economic Developer and is currently serving on the board of the Texas Economic Development Council.

Bio:

Winningham is a graduate of the University of North Texas as well as the Economic Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma. Winningham previously served as Staff Assistant to U.S. Congressman Lee Hamilton of Indiana, and as Executive Director of the Greenville (Texas) Board of Development. He was a swim coach for 20 years and previously worked at Burston-Marstellar Public Relations in New York and MCann Erickson Advertising in Louisville, Kentucky. Winningham is a Board member of the Texas Economic Development Council and the Foundation for Allen Schools.