DIRECTORS’ BIOGRAPHIES
The Honorable BJ Penn
Mr. Penn was Acting Secretary of the US Navy from March to May 2009, having previously been Assistant Secretary of the US Navy (Installations and Environment) since 2005. He began his career as a Naval Aviator and was named EA-6B Pilot of the Year in 1972. Throughout his distinguished career, significant leadership assignments included: Executive Officer/Commanding Officer VAQ 33, Battalion Officer at the US Naval Academy, Air Officer in USS America, Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations, Commanding Officer of NAS North Island, CA, and Deputy Director of the Navy Office of Technology Transfer & Security Assistance. Mr. Penn left the Navy in 1995, joining Loral Corporation as Director of International Business. In 1996, Loral sold its defense electronics and system integration businesses to Lockheed Martin and Mr. Penn was assigned to Lockheed Martin’s Corporate Staff. Mr. Penn returned to the US Navy in 2001 as Director of Industrial Base Assessments.
He received his BS in Industrial Technology from Purdue University and his MS in Human Resource Management & Personnel Administration from The George Washington University. He has also received certificates in Aerospace Safety from the University of Southern California and in National Security for Senior Officials from The Kennedy School, Harvard University. Mr. Penn serves as Trustee at The George Washington University and on the Board of the Naval Aviation Museum.
Nabil M. Lawandy
Dr. Lawandy is the founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company. Dr. Lawandy started his career at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center where he was a pioneer in the development of sub-millimeter optically pumped lasers. From 1981 to 1999, Dr. Lawandy was a tenured full professor of Engineering and Physics at Brown University where his work focused on instabilities in single and multimode lasers and a wide spectrum of non-linear optics and atom-field interaction problems. In addition to Spectra Systems Corporation, he has founded two other companies, Spectra Disc Corporation and Solaris Nanosciences, and has raised over $80 million in investment capital.
Dr. Lawandy holds a BA in Physics, and an MSc and Ph.D. in Chemistry, all from The Johns Hopkins University. He has authored over 180 reviewed scientific papers and is an inventor on over 80 US and foreign issued patents. His entrepreneurial and scientific work has been covered in several high profile publications including the London Financial Times, The Economist, Scientific American, Science News, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Fox News and BBC Television. He has also received a Presidential Young Investigator Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, a Cottrell Award, a Rolex Award for Enterprise and a Samuel Slater Award for Innovation.
Jeremy Fry
Mr. Fry has over 30 years of experience in finance and operations and in particular intellectual property. Following a successful executive international career with large scale enterprises, Mr. Fry, who is based in the UK, established his own consultancy business in 2005. Since forming the consultancy business, he has worked across a broad spectrum of business clients, advising start-ups to publicly listed enterprises. Over the past 15 years he has assumed numerous roles including Executive Chairman, Non-Executive Chairman, Non-Executive Director, CEO and COO leading and supporting a number of successful investor acquisitions and exits. More recently, he has been focused on advisory and non-executive initiatives including his appointment to the boards of Blackspace Security Limited and Sentrybay Limited, leading cyber-security companies working in financial services and regulated markets, where he is chair of the audit committee.
Through 2019 and into 2020, his time was spent working on a very significant restructuring of an industrials company involving negotiations with lenders and shareholders, addressing balance sheet and operational challenges. Mr. Fry, a Chartered Marketeer, holds a degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Cardiff Metropolitan University (formerly Llandaff Technical College), a postgraduate diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing via Cardiff Business School and an Executive MBA from the University of Reading.
Donald Stanford
Mr. Stanford, who was from 1979 until 2001 the Chief Technical Officer of GTECH Corporation, is an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Brown University and is an instructor in the Program in Innovation, Management, and Entrepreneurship (PRIME). He is also on the faculty of Brown’s School of Professional Studies. He is a founding member of GTECH (renamed IGT) and over the course of 30 years, he held every technical leadership position, including Vice President of Advanced Development and Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Stanford serves on several boards including YearUp Providence and the Business Innovation Factory. He is a founding board member of Times2 STEM Charter School in Providence and served on its board for 20 years. In 2008, Mr. Stanford was re-engaged by IGT as a consultant and currently serves as its Chief Innovation Officer.
Mr. Stanford is a past member of the RI Science and Technology Advisory Council. He also served on the Brown advisory councils to the President and the School of Engineering. He holds a BA in International Relations and an MS in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, both from Brown University. In 1999, Mr. Stanford received both the Black Engineer of the Year Award for Professional Achievement and the Honorable Thurgood Marshall Award for Community Service from the NAACP. In 2002, he received the Brown Graduate School’s Distinguished Graduate Award and the RI Professional Engineer’s Award for Community Service.
Barbara A. Paldus
Dr. Paldus has over 20 years of industry expertise in developing emerging domestic and international marketplaces, including bio-processing, personalized medicine, cell therapy, biotech beauty, and analytical process equipment. She founded two companies whose combined revenue exceeded $250M in 2021. She also has a doctorate in electrical and electronics engineering from Stanford University.
In 1998 Dr. Paldus was a founder of Picarro, a leading provider of cavity-ring-down instruments (CRDS) and solutions to measure greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations, trace gases, and stable isotopes across many scientific applications, along with the energy, life science, and utilities markets where she successfully exited in 2006. In 2005 she founded Finess Solutions, a leader in the development of scalable control automation systems and software for bioproduction. Its proprietary Smart technology, which consists of sensors, controllers, and software is designed to optimize the bioproduction workflow. Finess Solutions was sold to Thermo Fisher in 2017. Dr. Paldus was also an operating partner for Skymoon Ventures from 2005 until 2017, a venture fund ($100 million invested) focused on early-stage chip, GPS, bioproduction, optical laser components, and analytical instrumentation.
Dr. Paldus is currently the CEO and Founder of Codex Labs, a Global collection of biotech-based skincare solutions based on disruptive plant-based biotech ingredients, cGMP manufacturing, industry-leading carbon-footprint minimizing packaging, and data-driven clinical testing.