Leadership Team
Dr. David Mills
Chief Scientific Officer and Founder
Mills is known worldwide for pioneering Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) technology and for his work in non-imaging optics, solar thermal energy, and PV systems over 32 years. His lab at the University of Sydney developed and licensed the evacuated-tube solar water heater technology, which comprises 60 percent of the world's solar collectors and is used widely throughout China for distribution of low cost domestic hot water. Mills originated and ran the research program that in 1991, with colleague Dr. Q-C. Zhang, developed the most advanced sputtered double cermet selective absorber coating, which is now used in evacuated tube receivers by China's largest solar company, Himin. He developed or co-developed other commercial systems including the Prism solar concentrator (Sol X) and the "S" evacuated tube reflecting system (Solahart). A solar sterilizer design he originated won a World Health Organization award in 2002, and he was a finalist in the 2002 World Technology Awards for Energy.
Mills is a former president of the International Solar Energy Society (ISES) and served as inaugural chair of the International Solar Cities Initiative (ISCI). While at ISES, he chaired the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol for Renewable Energy in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy. Mills has published and refereed numerous academic reports and articles on solar energy in such publications as The Journal of Solar Energy and Applied Optics. At Ausra he leads the company's highly talented R&D team.
Dr. Robert E. Fishman
President, CEO and Chairman
Fishman brings to Ausra more than 30 years of experience in large scale power projects. Prior to Ausra, he managed Calpine's 25,000-megawatt portfolio of clean, efficient and reliable natural gas-fired and geothermal power plants. He also managed Calpine's development and construction programs, engineering, and safety, health and environmental activities. Before joining Calpine in 2001, Fishman was president of PB Power, Inc. where he managed power project engineering services for more than 6,000 megawatts of gas-turbine and renewable energy projects. A former chief engineer in the U.S. Navy, Fishman holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy, a master's and engineer's degree in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Century Aluminum Company.
Sam McIntosh
Senior Vice President, Power Engineering, Construction & Operations
McIntosh brings over 25 years of construction experience to Ausra including a thorough understanding of power plant design and construction execution practices. Sam has honed his "hands on" team leadership style through the design and construction effort of over 2500 MW of power plants. While at Calpine he helped to develop, organize, process, and refine one of the largest power plant build out efforts in the country while achieving new standards for safety, quality, cost and schedule control. With a background in nuclear and fossil fueled power plant operations, a bachelor's degree in engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and an M.B.A. from Pepperdine, Sam is well suited to develop and lead the Ausra construction team effort as they implement a utility scale solar thermal power plant construction program that is World Class.
Jim Barnhart
Senior Vice President, Global Manufacturing
Barnhart brings to Ausra 25 years of global operations experience. Prior to Ausra he led West Coast Pharmaceutical Operations for Johnson & Johnson where he successfully implemented a regional operating model across Facilities Maintenance and Engineering, Capital Project Management, Facilities Planning, Business Services, Site Security, and Environmental, Health & Safety for three of J&J's operating companies. He previously held increasingly responsible positions with Applied Materials, Inc. in semiconductor capital equipment manufacturing, engineering, product management/marketing, global service business general management, business group operations, global real estate & facilities, corporate business continuity planning, and intellectual property management. A former officer in the United States Navy's submarine force, Barnhart led several nuclear engineering divisions and served as Sonar Officer. Barnhart earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Washington State University and a master's degree in business administration from the University of California at Berkeley.
Jeff J. Melby
Senior Vice President, Research and Product Development
Melby brings a valuable combination of engineering and business experience to Ausra gained through 15 years at 3M, a $24 billion global innovator that produces over 75,000 consumer and business products. Since 2004, Melby directed and transformed the global operations of 3M Precision Optics and prior to that held a variety of positions at the company including Technical Director, New Business Development Director and Laboratory Manager. Melby completed a Master Degree of Physics at the University of Chicago and MBA courses at University of California, Los Angeles. With a strong track record of growth through global executive team building and product commercialization leadership, Melby signifies the company's commitment to pioneering technology and pushing the envelop in the solar thermal power industry. At Ausra, he will be responsible for working with Dr. David Mills and the company's research team to commercialize its innovative solar thermal product offerings.
Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures
Key Investor and Board Member
Vinod Khosla was a co-founder of Daisy Systems and founding Chief Executive Officer of Sun Microsystems where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors. Vinod serves on the boards of Ausra, eASIC, Spatial Photonics, and Xsigo.
Sun was funded by Kleiner Perkins and in 1986 Vinod switched sides and joined Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (KPCB). In 2004, driven by the need for flexibility and a desire to be more experimental, to fund sometimes imprudent "science experiments", and to take on both "for profit" and for "social impact" ventures, he formed Khosla Ventures. Khosla Ventures focuses on both traditional venture capital technology investments and clean technology ventures. Social ventures include affordable housing, microfinance among others.
Vinod holds a bachelor of technology degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, a master's degree in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Ray Lane, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
Key Investor and Board Member
Lane is a Managing Partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, focused on helping entrepreneurs with technological and market insight, organizational development, team building, selling and managing growth. Since joining KPCB, Lane has sponsored several investments for the firm in enterprise and consumer technology, as well as clean and alternative energy. Before joining KPCB, Lane was President and Chief Operating Officer of Oracle Corporation, the second-largest software company in the world and the leading enterprise software and services company. During his eight-year tenure, Oracle exhibited phenomenal revenue growth from approximately $1 billion in 1992 to over $10 billion. Lane led Oracle's business expansion beyond its core database technology into enterprise applications and professional services.
