About – Bolb Inc.

Who We Are.

Bolb, Inc. has developed and patented breakthrough technologies to enable ‘never before possible’ disinfection systems for air, water, surfaces, and food to scale on a global basis to benefit human health and increase productivity in key verticals with the objective to preserve valuable resources.

Dr. Jerry JP Zhang

Co-Founder and CTO

Dr. Jianping Zhang cofounded Bolb Inc. in 2014 with Drs. Ling Zhou, Ying Gao and Eun-hyun Park, and has since served as Chairman and Chief Technology officer of Bolb Inc. Dr. Zhang has accumulated over 20 years of experience in group III-nitride semiconductor industry and academia, and had done groundbreaking work in the field of deep ultraviolet light-emitting diode. He was a recipient of Year 2003 DARPA SUVOS outstanding performer award, and contributed to over 100 peer-reviewed publications and over 100 US and international patents and applications.

Dr. Ling Zhou

Co-Founder and CEO

Dr. Zhou co-founded Bolb Inc, and successfully raised $30MM in venture funding for the company from 2014-2021, serving as CEO of the company. He received training on semiconductor materials growth and processing technology and subsequently worked at Philips Lumileds as Lead Engineer on ultraviolet light-emitting diodes for the DoD-funded Solid-state Ultraviolet Optical Sources (SUVOS) project. He was awarded an Outstanding Performance Award from DARPA for his pioneering work on world’s first thin-film UVC LEDs in 2004.

Frank Harder

CRO

Frank Harder accumulated broad experience in global Sales, Marketing, and P/L functions. As founding member of IoT End to End Platform ARTIK with Samsung, and Marketing and Sales leaderships functions at LED pioneer Philips Lumileds, he demonstrated track record in building and sustaining several $100M businesses in LED, IoT, Cloud and Systems. He has provided leadership to disruptive start-up technology and business companies, raised successfully seed and A-rounds for start-ups. He received his Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Duesseldorf and his Business Degree from Wharton University of Pennsylvania.

Tim Lester

Fractional CFO

Tim Lester, Principal Consultant at Lester Consulting LLC, is a veteran executive of venture backed technology companies. He has raised more than $105 million in venture backed equity and $56 million in debt from multiple bank and venture debt financings. Mr. Lester brings more than 30 years of executive, financial and operational experience to Bolb, including leadership positions with several semiconductor and LED industry players such as LED lighting pioneer Bridgelux, ASIC design house eSilicon, LED manufacturer Lumileds Lighting and Philips Electronics. His skill at building effective financial and operational systems and processes for high growth technology companies has been repeatedly demonstrated. Mr. Lester received his Master of Management degree from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and his undergraduate in accounting from Marquette University. He is a CPA.

Maria Topete

Director of Applications

Maria Topete is the Director of Applications Engineering at Bolb, where she leads a team of engineers to design disinfectant system architectures that are optimized for performance and reliability. Maria has extensive experience developing robust thermal, optical, and driver ecosystems that support technology adoption. With over 25 years of engineering experience specializing in applications, technical marketing, product development, and manufacturing of solid-state lighting devices, Maria has helped numerous clients successfully pivot from traditional light sources to solid-state and also design solid-state lighting solutions from scratch. She thoroughly enjoys working with customers on their quest to develop new products that solve problems that benefit society and that win in the marketplace. Maria enjoys thinking, doing, building, testing, and analyzing data to essentially “make sense of the nonsense”. When she is not busy in the office or the lab, she can be found hiking or camping on the California coast or mountain ranges with her children and their Scout troop. Maria studied mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley and Stanford.

Dr. Werner Goetz

Technical Consultant

Dr. Werner Goetz, Principal Consultant at Goetz Technology Consulting, is an expert on Light Emitting Diode (LED) technology and products. In his 25+ year career at Hewlett Packard, Philips Lighting, and Lumileds, Dr. Goetz made major contributions to the development of III-Nitride crystal growth, LED wafer fabrication techniques, testing and characterization methods, and packaging of high-power LEDs as the technology evolved from its infancy to dominance across virtually all visible lighting segments. Werner has significant experience in the applications of LEDs, use of drivers and controls, and the development of lamps and luminaires. In the early 2000s, Dr. Goetz was the principal investigator for the DARPA-funded SUVOS program at Lumileds developing UV-C LEDs. Dr. Goetz published extensively in the scientific literature on compound semiconductor technology and devices and presented keynote and invited talks at international conferences. He holds more than 30 patents.

Ada Wang

Finance Manager

Ada Wang has 5 years of combined experience in Finance and Accounting in both China and the U.S. She started her career at Deloitte China. In 2017, she came to the U.S. and received her Master's Degree in Accounting from Fordham University. She is a CPA.

Dr. Mike Krames

Technical Board Advisor

Dr. Mike Krames is president of Arkesso, LLC, a consulting firm in Silicon Valley focusing on wide bandgap semiconductor materials, devices and applications. Dr. Krames’ has more than 25 years of compound semiconductor materials, device, and applications experience, with emphasis on light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes. He has published over 90 papers and has been granted over 150 U.S. patents, and is a Fellow Member of both IEEE and IES.

Gary R. Allen, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Gary R. Allen is an independent consultant with a rich background in lighting technologies and nuclear fusion research. After a 40-year career at GE Lighting as Principal Engineer/Physicist, he retired in 2016 to focus on energy-saving innovations. Holding a Ph.D. in Astrophysical Sciences from Princeton and over 90 U.S. patents, he presented a TED Talk titled “A Lighting Revolution.” Dr. Allen has developed UV LED disinfection technologies for Fortune companies as well as startups. He also is working on LED solutions for algae cultivation to mitigate atmospheric CO2. Gary is dedicated to sustainability, innovation, and solid-state disinfection.

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