Solar Junction Management

Jim Weldon
Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder
Jim Weldon brings over 29 years of technology management and expertise to Solar Junction. Before leading the founding team through funding rounds, he was the Chief Operating Officer of Translucent, Inc. of Palo Alto, CA, a materials research company. Prior to Translucent, Jim was Vice President of the Advanced Products Division at Epion Corporation and Vice President of Business Development and Technology at Veeco Instruments for 25 years. Veeco Instruments is a Semiconductor Process and Metrology Equipment company. While at Veeco, he held many senior and executive management positions within Sales, Operations, Technology, Business Development and Corporate Development. He ran West Coast operations and the Veeco Technology Center for 10 years. His technical background assisted him in driving business, as well as merger and acquisitions activities. Jim executed due diligence on numerous major acquisitions for Veeco. Throughout his career, his main focus is to drive new technology into the market place. As a seasoned veteran, Jim has served on several Technical Advisory Boards, Executive Steering Committees and is on the Board of Directors for Solar Junction and Alliphant. He holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Merrimack College and graduate studies in Biomedical Engineering.

Brian Kinard
Chief Financial Officer and General Counsel
Brian Kinard has almost 15 years of startup company and legal experience, exclusively in high-tech and cleantech companies. Prior to Solar Junction, he held C-level positions at three startup cleantech companies where he was responsible for developing strategic business plans and tactical operating plans and raising venture funds. Further, Brian was Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Governance Officer for Avanex Corporation for several years. Prior to Avanex, Brian was a corporate securities and high-technology attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati where Brian specialized in high-technology startup companies in Silicon Valley. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University and a J.D. from Harvard University. He holds 2 patents.

Richard Chicotka
Vice President, Engineering
Dr. Richard Chicotka is a hands-on seasoned technical professional with broad technology and product development experience. His background encompasses fundamental research and development of compound IIIa-Vb semiconductors, advanced development of multiple technologies in semiconductor science and technology, data storage and photonics and the rapid introduction and productization of those technologies in manufacturing; and the design and development of capital equipment and manufacturing in support of those technologies. He has over 40 years of experience in engineering and operations management and is a 30 year veteran of IBM. He has held senior level and executive engineering, development and operations management positions at Veeco Instruments, CVC, Seagate Technology, Conner Peripherals and IBM. He has over 40 technical publications and 24 patents.

Homan Yuen
Vice President Research & Development, Co-founder
Dr. Homan Yuen brings extensive hands-on experience with materials deposition and characterization for a wide range of applications including solar cells, optoelectronics, silicon photonics, and CMOS electronics. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from Stanford University for developing advanced III-V materials for semiconductor laser diodes. Homan held a senior research position at a previous company developing rare-earth oxide materials. He brings over nine years of experience in materials science and device technology with over 50 technical publications.

Vijit Sabnis
Vice President Technology, Co-Founder
Dr. Vijit Sabnis has over 15 years of hands-on experience with III-V optoelectronic device design, wafer processing, and characterization. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University for developing III-V photonic switches for optical routers and wavelength conversion applications. Vijit also held a senior research position at a previous company where he was principal investigator on the DARPA EPIC program investigating applications of rare-earth oxides for CMOS-integrable optical amplifiers and lasers. He has 25 publications and holds 4 patents.

Michael Wiemer
Vice President Device Development, Co-Founder
Dr. Michael Wiemer brings over 12 years of hands-on semiconductor device design & fabrication experience to the Solar Junction team. He has designed, fabricated, and tested a wide variety of optoelectronic devices and structures made from Silicon, Germanium, and III-V materials. Mike received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University where he worked on novel device designs and applications for multi-GHz mode-locked III-V semiconductor lasers. He holds 5 technical publications and 2 patents.

John Herb
Vice President Business Development
Dr. John A. Herb has over 25 years of experience successfully managing the development and commercialization of high technology products. Most recently he was Vice President of Advanced Technology for GreenVolts, a CPV company, where he was responsible for identifying and evaluating new technologies critical to the evolution of the company's business. Dr. Herb has an extensive background in the development of high technology products based on advanced thin film materials, including the fabrication of optical and microwave materials by Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) and Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE). He was a pioneer of diamond film technology, serving as CEO of P1 Diamond and Vice President and General Manager of Crystallume. He has also held various management and development positions at Gould Microwave Products Division, where he led the group that launched the World's first commercial High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT), and at Hewlett Packard's Optoelectronics Division. He has been awarded 11 patents and holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Washington.