>Chava Energy

team members

Chava with its principal headquarters in Florida also has offices and lab facilities in the northern California town of Sebastopol and a lab in Spokane, WA. In addition, Chava Energy operates research and development teams located in the UK, Germany, Italy, and Australia. We are planning to further increase the size of the individual teams as well as the number of lab locations throughout 2010.

Due to the sensitivity of this work, we do not disclose the identity of some of our scientists and inventors without a signed Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). For anyone interested in details of our work, we are open to facilitate lab tours and demonstrations after the appropriate level of mutual due-diligence has been completed. Here are some of our team members:

• Hagen Ruff, Co-Founder and CEO
• Dr. Mark Snoswell, CTO
• James (Jim) Dunn, VP
• Lee Felsenstein, Electrical Engineering Consultant
• Andre Szykier, CIO (Mathematician / Technologist)
• Mark Goldes, Co-Founder, CMRO (Chief Market Research Officer)
• Pat Laska, Business Development/ Utility Relations
• John Lee, Engineer / Technology assessment
• Alan Cooney, Electrical Engineer
• Onan Cordova, Controller

Select Executive Team Bio’s:

Hagen Ruff, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer: Prior to starting Chava LLC in 2008, Mr. Ruff was an Executive at Sapient Corporation, which acquired his technology consulting firm 3 years earlier. Overall, Mr. Ruff possesses over 19 years of management consulting, IT consulting, entrepreneurial, Executive Leadership, and vast earlier experience with large Enterprise Software solutions. Clients include Nike, Sempra Energy, Polaroid, the German Railway, Philip Morris, the Hong Kong Railway KCRC, CPS Energy, and many others. After completing his BS/MS in Mechanical Engineering from Fachhochschule Wiesbaden in 1991 (German Diplom Ingenieur) , he started his career with Andersen Consulting (a.k.a. Accenture) in Europe and Asia then joined modis USA as a Vice President in 1996. He stayed in the US and has subsequently launched his own consulting firm – Business Information Solutions LLC (BIS) -, which was focused on Business Intelligence solutions for large-scale Enterprise Applications at Fortune 100 clients. Throughout his IT and management consulting career, Mr. Ruff has overseen strategic delivery solutions for enterprise applications and Business Intelligence. After his own firm BIS has grown to over 200 people and was acquired by Sapient in 2005, Mr. Ruff was responsible for the global SAP practice, which nearly tripled in revenue during his 3 year tenure. Mr. Ruff also served as a Board Member and Executive of the Energy Industry focused joint venture Soliance, which was formed between Sempra Energy, modis, and Cayenta.com. His previous focus on the Energy Services marketplace has created a strong passion and understanding for solutions around the pressing issues of the world’s increasing energy demand and the associated economic, geopolitical, and environmental problems associated with the world’s current energy systems.

Dr. Mark Snoswell, Chief Technology Officer: Dr. Mark Snoswell graduated from Adelaide University with an Honours degree in Biochemistry in late 70s. Mark has a diverse career since then including: PhD in Biotechnology/Biochemistry; Head of Biologicals Lab, Biochemistry Dept, University of Adelaide; Head of R&D Bresatec – developing improved growth hormone variants; Co-Founder and CTO of Torson Inc – a global sports biomechanics and edutainment company; Founder and Director of Ballistic Media – a global corporation that includes BallsiticPublishing.com and the CGSociety.org; Mark is also the President of the CGSociety. More recently Mark has been developing breakthrough concepts for how our universe works and new devices to generate clean and abundant power using solid state electromagnetic and hydrogen systems. Mark is also the discoverer of the L-Spin and S-Spin spinors and chief architect and co-developer of the SpinVisualization software.

James P. Dunn – Mr. Dunn is the President of Future Solar Systems LLC, a principal with Energy Technology Consultants, and past Director of the NASA NE Regional Technology Transfer Center. Mr. Dunn has over 30 years experience in a variety of high technology ventures from startups to Fortune 100 companies like IBM and Exxon. Mr. Dunn has a wealth of experience in the Alternative and Renewable Energy fields and was the Technical Advisor to the MIT 2007 Solar Decathlon Zero Energy Home, entered in the International DOE competition.

Jim has written numerous papers and presentations on various alternative energy topics like Fuel Cells, Hydrogen, Energy Storage, Solar Energy, and Hybrid Electric vehicles; and has spoken at over 50 international conferences and events, and is widely known in the renewable energy field.

Mr. Dunn holds a number of patents in the laptop, battery and energy storage fields, and recently received a US patent for a “Fuel Cell powered Electric Aircraft”, after developing the World’s First Fuel Cell powered piloted Electric Airplane, the ‘E-plane’.

Mr. Dunn has a B.S.E.E. from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), and is the Co-founder of the WPI Venture Forum, and has been a member of SAE, IEEE, the EAA, PRA, the Technology Transfer Society, and the Licensing Executives Society, LES.

