SKILLICORN TECHNOLOGIES - Key Persons
Turnarounds: Harness entrepreneurial spirit and innovation, then leverage it with strong management processes and leadership to turn corporate vision into actionable strategies, tactics, processes and organizations.
After completing his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Oslo, Rolf took a research position with the Norwegian Fisheries Research Council examining pathways of chemical communication in fish. This began what was to become a long and very fruitful career in the fisheries industry.
Rolf's introduction to aquaculture came from a short assignment with British Petroleum's eel and salmon fisheries. Moving up the ladder, he then stepped through a series of technical (production) and managerial positions with major salmon, trout, sea bass and lobster farming companies: Stjørdal, Trondheim and TiMar. Today, Rolf is the Managing Director of Calcus AS and BioBase AS, two companies that are on the cutting edge of global innovation in aquaculture - both marine and freshwater.
Rolf Selset has fish and aquaculture related market, consulting and business interests that range from North and South Europe to Africa and South America. As with The Olmito Project in Texas and Skillicorn Technologies LLC, his companies have a strong interest in developing and promoting Lemnaceae species as both treatment agent and high protein feed for fish species. He will be promoting The Skillicorn System in Africa, East Asia and Europe. He will assist the Company with global sales and marketing of its aquaculture products while also helping to develop optimal, branded feeds containing Lemnaceae and aquatic worms. Rolf will also advise the Company on all matters involving aquaculture and continue to serve on the Advisory Team.
After receiving his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Mysore and completing a brief research assignment with the Central Food Technological Research Institute in Mysore, India, Dr. Subiah took a post-doctoral position with NC. State University, where he was responsible for developing bioassay guided discovery of new herbicide lead compounds from microbial fermentation and plant derived natural products. This was the inception of what has become, for Ven, a trip to the very top of the plant extract business.
Following completion of Research Scientist and Principal Investigator positions with OSI Pharmaceuticals and Nabisco, Dr. Subiah accepted associate faculty positions with East Carolina University and NC State University and started Phytomyco, his own personal R&D vehicle. Today, Venn also manages PhytoPharmacon, and BioProcess, LLC from his offices in Garner, NC. He also controls a production vehicle, PhytoMyco Res. Pvt. Ltd. in Mysore, India - a natural product processing and product development company.
Dr. Subiah holds 25 patents and patents pending. He owns the largest plant extract collection and attendant database in the world - over 25,000 discrete samples. He has published over 80 publications in peer-reviewed journals and presented more than 60 presentations at national and international scientific meetings. He has become an acknowledge world leader in both the science and business of plant and natural extracts. He will assist the Company with selection, production, and processing - as well as global sales and marketing of its plant extract products. Ven will, indeed, advise the Company on all matters involving plant extracts. He will also continue to serve on the Advisory Team.
Charles Taylor, holder of a PhD in Management from Vanderbilt University and a PhD in Agricultural Economics (Dissertation Topic: "Kenaf") from the University of Missouri is widely acknowledged throughout the world to be the father of modern kenaf. Today, Dr. Taylor serves as principal and chief executive officer of a kenaf complex and an attendant cluster of kenaf and fiber related companies based in "The Valley" in South Texas - chief among these being Kenaf Industries of South Texas.
Dr. Taylor has worked tirelessly during the past 30 years to develop the basis for a vibrant kenaf industry in the United States. He has pioneered design and manufacture of kenaf farming, harvesting, preprocessing, processing (decortication and reduction), handling and post-handling equipment and systems - and continues to do so. He has developed, helped develop and promoted numerous kenaf fiber applications, ranging from such extremes as soil and drilling mud additives to extruded kenaf-reinforced plastics and biofuels (butanol). He is a recognized pioneer in the fields of kenaf seed multiplication and production of kenaf-based paper. Charles Taylor is "Mr. Kenaf." He has no true peers.
Charles Taylor is also an acknowledged leader in the fields of rural and smallholder development - notably in Latin America and Southern Africa. He will advise the Company on all matters related to kenaf-based application, while also assisting with issues relating to smallholder engagement and smallholder development. Dr. Taylor will continue to serve on the Company's Advisory Team.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer / Liberation Capital
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Managing Partner
- Faculty Member
Mani has more than 40 years' experience in multi-national bank and governments in international business, finance, energy consultancy, and environmental management and has raised over US$ 1 billion of funding for diverse energy and infrastructure related companies.
