Leadership

Robert W. George II

Chief Executive Officer

Mr. George is a multi-disciplined technical executive with 40 years experience in product design, commercialization, and running successful companies in both the public and private sectors, with a senior focus on creating technical solutions for marketing, international licensing and joint ventures. He is also a Managing Director of Grosvenor Financial Partners. Previously he served as CEO of several companies including Commerce Direct Systems, Inc. (Napa, CA), Imagineering International, Inc. (Nashua, NH), and Denning Mobile Robotics, Inc. (Wilmington, MA).

Robert Godes

Founder, President and Chief Technology Officer

Robert Godes founded Brillouin Energy after more than 30 years experience as an innovative technical designer, electrical engineer, and creative inventor in identifying and developing complex technology product solutions, with a particular focus on the power distribution and electric utility industry. He has closely studied and has a deep understanding of applied science, most engineering disciplines, quantum mechanics, general physics, high energy and condensed matter physics, electronics, control systems, programming, and electro chemistry. Mr. Godes is the primary inventor of Brillouin's Hydrogen Hot Tube (HHT) reactor and Q-Pulse control technology, and holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Ohio Northern University.

David Firshein

Chief Financial Officer & VP-Business Development

Mr. Firshein is a veteran investment banker and development-stage CFO with 35 years of professional corporate finance experience in the private capital markets, together with senior management and business development experience in venture start-up operations. He is also President of Cascade Capital Corp., a licensed commercial finance lender/broker. During his career, he has directly completed $1 Billion of debt and equity transactions for small to large companies, including multiple environmentally oriented and clean-tech ventures.

Greg Knight

Executive Chairman

Mr. Knight brings more than two decades of executive leadership experience across advanced manufacturing, energy, semiconductor materials, and industrial technology sectors. He currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Enbi Group, a global manufacturer with production facilities in the United States, Germany, Hungary, and China. He previously served as CEO of Hardinge Inc., a global machine tool and precision manufacturing company, and as President and CEO of GT Advanced Technologies, where he led the company's transformation into a silicon carbide materials producer serving electric vehicle, solar, and power electronics markets; GT Advanced Technologies was acquired by onsemi in 2021 in a transaction valued at approximately $415 million. Earlier in his career, Mr. Knight graduated from the Cornell University ROTC program and served five years in the U.S. Navy as a Chemistry and Radiological Controls Officer, including formal engineering training through the Naval Nuclear Power School.

Chester Aldridge

Chief Strategist & Senior C-Suite Advisor

Mr. Aldridge serves as Chief Strategist and Senior C-Suite Advisor to Brillouin Energy and is a principal of US Equity Holdings. A seasoned private equity entrepreneur and C-suite leader, he has spent decades helping advance technology companies through commercialization, capital formation, and value creation. He has worked closely with Greg Knight for more than 15 years as both an investor and partner, and provides strategic guidance on Brillouin Energy's commercialization, capital, and partnership strategy.

David Niebauer

General Counsel

Mr. Niebauer is a practicing securities law attorney with 35 years of senior legal and business development experience in venture capital finance, M&A and general corporate representation. David has extensive experience representing clean-technology ventures at all stages of growth, including contract negotiations, corporate financing, intellectual property strategy, licensing, and executive management.

David Correia

Mechanical & Chemical Engineering Manager

Mr. Correia is a chemical design engineer with 40 years of professional experience developing new process equipment and mechanical designs that use chemical reactions to complete process steps for manufacturing. He is highly skilled in troubleshooting chemical and mechanical systems and bringing those solutions to market.

Technical and Business Advisory Board Members

Members of Brillouin Energy’s Advisory Board include:

Carl Page

Clean-Tech Advisor

Carl Page is currently President of the Anthropocene Institute. He is a highly sought after entrepreneur, an advisor to technology, internet marketing, and emerging clean-tech companies, as well as a prominent investor in both hi-tech and clean-tech ventures. A highly skilled computer scientist and clean technologist, Mr. Page was a co-founder of E-Groups, which later became Yahoo Groups.

Dr. Francis Tanzella

Chief Science Advisor

Director Emeritus and retired co-Program Manager of the LENR Research Program at SRI International. Dr. Tanzella operated, tested and verified all the scaling results of the Brillouin Energy LENR Boilers while at SRI. After originally earning his PhD in chemistry from University of California (UC) Berkeley, and studying Electrochemistry as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Tanzella worked as a chemist at E. I. DuPont, Inc. Dr. Tanzella helped develop the low energy nuclear reactions (LENR) electrochemical and calorimetry program at SRI, and has been instrumental in the advancement of the field since its inception in 1989. Dr. Tanzella provided independent evaluation of Brillouin Energy’s results during his last 6 years at SRI, and since his retirement in August 2018, has continued to do so as a Principal Scientist at his own Energy Research Center, LLC. During his career he has published over 75 extensive research papers in or related to the LENR field of research.

Adolfo O. Gutierrez

Technology Advisor

Dr. Adolfo O. Gutiérrez holds a PhD in Engineering Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, with a focus on radiation-hardened microelectronics, as well as master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Nuclear Engineering from RPI and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Universidad de Chile. He is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Southeastern Pacific Research Institute for Advanced Technologies, SEPARI, in Valparaíso, Chile, which conducts collaborative science and engineering research in Chile and internationally. Dr. Gutiérrez is also the founder and Chief Technology Officer of Bricks Research in New York, a role he has held since 2001, and previously founded and served as Managing Director of Novatempo in Rensselaer, New York.

General Lee Levy (USAF, ret.)

DOD Advisor

Major General Lee K. Levy II, Ed.D., NACD.DC, USAF (ret.) serves as Strategic Advisor to Brillouin Energy. He is a retired Air Force General officer with over 34 years of distinguished military service, and former Commanding General of the Air Force Sustainment Center, where he led a global enterprise of 43,000 personnel across 73 installations responsible for worldwide logistics, supply chain, sustainment, and maintenance of Air Force, U.S. military, and allied aircraft, space, and cyber systems. He brings deep expertise in global operations, logistics, advanced manufacturing, national security, and industrial scale-up. General Levy serves as an independent director on multiple corporate boards and is a nationally certified Corporate Director. He holds a Doctorate in Leadership and Organizational Change from Vanderbilt University, plus advanced degrees from Louisiana State University, Troy University, and the Naval War College.

Joe Teja

Lead Patent Counsel

Mr. Teja serves as Lead Patent Counsel to Brillouin Energy and is a Partner at Smith Baluch LLP. He brings 30 years of experience as an expert patent attorney, inventor, optics researcher, and electrical engineer, leading IP protection strategies for a wide variety of companies in electronics, photonics, electromechanical, computer-related, medtech, and clean-tech innovations. He holds a JD from Suffolk University Law School, an MSEE from MIT, and a BSEE from Rutgers University.