Planar Energy - Powering Possibilities

Management

M. “Scott” Faris, Chief Executive Officer - Scott Faris is a serial entrepreneur with almost two decades of operating, venture-financing and commercialization experience, involving more than 20 start-up and emerging-growth technology companies. As founder and CEO of Planar Energy, a spinout of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, he is responsible for establishing and executing the company vision and direction across all functional areas, including business strategy, product development, and sales and marketing.

Mr. Faris had been chairman and CEO of Waveguide Solutions, a developer of planar lightwave circuit and microsystem products that was a spinout of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He also was a founding director and COO of Ocean Optics, a precision-optical-component and fiber-optic-instrument spinout of the University of South Florida with a proprietary technology to pattern thin-film filters. Mr. Faris was previously a partner with Corporate IP Ventures (formerly MetaTech Ventures), an early-stage venture fund that commercialized defense technologies, and was the founder and CEO of Enterprise Corporation, a technology accelerator that raised more than $50 million in capital for new and existing technology firms through a private investment forum. He also has served as director of the Florida Seed Capital Fund and as director of Technology Commercialization at the Center for Microelectronics Research.

Mr. Faris sits on the Board of Directors for the Greater Orlando Chamber of Commerce, Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission and the Florida High Technology Corridor Council.

Dr. Isaiah O. Oladeji, Principal Investigator - Dr. Isaiah O. Oladeji is a former Bell Laboratories scientist with more than 15 years experience in teaching, semiconductor R&D, and manufacturing. His job experience spans four continents, Africa, North America, Asia, and Europe where he worked for University of Ilorin, Nigeria, Lucent/Agere System, USA, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, Singapore, and ATMEL NTS, UK. He was a key contributor to the copper interconnect technology that is deployed in silicon microchip manufacturing. While at ATMEL he developed, installed, and validated the copper interconnect manufacturing technology used for Flash Memory devices. He was a 1992/93 Fulbright scholar, and a 1997 winner of NASA Tech Brief award of technical innovation. Dr Oladeji received his Ph.D. in condensed matter physics and microelectronics from the University of Central Florida (UCF), Orlando, USA. He mastered the art of using traditional electroless deposition to grow II-VI compound films for solar cell applications at UCF. He founded SISOM Thin Films LLC, where he invented wet electroless systems, processes, and precursor formulations for fast direct deposition of nanoparticle based film on various substrates. He is currently transferring these technologies to Planar Energy for advanced solid state energy storage device manufacturing.

Dr. Roland Pitts, Founding Senior Research Scientist - Roland Pitts is a member of Planar Energy Technical Advisory board and is the founding research scientist. He has helped assemble a world-class team of researchers and engineers to develop the innovative battery structures that will bring transformational energy storage devices to market. During his 29 year career at NREL, he performed research activities in a breadth of areas of interest to energy efficiency and renewable energy. He was a Senior Scientist and leader of the Optoelectronics Team (1999-2007) and in the Center for Basic Sciences (1996-2007), the Measurement and Characterization Branch of the National Center for Photovoltaics (1989-1996), and the Materials Research Branch (1978-1989). He has contributed to a wide array of projects, spanning the major areas of research at the laboratory. His principal areas of expertise are in solid-state physics, materials science, and surface and interface studies of thin films. He most recently worked on solid-state lithium batteries, dynamically controlled glazings for high-performance windows, fiber-optic-based hydrogen sensors, and materials synthesis in extreme environments.

Robert Wasmundt, Controller - Mr. Wasmundt has over (30) years financial experience qualified by a broad range of experience with increasing responsibility at S.C. Johnson 20 years, Fedders North America, Mattoon Precision Manufacturing, a Japanese tier1/tier2 auto parts transplant company, Sales Partner Systems, Inc, a food industry software producer and LB International a manufacturer of deep lane storage equipment. He received his initial financial training with S.C. Johnson & Sons, Inc. and has a BS degree in Business from Carthage College in Kenosha WI, a BA degree in education from Jackson College in Jackson MI plus several graduate courses in finance and taxes.