Our Company

Craig Bandes has over 25 years of experience as a CEO, entrepreneur, and investor building companies in the technology, defense and professional services industries. Craig has been President & CEO of Pixelligent Technologies since 2009, a company that is leveraging next generation nanomaterial development and manufacturing technology to disrupt the chemicals industry. Pixelligent was recognized as the Manufacturer of the Year in 2017 by the Frost & Sullivan Manufacturing Leadership Council. Prior to rebuilding Pixelligent, Craig was the President & CEO of Global Secure Corp, a high tech company focused on providing homeland security software, training, and equipment solutions. He grew Global Secure from a start-up to over 175 people, with operations in 5 states, and completed four acquisitions. Craig has negotiated over $300 million in financial transactions, has completed acquisitions and strategic partnerships in the United States, Asia and Europe, and has built sales and distribution channels on a global basis. He sits on the Board of Directors of Pixelligent and is a member of the NanoBusiness Alliance Advisory Board. Craig received degrees in Finance and Entrepreneurship from Babson College.

Tom joined Pixelligent in 2021. Tom is a Senior Level executive with 25+ years of experience assisting primarily high-technology growth companies in financial and operational capacities. Prior to Pixelligent, Tom was the CFO of Phononic, an advanced thermoelectric semiconductor technology company. Tom has also held CFO and CEO positions at companies such as Solid State Equipment Corporation, EMCORE Corporation and New Millennium Solar Equipment Company. Tom is a graduate of Boston University’s School of Management and is a member of both the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and NJ Society of Certified Public Accountants.

Serpil Gonen Williams, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer, has been with Pixelligent since 2002. Her current responsibilities include the development of new products and applications. During her tenure at Pixelligent, she has been the Principal Investigator on federal grant programs totaling more than $8 million, and was responsible for the process design and optimization of our current technology portfolio. As an expert in the synthesis of nanocrystals and their material properties, she has led the nanocrystal synthesis group. Dr. Gonen Williams is one of the inventors of several of Pixelligent’s patents on the synthesis and applications of nanocrystals. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Maryland in 2002, and has authored and co-authored 16 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Jason Repac, Vice President of Process Engineering, joined Pixelligent in 2015. He brings more than 14 years of leadership experience in specialty chemical, electronic materials, and nanotechnology manufacturing. Prior to joining Pixelligent, Jason worked in the OLED Display group at DuPont helping to lead the scale-up, design, construction, and commissioning of DuPont’s $30 million OLED formulation semi-works facility in Newark, DE. Jason earned a M.S. in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Maryland College Park. Jason is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt and Lean Practitioner.

Jeff Anderson, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, joined Pixelligent in 2023.

He built his career at leading global materials companies, including 3M, Ceradyne, and Saint-Gobain Ceramics. Before Pixelligent he was at Concept Group where he re-branded the vacuum insulation technology leader, expanded the sales organization, and boosted growth by investing in digital capabilities.

Previously, Jeff was a sales executive at Ceradyne. With a keen eye for customers’ next-generation materials roadmaps, he routinely grew year-over-year sales for the ceramics leader, leveraging his product knowledge to build enduring relationships with key global accounts. When 3M Advanced Materials acquired Ceradyne he became a US business manager, eventually directing the complete Ceradyne line. Under his leadership, the team exceeded growth targets by increasing market share and penetrating new sectors previously dominated by competitors.

Jeff holds a BS degree in ceramic engineering and a ME degree in ceramic and materials engineering, both from Clemson University in South Carolina. His MBA degree is from the Charles H. Lundquist College of Business at the University of Oregon.

Andrew Gavin, member of the Board of Managers, is a serial entrepreneur and a programmer noted for co-founding the video game company Naughty Dog. His company, which wrote the first blockbuster game for the Sony PlayStation, was later sold to Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA). Shortly after leaving Naughty Dog, Andrew co-founded a new Internet startup called Flektor, and in May 2007, the company was sold to Fox Interactive Media, a division of News Corp. Andrew earned his Ph.D. at MIT, where he did research for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the Mars Rover Vision Project.

