LEADERSHIP
Members of our Executive Management Team include:
Paul Woods - Founder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Paul Woods is the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Algenol.
Paul invented the DIRECT TO ETHANOL® technology in 1984 while attending the University of Western Ontario near Toronto, Canada. Patents for the original technology were granted in 2001 (US), 2004 (US), 2005 (Australia) and 2007 (Europe).
Prior to founding Algenol, Paul was Chairman, President and CEO of Alliance Gas Management from 1989 to 1999.
He founded and built the natural gas firm and completed an initial public offering in 1997 and sold the business in 1999. Paul’s background also includes Chairman, President and CEO of United Gas Management Inc., which he founded in 1997. Paul sold United Gas Management in 2000 and retired until founding Algenol in 2006.
Craig Smith, M.D. - Founder, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Craig Smith is an Executive Vice President and the Chief Operating Officer of Algenol.
Craig’s background includes co-founding and serving as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Guilford Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a publicly held biopharmaceutical company, from 1993 to 2004. Dr. Smith served in various senior roles from 1988 to 1992 at Centocor, Inc., a publicly held biotechnology company, which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.
From 1975 to 1988, Dr. Smith served on the faculty of the Department of Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Dr. Smith has served on many corporate and charitable boards including the Johns Hopkins Alliance for Science, the Board of Directors of Adams Express Company (NYSE: ADX), a publicly held closed-end equity investment company, Petroleum & Resources Corporation (NYSE: PEO), a publicly held equity investment company specializing in energy and natural resources, and Depomed, Inc. (NASDAQ: DEPO), a publicly held specialty pharmaceutical company.
Dr. Smith has received numerous awards and honors, including the 1997 Maryland Entrepreneur of the Year Award and election to the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars in 2000. He received his B.A. from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and his M.D. from State University of New York at Buffalo.
Edward Legere, MBA – Founder, Executive Vice President
Edward J. Legere is a co-founder and an Executive Vice President of Algenol.
Prior to Algenol, Mr. Legere gained more than 18 years of experience in the biotechnology industry as a consultant and active business manager. His experience includes serving as the Chief Executive Officer of Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a publicly traded biotechnology company. While with Peregrine, Mr. Legere founded Avid Bioservices, a wholly owned subsidiary of Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Inc. Avid Biosciences developed and implemented world-wide sales of a cGMP protein manufacturing services. Ed has more than ten years of experience working with publicly traded companies, including serving on a variety of boards.
Ed received a Bachelor of Science in International Business from Florida Atlantic University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
John Coleman, Ph.D. - Chief Scientific Officer
Professor John R. Coleman serves as the Chief Scientific Officer of Algenol.
Professor Coleman was the Vice-Principal of Research and Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and a Professor in the Department of Cell and Systems Biology on the St. George campus of the University of Toronto prior to joining Algenol. He served as Chair of the Department of Botany from 1998 to 2004 and played a primary role in the formation of the new Department of Cell and Systems Biology in 2006. During his academic career, John's research interests were in the fields of molecular biology and biochemistry of photosynthetic carbon metabolism in higher plants and cyanobacteria. Dr. Coleman received his Ph.D. in plant biochemistry from York University in Toronto, Canada.
Ronald Chance, Ph.D. - Chief of Engineering, Executive Vice President
Dr. Ronald Chance is an Executive Vice President and Chief of Engineering at Algenol.
Dr. Chance began his career with Honeywell Corporation, where he served in a number of research positions including Research Manager for Electronic Materials. In 1986, he joined Exxon as the Director of the company's Polymers and Fluids Laboratory, later serving as Division Manager for the Paramins Technology division, and as Distinguished Scientific Advisor in ExxonMobil’s Corporate Strategic Research Laboratories. Dr. Chance retired from ExxonMobil in 2006.
Ron joined the Georgia Institute of Technology as a faculty member with a joint appointment in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He also served as Distinguished Scientific Advisor Emeritus at ExxonMobil from 2006-2009.
Dr. Chance has organized several international scientific meetings and served on numerous university advisory boards, including currently for chemical engineering at the University of Southern California and materials science at the University of Stockholm. Ron received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Kenneth Spall, Ph.D. - Vice President, Business Development
Dr. Kenneth Spall is Vice President of Business Development for Algenol.
Immediately prior to joining Algenol, Dr. Spall was Vice President of Business Development, Electronics/Photovoltaics and Vice President of Business Management, North American Industrial Gases with Praxair, Inc. from 2001 to 2009. In these roles he had responsibilities for Praxair’s business development and technology licensing efforts and its North American product management organization. Dr. Spall also has previous experience with Union Carbide’s ethylene oxide-based chemicals division. During his 17-year tenure with Union Carbide, Ken led the formation of Univation Technologies LLC, served on the board of directors of EQUATE Petrochemical, KSC, and held various commercial and technology development roles in the UNIPOL™ polyethylene licensing business. Dr. Spall received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and his B. S. from the University of Cincinnati, both in chemical engineering.
Kathleen McFadden, CPA - Chief Financial Officer
Kathleen McFadden is the Chief Financial Officer of Algenol.
She began her career as a public auditor for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC, formerly Coopers & Lybrand). While at PWC her client base included multi-location, publicly traded manufacturing companies.
Recruited by Unilever, one of her PWC clients, she spent 14 years in various positions of progressive financial responsibility, including financial planning and analysis and reporting. While at the Calvin Klein Cosmetics division, she was involved in the financial planning and reporting for the construction of a 455,000 square-foot manufacturing plant. She also has broad experience in implementing integrated ERP systems. Ms. McFadden’s broad experience in budgeting, reporting, auditing and systems implementation for large companies gives her a solid platform for her responsibilities at Algenol. Kathleen received her B.S. in Accounting from Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, majoring in Accounting with a minor in economics.
Quang Ha, J.D. - General Counsel
Quang Ha is the General Counsel of Algenol.
From 2006 to 2010, Mr. Ha served as General Counsel or Chief Legal Officer for a variety of financial services and asset management businesses of FSI Capital, LLC. He helped to expand and reorganize these businesses, as well as navigate them through the financial crisis. Prior to FSI Capital, Mr. Ha served as Director and Counsel at Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC from 2002 to 2004, managing and providing legal coverage for certain complex and innovative financial products. Mr. Ha also has previous experience practicing international law at the firm of Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy LLP, focusing on corporate, finance and capital markets transactions.
Mr. Ha received an A.B. degree, cum laude, in Economics from Harvard University and a J.D. degree from The University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was an Executive Editor of The University of Pennsylvania Law Review.
Additional members of our leadership team include:
- Dirk Radzinski, Chief Executive Officer, Algenol Biofuels Switzerland
- Dan Kramer, Managing Director, Cyano Biofuels GmbH
- Heike Enke, Chief Scientific Officer, Cyano Biofuels GmbH
- Ming-de Deng, Director of Molecular Biology
- Frank Jochem, Senior Director of the Algenol Aquaculture and Field Research Facility
- Ben McCool, Senior Director of Engineering
- Mitchell Rosner, Senior Director of Analytical Chemistry and Bioinformatics
- Dax Denman, Director of Program Management