MANAGEMENT
Dr. Berhan Tecle, Founder, President and Chief Technology Officer
Dr. Berhan Tecle has over 30 years of experience in basic and applied research, nanoparticle materials and technologies, process and product development, and scale-up and manufacturing.
Formerly of DuPont, Dr. Tecle has served in positions with the company’s R&D Division of the White Pigments and Mineral Products business unit, and the Printed Circuit Materials Research Program for DuPont Electronics.
In addition to his technical achievements, Dr. Tecle is the author of numerous publications and holds several patents. Dr. Tecle was awarded a Ph.D. and an M.S. in Inorganic Chemistry from Wayne State University and a B.A. in Chemistry from Goshen College. Prior to joining DuPont, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
Dr. George S. Chu, CFO
Dr. Chu has over 30 years experience in operations and finance. He has provided operational support and/or initiated, structured and financed transactions for private companies in healthcare, high technology, manufacturing and in financial services. Financial transactions managed include the acquisition of a $100 mm revenue HMO by Ramsay Healthcare which subsequently went public; the restructure of the balance sheet for BAMI, a public company; the acquisition of six nursing homes from Southmark; a $40.0 mm capital raise for a start-up in high tech lighting; a $100 mm debt placement for a start-up in waste management; the sale of a New Jersey HMO to a private company which subsequently went public; and a $15.0 mm debt facility for a HMO acquisition in Louisiana.
Operational management experience includes stabilizing operations for a $40.0 mm revenue hospital chain; interim CFO role for start-up waste management company; formation of strategic alliances for start-up company in Belgium, Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia; management of clinical facilities in New York City and Philadelphia; and turning around the billing/collections for healthcare company in Philadelphia.
Dr. Chu has served as the Executive Vice President for the Kinnamon Group Inc.; interim Chief Financial Officer at Compost America Holding Company, Inc.; Managing Director, for LINC Financial Services; Interim COO on assignment for Alvarez & Marsal; Managing Director, Corporate Finance, at Rickel & Associates, Inc.; Managing Director, Corporate Finance, at Van Kampen Merritt, a Xerox Financial Services subsidiary and Vice President, Corporate Finance, at Butcher & Singer, Inc.
Dr. Chu has a MBA from the Wharton School of Finance and a Ph.D. from Adelphi University. He received his BA from the University of Michigan.
Jean-Pierre Vanderreydt, Managing Director
Jean-Pierre Vanderreydt, Managing Director for European Operations is a serial entrepreneur who has developed proprietary products and solutions for his own account and for major corporate clients including Volkswagen, Monteedison, Petrofina and Smith Klein. He was the key person in the fund raising, development and transfer of proprietary outdoor large scale ultra high brightness video display technology from Canada to his facilities in Belgium where he managed the design of the product and built a pilot automated manufacturing line. Collaboration with the central lab of GE Lighting in Cleveland resulted in common patents in fiber optic displays. This technology was ultimately sold to a government sponsored high technology development corporation in Malaysia and Mr. Vanderreydt directed the design and deployment of its high volume manufacturing line in Malaysia. He has twenty years experience in direct development and deployment of information technology solutions for major technology corporations including ITT, Philips and Emerson Electric. He has a Master of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Leuven in Belgium.
Dr. Omar M. Kekia, Senior Development Scientist
Dr. Kekia joined Ultrafine Technologies in September 1998 as a Senior Development Scientist. Prior to joining Ultrafine he was a Post Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he worked on the synthesis and characterization of precursors for advanced materials.
He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Delaware. During his graduate research he synthesized and studied novel metal clusters and investigated the incorporation of main-group elements into transition metal clusters to study their impact on thermal stability and catalytic pathways. Dr. Kekia received his B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from Addis Ababa University. Following his graduation from Addis Ababa University he served as a lecturer of Chemistry and a Department Chair at the Bahir Dar College of Addis Ababa University. While at the University of Delaware he was awarded the 1994-1995 Elizabeth Dyer Award for Excellence in Teaching.