Andrew Ray represents public and private companies, financial sponsors, and management teams in a broad range of corporate and finance matters. Additionally, he counsels extensively in the telecommunications, media, and technology (TMT); government contracts; energy; and financial services sectors. Various industry publications recognize Andy as a leader in both M&A and in communications. He recently led the team representing Oculus VR in its $2 billion sale to Facebook, which was named the M&A Advisor M&A Deal of the Year.

Mudar Yaghi is the CEO and founder of AppTek, an AI and machine learning company specializing in speech recognition and machine translation. AppTek has sold technology assets to SAIC in the fall of 2010 and its MT platform to eBay in 2014. Mudar is also a founding investor and board member of Ignite Media Solutions, a provider of interactive voice, web, and mobile direct response solutions that is backed by ABS Capital. He is also an investor and board member at TCOM, which is a telecommunication aerostat systems company.

Robert Embry, is President of the Abell Foundation. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Robert served as a clerk to the Honorable Judge Simon E. Sobeloff, Chief Judge of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1977, Robert became Assistant Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development for Community Planning and Development, and also served as Executive Director of the President’s Task Force on Urban Policy. Robert is the recipient of a number of state and national awards, including being named by Time Magazine as one of the 50 outstanding young national leaders. Robert has also served as the President of the Maryland State Board of Education, and is a Founding Board Member of 1000 Friends of Maryland, a coalition of businesses, community and environmental groups dedicated to preserving what is best about Maryland and encouraging sensible growth. Robert currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland.

Eileen M. O’Rourke, Chief Operating Officer, OTEC International LLC, and Treasurer, The Abell Foundation, Inc., has been involved in OTEC for a dozen years, starting with Abell’s exclusive license of the Anderson technology in 1999 to her current leadership role of this important strategic investment. Eileen has 30 years of experience in business finance and project management, with ten years managing direct investments in early stage companies and in providing innovative financing solutions in support of social mission activities. As Treasurer of Abell, Eileen is responsible for negotiating and managing direct investments in early stage companies including deal structuring, board level review and oversight, and active participation with management team in advancing commercialization of technologies. She negotiates and monitors loans, guarantees and other financial arrangements in program-related non-profit projects and is also responsible for investment implementation and performance monitoring of portfolios.

Alain Harrus, Ph.D., Chairman, joined Kateeva in October 2013. Previously, he was a Partner at Crosslink Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital company where he led the firm’s semiconductor and energy technology investment activities. Before turning to venture capital, Alain developed breakthrough process technologies that kept semiconductor manufacturers on track with Moore’s Law – first as a research scientist at Bell Laboratories, later as Chief Technology Officer at Novellus Systems – now part of Lam Research. There, he championed a total copper metallization solution for advanced semiconductor manufacturing – a disruptive move that made Novellus a category leader and helped catapult the company across the $1 billion revenue threshold.

As an investor, Alain focused on early-stage science-based hardware companies developing challenging technologies. An engaged Board member, he advised executive teams on strategic growth initiatives, particularly technology roadmap development, product and commercialization strategies, and infrastructure, as well as fund-raising, valuation, and exits.

Alain holds a BS degree in Mathematics and an MS degree in Physics from the University of Paris XI at Orsay, France, as well as a Ph.D. degree in Solid State Physics from Temple University in Philadelphia. He has authored and co-authored more than 30 technical papers and is a co-inventor on six patents.

Eugene Banucci, Founder and Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ATMI, Inc.
Dr. Banucci is the founder and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ATMI, Inc., a publicly held company that was acquired in 2014. Prior to starting ATMI, he held management positions at General Electric Company and American Cyanamid Company. Dr. Banucci has served on numerous boards; in particular, he was a member of the Board of Directors of then publicly held company Zygo Corporation from 2003 through 2010. Dr. Banucci was elected to the Board of Directors at Pixelligent in 2017. He currently serves as Lead Director on the Board of Clean Harbors, Inc., a publicly held company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. He holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Beloit College and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Wayne State University.

