|
From Water and Wastewater.com Industry News
Prior to joining PAX Mixer, Inc., Fiske was co-founder and VP for Business Development and Sales of RAPT Industries, in Fremont, CA. RAPT Industries developed a new process for rapidly shaping and polishing optical and semiconductor materials and is using this process to manufacture a new class of lightweight optical mirrors out of silicon carbide. Fiske identified the technology while at LLNL and, as a second-year evening M.B.A. student, developed the business plan for RAPT which won first place in the third annual U.C. Berkeley Business Plan Competition in 2001. Fiske and his partners subsequently closed a series A round of investment and since then have raised over $12M in government funding from the DOD, NIST and NASA. Fiske led negotiations to license a portion of the technology to a major semiconductor equipment manufacturer, and led the first sales of products. Fiske was CEO of the Company from May, 2001 to April, 2004. Prior to starting RAPT, Fiske led a research team in condensed matter physics at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His group developed new experimental diagnostic techniques for high-speed non-steady state phenomena and also utilized 2- and 3D hydrodynamic models to simulate shock phenomena in solids and fluids. He is the author of 20 technical articles, most in international peer-reviewed journals including "Science". From 1998 to 1999 he served as a member of Laboratory Director Bruce Tarter's "Long Range Strategy Project", a group of leaders tasked with identifying critical technology areas for the laboratory's future. In this role he focused on technology spin-off and start-up strategies for the Laboratory. He presently serves on Rep. Ellen Tauscher’s (CA-10) Small Business Advisory Committee where he works with other small business owners and Congressional staffers to evaluate and propose legislative initiatives to increase the growth and economic vitality of the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1996, Fiske was selected as a White House Fellow and served one year in the Pentagon as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Technology (Dr. Paul Kaminski). Fiske was charged with assisting the Department of Defense with landmark reform in the area of personnel policy — focusing on the 110,000-person science and engineering workforce. Fiske worked with a inter-services team of experienced managers and personnel policy consultants to craft legislation to allow for greater flexibility in hiring, promotion and retention of DOD employees. This pilot effort in 1997 has led to major reforms of the government personnel system across many agencies. Fiske also created a novel fellowship program to bring talented young scientists and engineers to Washington. For this work he was awarded the Defense Outstanding Achievement Award in 1997. Dr. Fiske is also a nationally-recognized author and lecturer on the subject of leadership and career development for young scientists and engineers. He is the author of "To Boldly Go: A Practical Career Guide for Scientists" (AGU Press, 1996). A new edition, "Put Your Science to Work" was published in December of 2000. From 1996 to 2000 he wrote the career advice column "Tooling Up", read by over 60,000 scientists and engineers monthly and has lectured on the subject of career development for scientists to over 8,000 young scientists and engineers in the US and the UK. He presently writes the monthly on-line column "Opportunities" for the American Association for the Advancement of Science and, with fellow scientist/entrepreneur Dr. Geoff Davis, keeps an active dialog with the science community through his blog "Engineering Scientists." A native of Bethesda, MD, Fiske received his A.B. (Magna Cum Laude) in Geological and Geophysical Sciences and a Certificate of Accreditation in Civil Engineering from Princeton University in 1988. He was subsequently awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship and received his Ph.D. in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University in 1993. He has broad technical expertise in the fields of advanced materials, chemical engineering, fluid mechanics and heat and mass transfer. He received his MBA from U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in the Spring of 2002. Source: http://www.paxwater.com/ © Copyright 1998 - 2011 Water and Wastewater.com |