Lee Felsenstein, Electrical Engineer and Magnetics Group R&D Director: Lee has been designing new electronic products and circuits for 41 years, starting before he completed his BSEE and MS degrees at U.C. Berkeley in 1972. He has worked for numerous companies and clients, including Ampex, Inc., NASA, Oki Electric Ltd., Ricoh, Britton-Lee, and Pemstar Pacific Consultants. He operated his own contract electronic R&D company for a total of 12 years and completed more than 50 projects for clients, including some original personal computer designs that have become standard. Lee was a co-founder of Osborne Computer Corporation, for whom he designed the first commercially successful portable computer in 1981, now residing in the Smithsonian Institution. He organized and ran the meetings of the legendary Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley, from which arose 23 companies, including Apple. He was the first researcher hired by Paul Allen’s Interval Research Corporation, where during its 8-year existence he designed research prototypes and chaired the Intellectual Property Committee. In 2003 he designed, built and traveled to Laos to install a village telecommunications system becoming known as “the pedal-powered Internet,” and for which Lee was honored that same year as a Laureate of the San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation. He holds 12 patents with more in process. He was the recipient of the Pioneer of the Electronic Frontier award in 1994 and the Editor’s Choice Award for Creative Excellence from Electronic Engineering Times in 2007; see:

Andre Szykier, Chief Information Officer Mathematician / Technologist: 25 years of managerial experience in advanced technologies. C level roles (CEO, CTO, COO) in several companies, three of which he founded and successfully sold, with one going public on NASDAQ and later acquired. He was in charge of business and cellular services at Pacific Telesis, researcher at Bell Labs and at Lawrence Livermore – Berkeley Labs on the Super Collider project. His disciplines are focused on enabling new technologies in diverse disciplines using his mathematical training to design and move to product novel, disruptive solutions in biotechnology, security, pattern recognition and information architectures. As advisor and board member to over a dozen companies he has developed a strong financial background for determining the best way that businesses can acquire capital, finance growth, determine the right price points and terms for financing and protect intellectual property on behalf of shareholders. Andre holds degrees in econometrics and applied mathematics.

Mark Goldes, Chief Market Research Officer: Mr. Goldes was the Founder of Magnetic Power Inc. and Co-founder of its subsidiary, Room Temperature Superconductors Inc. Assets of both firms are being acquired by Chava. His work to uncover practical alternatives to fossil and uranium fuels began when he founded the non-profit Aesop Institute in 1973. He then created SunWind Ltd., an affiliated renewable energy company. Prior to that he founded and ran The Aesop Company, an economic and financial consulting firm, and had been Chief of Housing and Economic Development for the city of Oakland, California. He was a Fellow in the Graduate Program in the History of Ideas at Brandeis University, where he earned a second Master’s degree. Previous to that he saw service as an officer in the USAF. He studied Electrical Engineering at California State Polytechnic University and the Polytechnic University of New York. He has addressed four annual Global Superconductivity Conferences, two National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Enterprise Forums, and the 2004 Arlington Institute Conference on Breakthrough Technologies for the World’s Biggest Problems. He was nominated for the 2006 World Technology Award in Energy.

Pat Laska Entrepreneur/ Business Development: Pat has over 25 years experience in business, program, and market development in the electric, gas, and renewable energy industries. He designed and coordinated dozens of large gas extension projects for Wisconsin Public Service, connecting thousands of new customers. As an expert in conservation, building science, project management, and communication, he also represented WPS regionally in many public affairs.
Mr. Laska was the field business consultant for 125 Central Boiler dealers, the largest manufacturer of outdoor biomass furnaces. As Development Manager for his biomass briquette fuel production company, he created and implemented a successful business and marketing strategy. His clients and customers include utility, manufacturing, research, funding and government agents.
He also served several years as a certified home inspector. He developed strengths in communicating technical issues, marketing, and contractor relations from his own small businesses, and through assisting so many others. Mr. Laska has counseled over 4,000 customers, businesses, and contractors as a business owner, field expert, or in a managing role. He’s assisting Chava in developing new energy applications and markets, especially in the utility and residential sectors.

Alan Cooney, Electrical Engineer: Alan Cooney graduated with a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering (BSEL) from California Polytechnic. His early experience began with building a Heathkit color television with his mother at age six, then receiving a ham radio license at 14, and an FCC Radiotelephone license at 17. Alan holds private pilot certificates from America and New Zealand, has done CNC machining, designed animatronics for movies like Free Willy, White Squall and Anaconda, and designed myriad award winning “gourmet” home theater products while VP of Engineering for Bob Carver’s Sunfire. More recently Alan has been an Introduction Leader for Landmark Education, and VP of Operations for silicon valley firm Semiconductor Tooling.

Onan Cordova, Controller: Conan has 20 years accounting and Controllership experience in various industries including retail, wholesale and import/export. He worked for several well known companies such as Samsung Electronics where he helped set up and was the Controller for their Miami operations focused on the Latin American markets. He also worked with our CEO at BIS as the Controller where he served through the acquisition by Sapient Corporation. Most recently he was the Controller at Avanti Products, a major manufacturer of compact refrigerators and wine coolers for the US market. He earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree at Florida International University and has a State of Florida CPA license.