Craig Bandes, President and CEO, Pixelligent Technologies. Mr. Bandes has over 20 years of combined experience as an entrepreneur, CEO, and Angel investor, building companies in the technology, defense, and professional services industries. Since joining Pixelligent in early 2008, he has restructured the company, enabling it to successfully emerge from a reorganization process, refocused its product strategy, and raised nearly $9 million in equity funding. In addition, the company has been awarded over $11 million in federal grant programs, and has entered into numerous product development partnerships with technology leaders and Fortune 100 companies. Prior to Pixelligent, Mr. Bandes was the President and CEO of Global Secure Corp, a high-tech homeland security company, which in just over four years grew from a start-up to 250+ employees, achieved revenues of over $40 million, completed three acquisitions, raised over $25 million, and filed for an IPO. Prior to Global Secure, he was a co-founder of Focus Technology Consulting, which ranked #14 on the 2008 WashTech Fast 50. Mr. Bandes has negotiated over $300 million in financial and strategic transactions in the United States, Asia, and Europe, and he sits on numerous company boards. He is a graduate of Babson College.

Dr. Robert Fleming has recently accepted a position as Vice President of Research and Technology at Zymergen, a late stage startup company using micobiology to fundamentally change the way materials are made and what they are made of.

Prior to this role, Bob was the Chief Technology Officer of CLEARink Displays.  During his tenure at CLEARink he led the development of the world’s first full-color, video retro-reflective display leading to “Best in Show Award” at the 2017 Society for Information Display Conference, the IDTechEx Technical Development Materials award, and the “People’s Choice Award” at the 2019 Society for Information Display Conference.  He recruited top talent and grew the R&D team from 3 to 14 people bringing together a multi-site, and multi-disciplinary team from chemistry, physics, optics, electronics, hardware, and software to bring the CLEARink technology to market.

Bob has over 22 years of experience bring new technologies from idea to commercial products in the fields of optics, electronics, materials, and devices.  Prior to joining CLEARink Displays, Bob worked for the Imerys Corporation as Director of Materials Research.

Prior to joining Imerys, Bob was the Co-Founder and CTO of Shocking Technologies, Inc. a Silicon Valley electronic materials start-up where he grew the company from a 2 person start up with an idea to 47 people and a product qualified in a cell phone with high volume manufacturing.  Before Co-Founding Shocking Technologies Bob worked 12 years for the 3M Corporation in Saint Paul, MN in a broad range of R&D and management functions. While working at 3M Bob developed new retroreflective fabrics, optical interference films for windows, flexible display materials, and nanocomposites for optical applications.  In addition to developing new products and technologies, Bob also has expertise in scale-up manufacturing process technologies from organic reactions, milling, compounding, blending, roll to roll coating, thin film vacuum deposition, and roll to roll microreplication.

Bob earned his Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Engineering at the University of Massachusetts. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Winthrop University. He is an inventor on over 57 issuedUnited States patents, ranging in fields from nanocomposites, adhesives, optical interference coatings, retroreflectors, displays, battery separators, optical materials, and electronic materials.  Dr. Fleming has also been an invited speaker with multiple publications.

Rob Bertin is a highly experienced intellectual property attorney and President of the DC Bar Association Patent, Trademark, and Copyright section. Prior to practicing law, Rob was an electrical engineer with IBM Federal Systems, working with circuits and IC packaging.

Hal Shear has been serving on public and private company boards for over 25 years. He is also a recognized expert and advisor providing governance services to directors and boards throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. He has served on more than 18 boards, and is currently Chairman of the Board of two privately held companies for which he provides strategic and operational advice, as well as governance expertise.

