Frankel Commercialization Fund - Advisors

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Frankel Advisors
The Frankel Fund is directed by a board of advisors who are selected based on their in depth industry experience, experience founding and growing early stage companies, and or experience investing in early stage companies. The advisors serve as strategic advisors to the Frankel Fund as a whole and, based on the background of the advisor, as an advisor to one of the two Frankel Fund Teams. By complementing the experience of the Frankel Fund Team members, the Frankel Fund Teams are able to provide a very deep level of technical and business management expertise to the start-up companies in which they invest.

Tom Porter, Managing Director
In addition to his role as managing director of the Fund, Tom is general partner for Trillium Ventures in Ann Arbor. He has a broad range of experience in founding, managing and advising successful technology growth companies over a thirty-year period. Tom co-founded and is a general partner emeritus in EDF Ventures, an Ann Arbor-based venture capital firm investing in early-stage market-driven companies in health care and information technology.

Technology Advisors

Jim Adox, Venture Investors of Wisconsin
Jim is Managing Director of Venture Investors LLC, and heads up the firm’s Ann Arbor, Michigan office. He focuses on the firm’s Information Technology practice, works with the Venture Investors Health Care Managing Directors on medical device investments, and is the primary contact for all deals in Michigan for the firm. Jim also serves on the boards of Incept BioSystems and the Ann Arbor IT Zone. Jim earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering, and a Master of Business Administration with High Distinction – all from the University of Michigan.

Lindsay Aspegren, North Coast Technology Investors
Lindsay is a co-founder and General Partner at North Coast Technology Investors. Prior to North Coast, Lindsay was a co-founder of Chromatic Research, Inc., a fabless semiconductor company. Chromatic targets the multimedia PC market with its Mpact media processor and an extensive library of software. Lindsay was responsible for raising capital and licensing agreements with Toshiba Corporation and Rambus, Inc. In addition, Lindsay has held a number of executive positions with early stage software and technology companies.

Lindsay began his career as an investment banker with Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he worked with emerging technology companies including Digital Microwave Corporation, Everex Systems, Inc., Maxtor, Inc. and Sun Microsystems, Inc. Lindsay was also a Senior Manager with Ernst & Young Corporate Finance in Detroit.

Lindsay received an M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. He graduated magna cum laude with distinction from Yale University where he received his BA.

David Hartmann, President, Arbor Blue
Dave is currently the co-founder and President of Arbor Blue, an emerging technology company. Dave most recently served as Vice President and General Manager of Convergent Systems and Corporate Development for Sycamore Networks. He is an accomplished senior executive with successful experience in technology company startups, turn-around and public companies with extensive business development and operating experience in computing and communications technology. His experience includes the founding and management of a first wave internet equipment company from startup to IPO in 5 years. He then sold the business to a larger public company for $100 million. Dave has also had success unlocking the value of a semi-publicly held high technology company by creating a strategic plan to drive the next-step corporate investment strategy. The business grew 45% Y/Y with this new strategy and was acquired for $80 million.

Al Kortesoja, Formerly Capgemini/Ernst & Young
Al is a former vice president of the Critical Technologies Group at Capgemini/Ernst & Young, most recently focusing on enterprise integration services and the development of eCommerce strategies. He has extensive experience in the software, automotive, telecommunications, financial services and health care insurance industries. Al is currently an independent management consultant and an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan's computer science department.

Chuck Salley, Investor
Chuck Salley is an experienced entrepreneur who has founded two technology based companies and previously led information technology sales teams. He is past President of the Ann Arbor IT Zone and founding Executive Director of the Ann Arbor SmartZone Business Accelerator. He co-founded with Kurt Riegger, Entrepreneur Boot Camp and he continues to facilitate and teach this seminar semi-annually for Ann Arbor SPARK. He advises early stage technology companies and is a member of several Advisory Boards including the Frankel Fund at UM Ross Business School.

Medical Technology/Life Sciences Advisors

Mary R. Flack, Vice-President, NanoBio
Dr. Flack has nearly 20 years of clinical research experience at the NIH and in the pharmaceutical industry. Before joining NanoBio in 2002, Dr. Flack was Clinical Director of Endocrinology and Women’s Health Care at Pfizer (formerly Parke-Davis/Warner Lambert) where she was responsible for clinical development of pharmaceutical products for osteoporosis, hormone replacement therapy, fertility and contraception. She directed the completion of multiple clinical studies (Phases I-IV), leading to four approved NDA submissions, and has extensive experience with three different divisions of the FDA, including dermatology, endocrinology and reproductive health.

Larry Hagerty, Former President, RLP Technologies (sub. of RL Polk)
Larry is a recognized leader in the health care information industry. A successful entrepreneur, he led Ann Arbor-based Medstat Group, Inc. through tremendous growth as the company's president. Medstat was successfully sold to Thomson, and Larry served as president and CEO of the wholly owned subsidiary. He later became president of RLP Technologies, which specializes in building data solutions that serve as a foundation for focused in-depth research and analysis across multiple industries, enabling the tools and applications to mine intelligence from the data. Hagerty is currently a consultant in the health care information field. His leadership has been recognized by Forbes' Corporate Honor Roll and Best Small Companies lists.

