Leadership
SoloPower’s® leadership team is a strong group of executive talent pulled from the semiconductor and solar industries to drive the Company’s innovation, excellence and growth.
TIM HARRIS
Chief Executive Officer and President
Tim Harris brings over 20 years of executive experience to his role as SoloPower CEO and President. He has earned a reputation for building teams that develop, ramp and build exceptional high-technology products in extremely cost-sensitive environments.
Prior to leading SoloPower, Tim was CEO and President at Celerity, a developer and manufacturer of leading-edge, high-precision capital equipment for the semiconductor and solar equipment industries. Celerity was owned by a leading private equity company. Prior to that, Tim was CEO at Komag (KOMG, NASDAQ); the company developed and built media in the US and Malaysia for the disc drive industry. Under his leadership, Komag doubled revenue and tripled profits. Komag was acquired by Western Digital for over $1.2 billion in 2007. Previously, Tim was COO at venture-backed ioLon, which developed and sold high-powered tunable lasers for the telecom industry. He held executive management positions at Seagate Technology from 1990 to 2000, ending his tenure as Senior Vice President, World Wide Technology Manufacturing, which included responsibility for Seagate’s Wafer Fabs, Slider Development and Operations, Head preproduction, the OEM Tape Head Business and related operations. During that time Tim lived with his family in Malaysia for five years — building Seagate’s Recording Head business there into a 15,000-person operation. Prior to Seagate, he was General Manager, 130mm Division, for Domain Technology, and also worked at Memorex Consumer Products for 10 years. Tim, who has enjoyed teaching business at Santa Clara University, actively contributes to the boards of several non-profit organizations in the San Jose, California, area.
RYAN BENTON
Chief Financial Officer
Ryan Benton serves as SoloPower’s Chief Financial Officer and has over 17 years of experience in diverse corporate financial roles. Prior to joining SoloPower, Ryan worked as a financial consultant to ASMA, where he made key contributions in the areas of financial reporting, planning and analysis, and SOX remediation. In that role, he also assisted with the integration of the newly acquired ASM NuTool. Prior to ASMA, Ryan served as Corporate Controller of eFunds Corporation, a public technology company with over $600 million in annual sales, where his responsibilities included external and internal reporting. Previously, Ryan was Corporate Controller of REZsolutions, Inc., a technology company serving the hospitality industry. During his tenure, through organic growth and acquisitions, that company grew from under $10 million in annual sales to over $300 million in annual sales until its acquisition by Pegasus Solutions. Ryan began his career as a CPA working for Arthur Andersen & Co.
DR. MUSTAFA PINARBASI
Chief Technology Officer
Mustafa Pinarbasi, Ph.D., is an executive technologist with over 20 years of experience in thin-film materials and processing. He leads Research and Development and Engineering at SoloPower, and is tasked with developing and transferring technology from the lab to high-volume manufacturing. Prior to joining SoloPower, Dr. Pinarbasi managed the advanced technology group at Hitachi GST, where he led various novel thin-film and processing technology development projects which were transferred to manufacturing. From 1989 to 2003, Dr. Pinarbasi developed thin-film processing technology for magnetic head devices at IBM in San Jose, CA. His work at IBM included development and productization of many innovative processes and thin-film structures, as well as the first introduction of ion beam sputter deposition technology to the magnetic head industry. In 2000, Dr. Pinarbasi received the distinguished IBM Corporate Award and garnered Distinguished Engineer status for his technical contributions. Dr. Pinarbasi has authored many articles, holds 130 US patents, and has over 40 pending patent applications. He received his master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where his studies focused on processing and properties of hydrogenated amorphous silicon thin films.
