BOB GRUENSTERN

Bob Gruenstern has served as Global Vice President of Product and Advanced Engineering at Johnson Controls. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a BS in Chemical Engineering, Gruenstern has been a lifelong engineer at Johnson Controls. He oversaw the research and development of JCI's core product innovations, and acted as Director of Engineering at Johnson Controls for 16 years. He is also a leader at Interstate Batteries, the world's largest battery distributor, where he guides product assurance and technology. He has been a member of Gridtential's Technical Advisory Board since October 24, 2017, where he has provided valuable engineering and product innovation insights to the Gridtential team.

RYAN GILLIAM, Ph.D. 

Dr. Ryan Gilliam is a Venture Partner at 1955 Capital where he is focused on energy, sustainability, waste upcycling, materials innovations, and emerging technologies. As a serial entrepreneur in the sustainability field, Ryan has developed electrochemical, catalysis, and chemical technologies for the beneficial reuse of carbon emissions, industrial waste reutilization, and production of building materials and chemicals. In addition to serving as a Venture Partner at 1955 Capital, Ryan is the CEO of Calera Corporation, a company founded on the beneficial reuse of CO2 to produce a range of building material products that both directly capture and offset CO2 emissions. Under Ryan’s vision and direction, Calera developed a second core technology, marketed as ‘Chemetry’, an industrial chemicals platform redefining how commodity chemicals are made. Within these two industrial areas, Ryan successfully drove the industrial scale-up of multiple technologies, a business development program resulting in strategic partnerships with Fortune 500 chemicals and engineering companies, commercialization efforts which led to an active presence in China and Southeast Asian markets, the development of a smart parts platform and set of enabling strategic supply agreements, and the building of teams consisting of world-class technical and business talent. Ryan obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in Materials Science and Engineering. On his work in catalysis and electrochemistry, Ryan has 10+ peer reviewed publications and is an inventor on 60+ patents in the energy, sustainability, products and materials spaces. 

BILL TIEDEMANN, Ph.D.  

Tiedemann brings 32 years of advanced battery research experience. He has a comprehensive background in chemical engineering, beginning with his education at UCLA for a BS in Engineering, MS in Chemical Engineering, and a PhD in Electrochemical Engineering. As the Vice President of Advanced Battery Research at Johnson Controls, he assembled a top-notch R&D team and later built a world-class R&D laboratory, now called JCI’s Battery Technology Center. In collaboration with John Newman, Tiedemann also published an extremely influential paper on porous-electrode theory with battery applications at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. For the 15 most recent years, Tiedemann has served as President of Slab Creek LLC, an energy conservation consultancy based in Wisconsin. He will be an asset to Gridtential’s implementation of the Silicon Joule platform for battery manufacturers.

PETER BORDEN , Ph.D. 

Co-Founder and Chief Technical Adviser

A leading technologist, serial entrepreneur and Adjunct Professor at Santa Clara University, Dr. Peter Borden developed Gridential’s novel Silicon Joule technology and cofounded the company. His deep expertise in silicon and thin film technologies had previously led him to found Boxer Cross (acquired by Applied Materials), where he conceived and patented a silicon solar cell manufacturing process widely used today. At Boxer Cross, Borden also developed metrology systems using DFM processes, which targeted IC manufacturing process control, and as CTO and founder for High Yield Technology (acquired by Pacific Scientific), he developed commercial in-situ particle monitoring systems for VLSI process equipment. Earlier, at Varian Associates, he led the Photovoltaics Group, setting performance records with III-V and silicon concentrator cells and systems, sponsored by Sandia National Labs, NREL and the Air Force. Dr. Borden has over 80 publications and 68 patents and holds PhD and MS degrees in Applied Physics from Stanford and BS degrees in Physics and EE from MIT.