Michael P. Kurek, Biotechnology Business Consultants
Mike Kurek is currently a partner at Biotechnology Business Consultants (BBC) in Ann Arbor. For the past 20+ years, he has held senior management positions in marketing, sales and business development for a number of life science companies—two of which completed successful initial public stock offerings. Dr. Kurek was also Vice President of Business Development at the Michigan Center for High Technology, where he was responsible for the business incubator program that served over 50 start-up technology companies. He holds a Ph.D. in Genetics from Florida State University and an M.B.A. from Boston University. Dr. Kurek currently serves as President of the Michigan Biosciences Industry Association, MichBio.

Tim Petersen, Arboretum Ventures
Tim Petersen is a Managing Director of Arboretum Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm specializing in the healthcare sector. Tim specializes in investments in medical device, equipment, and healthcare service companies, leveraging his broad business background working in and with entrepreneurial firms. He focuses on 510(k) medical technology companies and healthcare service firms in orthopedics, critical care and other clinical areas. Tim currently sits on the Michigan Universities Commercialization Initiative (MUCI) advisory board, and is also an advisory board member of the Biogenerator (St. Louis, MO) and the Wolverine Venture Fund. Tim earned a BA in Economics from Williams College, an MS in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Gerard P. Spencer, Retired Partner, Arthur Andersen
Gerard has spent most of his career (28 years) as a partner at Arthur Andersen. While at Andersen, he specialized in technology based clients (8 IPO’s and numerous financings), small and medium sized manufacturing and service companies, and Japanese transplants. He was the manager of the Emerging Company Business for Arthur Andersen’s Michigan Region and manager of Andersen’s Ann Arbor office. Following Arthur Andersen, Gerard became CFO of a $50 million sales manufacturing company. As CFO of the manufacturing company, he was instrumental in increasing per share value 4 times in three years after more than a dozen years of no growth. He then oversaw the sale of the company. Gerard has served on numerous boards of directors during his career. He received his MBA from the University of Michigan and a BA from Ohio Wesleyan University.

Clean tech Advisors

Peter Adriaens, Global CleanTech, LLC
Peter Adriaens (Ph.D., P.E.) is president of Global CleanTech, LLC, a clean technology consultancy and executive education firm with ties in the US, Europe, Taiwan, China, and Africa. Established in 2006, the company is involved in cleantech patent consulting, technology validation, and value chain/strategic analysis of cleantech products and startups. The firm's technical expertise covers drinking/waste water treatment, energy-water nexus, green building infrastructure, and energy emissions technologies. Adrianens' expertise is based on 25 years of fundamental and applied technology research as a Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering, 12 years as an in-house strategic consultant for LimnoTech , and 3 years as an instructor and advisor with the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies.

David Gard, Michigan Environmental Council
David directs the energy program at the Lansing-based Michigan Environmental Council. His focus is on achieving public policies that move us toward a cleaner, less carbon-intensive energy system. He previously worked as an engineer in the material handling industry after serving four years in the U.S. Navy. A Cincinnati native and Ross graduate, David completed the Erb joint degree program and was a Tauber Institute fellow. He holds a BS in mechanical engineering from Northwestern.

Consumer Advisor

David McCann
Dave McCann heads the National Small Business Development Team at Google in the Ann Arbor office. The team focuses on understanding and providing customer support for the thousands of small and medium businesses that use Google AdWords. Dave previously served as a manager providing support to key business-to-business advertisers in Google’s Business and Industrial Markets Vertical. Prior to Google, Dave was a Treasury Analyst at Ford Motor Company. In this role, he developed funding plans for the Canadian, Australian, Mexican and Brazilian markets. Dave received his MBA from Harvard Business School and his BA in Finance from Michigan State.

Joshua Pokempner
Joshua Pokempner is a recovering Architect and a founder of Architects Four where he worked until launching a series of award winning consumer product companies. With a dedication to products that are clever, innovate and fun, Giddy Up!, Color Loco, Flying Colors Toys and Colorbok Paper Products, where founded and eventually successfully sold. The companies continue to thrive and serve the mass and specialty stationery, children’s toys and publishing markets. Currently Josh is dividing his time between product design at Giddy Up!, which is now part of Elmer’s Products, Inc. and involvements with several nonprofit organizations.

Advisor-at-Large

Ken Nisbet, U-M Office of Technology Transfer
Ken is the executive director of the Office of Technology Transfer and has strategic and operational responsibilities for all technology transfer activities at the University. He has more than 20 years of experience in the commercial sector in engineering, finance, marketing and management. Ken also was a co-founder and president of Memorybank Inc., a storage systems provider.