BRUCE M. KHOURI
Chief Commercial Officer
Bruce Khouri brings over 25 years of experience as a construction industry and building materials professional, with the expertise and business development skills to strategically transition SoloPower to full-scale commercial operations. As CCO, Bruce leads all activities related to sales, marketing, product development, product management and technical services, and is charged to ensure that all functions of the organization are aligned to meet its strategic commercial objectives. Bruce began his career as the CFO and GM of a start-up company, pioneering the introduction of energy-efficient, thermoplastic single-ply membranes to the US commercial/industrial roofing industry. He later founded SCR Group, Inc., a nationwide provider of specialized roofing systems for non-residential applications. Bruce subsequently developed and patented the world’s first building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) roofing system and founded Solar Integrated Technologies in 2001. He went on to lead a successful IPO in 2004 (SIT.AIM) and execute the first large-scale solar PPA (5MW) in the US, signing an exclusive $500 million ROFR with GE Energy Financial Services in April 2005. In August 2009, Solar Integrated was acquired by Energy Conversion Devices (ENER.NASDAQ). Bruce holds degrees in economics, finance, accounting and management from Bentley University in Waltham, MA.
ED CASEY
Senior Vice President of Operations
Ed Casey, who joined SoloPower as SVP of Operations in March 2010, brings more than two decades of operational and management expertise to his role. Ed spent the previous two years in Malaysia as Worldwide Executive Director of Substrate Development for Seagate, the industry leader for hard disc drive products. While with Seagate, he was responsible for ramping a new substrate factory as well as overseeing development groups located in Singapore and Fremont, California. Prior to Seagate, Ed worked at Komag from 2000 to 2006, serving in several senior engineering roles before becoming COO. In this role, he managed all of Komag’s manufacturing plants located offshore in Malaysia. He also was responsible for Komag’s Pilot and Launch groups located in San Jose, California. Komag developed and built media for the disc drive industry in the US and Malaysia, and was acquired by Western Digital for over $1.2 billion in 2007. From 1998 to 2000, Ed was Senior Director of Manufacturing and Substrate Development for HMT, a San Jose-based hard disc drive media manufacturer acquired by Komag in 2000. He previously worked for 15 years at StorMedia, a hard disc drive media manufacturer, where he held several positions including Executive Director of Operations.
ROBERT W. CAMPBELL, P.E.
Senior Vice President, Global Sales
Robert W. (Rob) Campbell is responsible for driving SoloPower’s global sales growth. He brings to the Company 25 years of experience in capital equipment, technology and business-to-business sales. Prior to joining SoloPower in May 2011, Rob held the position of Executive Vice President for Sales and Marketing at both Solar Integrated Technologies and Energy Conversion Devices. He has a consistent track record of delivering exceptional sales growth for new technologies and emerging businesses. With over ten years of international experience in the renewable energy sector, Rob has developed significant projects with major global companies, ranging from large-scale hydrogen fuel cell power generation and distribution systems, to multi-MW distributed generation BIPV systems. A Professional Engineer, Rob holds a BSc in Engineering from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and an MBA from Schulich School of Business in Toronto, Ontario.
ALBERT J. BORO, JR.
Senior Vice President, Strategic Business Development
General Counsel and Secretary
Al Boro has practiced law for more than 20 years, and has depth of experience in representing the energy and technology sectors. Before joining SoloPower, he was a partner with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP in San Francisco. Al has managed litigation and corporate transactions and counseled on antitrust and compliance matters for companies in the energy and technology industries. His energy industry experience includes working on the antitrust review of the Chevron-Texaco merger by the Federal Trade Commission and the States’ Attorneys General, advising a petroleum trade association on greenhouse gas regulatory policies, and defending antitrust price-fixing claims and government investigations. Al has tried civil and criminal cases to jury verdicts, and has served as defense liaison counsel in multidistrict antitrust class action cases. He is currently serving as Vice Chair-GSI of the California State Bar’s Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Section. He served as a trial panel attorney from 1992 to 1999 on the Federal Public Defender’s Criminal Justice Defense Panel for the Northern District of California, and in 1994 was also a consultant to Legal Aid of Marin in Marin County, California. Al clerked for Justice Byron R. White of the US Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., and Judge Walter J. Cummings of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois. He has a juris doctor degree, a master’s degree in public policy, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California at Berkeley.