Dr. E. Clayton Teague, member of the Technical Advisory Board, acted as Director of the Federal National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) from 2003-2011. In this position, he reported to the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which advises the President and others within the Executive Office on the effects of science and technology on domestic and international affairs. He also has served as Chair of the American National Standards Institute Technical Advisory Group to the ISO Technical Committee on Nanotechnologies (ISO TC 229), acted as president of the American Society for Precision Engineering, is a fellow of the United Kingdom Institute of Physics, and worked as Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Nanotechnology for ten years.

Masaru Iida is the President of Denzai Consulting. He spent 42 years in various roles at Nissan Chemical Ind., retiring in 2013 as Senior Managing Director. During his time at Nissan Chemical, he successfully introduced specialty chemical materials for many applications, including anti-reflective coatings for advanced semiconductor chips, alignment layers for LCD, HTL materials for OLED, and thick film technologies for electronics packaging. Under his leadership, multiple new technologies were successfully launched and transferred to volume production in leading applications. He is a graduate of Osaka Pref. University with degrees in Polymer Chemistry and Applied Chemistry. He joined the Pixelligent Advisory Board in 2014.

Yakov Kutsovsky is the CEO and Founder of MateriaX, an advisory firm enabling successful development and commercialization of new materials. He is also an Expert-inResidence at Harvard University, supporting faculty in assessing technology fit for different markets, evaluating and addressing open technical and business issues for the best path to market.

Over the last 15 years, Yakov was the CTO and Chief Scientific Officer of Cabot Corporation, a global specialty chemicals and materials company. Yakov led the development of multiple products and manufacturing innovations, commercializing new materials across established and emerging businesses. Yakov advanced Cabot-wide technology platforms including elastomeric composites, inkjet colorants, graphenes, carbon nanostructures and materials for next generation tires, adhesives and batteries. Yakov built a track record of scaling organizational and technical capabilities – from grams in the lab, to tons in manufacturing sites and technology centers across the world. Yakov directed the technology scouting team and delivered a valuable pipeline of business opportunities through connecting technologies to customer needs. He also partnered with leading customers across the globe to establish collaboration programs leading to new products and technology licensing. Yakov identified and executed on multiple M&A opportunities, expanding Cabot’s technology portfolio. He was the President of Advanced Nanostructure Solutions (ANS), an acquired wholly owned Cabot subsidiary, scaling up and commercializing a new form of carbon nanotubes (CNS) to deliver superior performance in batteries, EMI shielding and silicones. Yakov has also led development and implementation of lab informatics solutions to accelerate materials
development.

Yakov has published more than 20 papers and was granted 17 patents that cover a broad range of technical areas. Yakov earned his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and a MS in Chemical Physics from Novosibirsk State University in Russia. Yakov is a member of American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Material Research Society and American Chemical Society. Yakov served on the Advisory Boards of the Department of Energy, Environmental, Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, Nanomanufacturing Center at UMass Lowell and the Department of Chemistry at MIT.

Wayne Rehberger has built world-class finance organizations for public and private companies in diverse industries. An insightful strategist with broad expertise in corporate finance, governance and oversight, he has guided global organizations through major change events with strategies to create profitable growth. As CFO and COO of XO Communications (Nasdaq: XOXO), he led a restructuring that culminated in an acquisition by Icahn Enterprises in 2002 and the subsequent purchase of Allegiance Telecom. As SVP & CFO in the Professional Services industry, he managed complex M&As, including the 2019 acquisition of Engility by SAIC (Nasdaq: SAIC), and Engility’s earlier merger with TASC in 2015. In 2017, he was named Virginia CFO of the Year by Virginia Business.

Rehberger began his career at KPMG following a decade of service in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve. He holds a B.S. degree from Bucknell University, and an MBA from the Moore School at the University of South Carolina.

He serves on the Boards of QTS Realty Trust (NYSE: QTS), Fusion Connect, and Abt Associates, and the Advisory Board of SAP National Security Services, a subsidiary of SAP (NYSE: SAP).