Debra Olson
Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
Olson brings to Ausra her extensive legal expertise and renewable energy industry experience. Prior to joining Ausra, Olson was Vice President & General Counsel at Vestas American Wind Technology, Inc.—part of the world's largest wind energy company—where she served as chief legal officer for the company and as a member of the company's management team. Olson previously held the position of Senior Vice President & Assistant General Counsel at Calpine Corporation, a large, publicly-held leading U.S. independent power producer and one of the world's largest generators of renewable geothermal energy. Olson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration with a general science minor from Oregon State University and a Juris Doctorate degree from Northwestern School of Law at Lewis & Clark College. Olson serves as Ausra's Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary.
Benjamin F. Montoya
Board Member
Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Benjamin F. Montoya served as chairman, president and CEO at the Public Service Company of New Mexico, the largest investor-owned utility in New Mexico. Prior to that, he was senior vice president and general manager of the gas supply business unit at Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E). More recently, he served as CEO of Smart Systems Technologies, Inc., a leading low voltage integrator and structured wiring company in New Mexico.
Montoya had a distinguished 30-year career in the United States Navy, rising to the rank of Rear Admiral, Civil Engineer Corps. He was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal, a Legion of Merit, and a Bronze Star among other honors for his military service.
Montoya graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958 and holds a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a master's degree in sanitary engineering (environmental studies) from Georgia Institute of Technology, and a law degree from Georgetown University.
He currently serves on the board of directors of Jacobs Engineering Group, a multinational corporation, and Brown and Caldwell Engineering and TEC, Inc, both national environmental engineering companies. He has also served on the board of Wells Fargo Corporation.
Johannes (Jim) Nieuwenburg - General Partner
Board Member
Jim is an Industry Executive Advisor with KERN Partners. He has 27 years of executive management and corporate governance experience in the energy sector. Previously, he has held positions at Petromet Resources (CEO), Norcen Energy (Vice President) and Amoco Canada. Highlights at Amoco include establishing the first operating Energy Trust in Canada (Primewest), contributing to the acquisition of Dome Petroleum and executing one of the largest oil and gas property rationalizations ever completed.
His education includes a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (Honors), the Amoco Corporation executive development program and the Executive Program at the University of Western Ontario (Ivey) Business School.
Jim is Chairman of Medora Resources. He also serves as a Director for Fairborne Energy, Sound Energy, Verenex Energy, Wave Energy and Rifco.
Douglas J. Lehrmann
Interim Chief Financial Officer
Doug Lehrmann joins Ausra from FLG Partners, LLC. Doug brings to Ausra over 30 years of financial management in both public and private companies. He has served as CFO for five startups, raising more than $80 million in venture capital and bank credit, and he has filed S-1's for two initial public offerings.
His responsibilities have included finance, accounting, legal, banking, leasing, investor relations, facilities, human resources, MIS, and government contracting functions. Doug has worked for a broad spectrum of technology companies, including fabless semiconductor, semiconductor manufacturer, semiconductor equipment, R&D consortium, network storage equipment, and reverse logistics-service, among others.
Doug holds an MBA-Finance from the University of California-Berkeley Haas School of Business and a BA from St. Mary's College of California. He is a former Certified Public Accountant in California.
Thomas J. Bartolomei
Senior Vice President, Business Development
Tom Bartolomei brings to Ausra's customers nearly 20 years of achievement in the power industry, with in-depth experience in every aspect of business development, project management and engineering for leading international energy firms. As Senior Vice President, Business Development, Bartolomei is responsible for driving Ausra's global sales of solar thermal steam systems for standalone solar thermal and solar-natural gas hybrid power plants, power augmentation of new and existing fossil-fired power plants and industrial applications. Prior to joining Ausra, Bartolomei was Vice President of Sales & Marketing of the Power and Industrial division for Burns and Roe Enterprises, Inc., a leading global EPCO firm. He also served as Vice President of International Sales for Alstom Power, Inc. (ABB Combustion Engineering Systems), where he developed and secured utility-scale domestic and international power projects, one of which was recognized by POWER Magazine as the Power Plant of the Year in 2004. Bartolomei received his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1991, and held key engineering and business development positions for large-scale, coal-fired power stations in South Africa, China and Taiwan for a major U.S. boiler OEM.
Dr. Thomas Caulfield
President and Chief Operating Officer
With more than 15 years of executive leadership experience and a strong technical and OEM background, Dr. Caulfield is focused on accelerating the deployment of Ausra’s concentrated solar thermal steam systems, lowering costs and supporting Ausra’s global business development pipeline. Prior to joining Ausra, he was Executive Vice President of Sales for Novellus Systems, Inc., a Fortune 1000 company and a leading supplier of semiconductor equipment. At Novellus he was responsible for all aspects of worldwide field enterprise operations, successfully increasing the company’s market share and customer satisfaction as measured by VLSI Research. He previously served in numerous executive management positions at IBM for more than 10 years. His accomplishments included significantly increasing profitability and strengthening operations of IBM’s 300mm Semiconductor business. Dr. Caulfield also held a senior position at Phillips Laboratory and Post Doctorate position at Columbia University. He has a Doctorate of Engineering, a Master’s of Science, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Science-Materials Science/Metallurgy from Columbia University, and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from St. Lawrence University.