Mani is a former Faculty Member, Staff College & Agribusiness Economist with Indian Overseas Bank, Madras, India and former Investment Director at Frontier Power Ltd, London
Mani has more than 40 years' experience in multinational banking as well as private and public sector planning and management. His experience covers the full gamut of contemporary public sector services and private sector industrial development and management: climate change and the environment, corporate finance, industrial planning and development and international banking. Mani has raised over $1 billion in financing for diverse energy and infrastructure development corporations. He has advised a plethora of companies and agencies, both large and small, across the full spectrum of energy and the environment. He stands today, at the very cutting edge of contemporary renewable energy system design, financing and implementation - with a personal focus on having a significant impact on climate change at a global level.
Job Titles:
- Business Development Manager
- Member of the Institute of Agricultural Engineers
From a farming background in County Kerry, Ireland. Mike is a qualified Agricultural Scientist from University College
Dublin with a Diploma in Management Practice from The
Irish Management Institute as part of The Kerry Group
graduate programme.
He has gained significant experience in Kerry Foods
(poultry, red meat), SME (dairy), consultancy (Rural
Environmental Protection Scheme).
In Education, he co-developed a new Agricultural Science
Foundation Pathway Programme with Bell English with
progression agreements with Agricultural Universities
around the world, this also includes guest speakers from
the Agritech Industry and work ing closely with a network
of educational agents to promote The Circular Economy
and recruit ing students into this new sector.
Mike also has close contacts in farmer organisations and
NGO's.
Dividing his time between Italy and Ireland and hav ing an
understanding of the Italian language and culture and
given that his family background is from the edge of
Europe, he is a firm believer in backing new technologies
and The Circular Economy to su stain job growth and to
enhance a very wide and practical vision of sustainability.
Mike is also a member of The Institute of Agricultural Engineers in The UK and The Irish Agricultural Science Teachers' Association.
With a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Texas, San Antonio, a further double-major bachelor's degree in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Texas in Austin and a master's degree in chemistry, also from UT, Austin, James von Krosigk holds valid claim to "a broad and very complete education."
In his 30 year career with the oil and gas industry in Texas, Jim has worked for many companies as both employee and consultant - in the laboratory, in sales/marketing and also in management - most recently as President of his own company: Custom Resources, Inc., based in Austin, Texas.
Mr. von Krosigk holds twenty patents and patents pending with the USPTO. These fall, generally, into 4 fields: micro-emulsions, fungicides and fungal controls, drilling fluids, and production of dissolved oxygen enhancement in water-based fluids. He has also worked extensively in kenaf-based systems for remediation of petroleum residuals and production of advanced "next generation" biofuels.
James von Krosigk will advise project on use of kenaf for oil remediation, use of kenaf and arundo donax in production of next generation biofuels and, more importantly, treatment of water to reduce surface tension. The latter application, in particular, holds significant promise for lowering oxygenation costs and enhancing production efficiencies of Lemnaceae, fish and aquatic worms. Jim will work part-time in this capacity and continue to serve on the Company's Advisory Team.
Upon receiving his bachelor's degree from East Carolina University, Stan began his subsequent career in wastewater treatment managing a treatment plant water quality laboratory. Moving quickly into plant operations, he was soon appointed superintendent of that same facility. Over the next decade he studied for, and attained, what is a very rare qualification among wastewater treatment plant operators - the very highest in his profession - grade-4 operator. He also moved professionally to a position as regional director for Suez, the French multinational company, ranking only behind Veolia as the second largest water and wastewater services company in the world. He received several state awards in recognition of his expertise.
Stanford Harmon will work as a consultant for SKILLICORN Technologies during design, construction and commissioning stages. He will hold architectural responsibility for issues of design, "placement" and aesthetics. He will have supervisory authority on matters relating to wastewater system operations. Finally, Stan will advise on matters relating to aquaculture and will continue to serve on the Company's Advisory Team.
Job Titles:
- CO - Founder
- Managing Partner
- Founding Member of Agriquatics & Skillicorn
Paul Skillicorn, founding member of Agriquatics & Skillicorn Technologies, currently heads the company and its parent, Biotechnology Research and Development. Paul has developed replicable farming protocols, employing it in treatment of wastewater and optimizing its use as a feed for poultry, swine, cattle, fish and prawns. Paul is the inventor / developer / owner of the proprietary SKILLICORN water technologies which uses a 100% natural process.
In Bangladesh, he pioneered the Shobuj Shona (literally "Green Gold") by joint venturing with rural villagers in both agriculture and small industry. Paul has also co-authored a book on "Duckweed Aquaculture", a prolific contributor of articles based on pilots internationally and is an acknowledged international expert in the duckweed water treatment systems.
An economist and environmental engineer, Paul continues to publish selective research (number over 25 publications in books and peer reviewed journal) lecture widely in universities across the US, and present to scientific meetings. An inveterate inventor, Paul holds eight USPTO patents and patents pending - ranging from The Skillicorn System, and automated systems for cultivating Lemnaceae species to methods by which to remove phosphorus, in a useable form, from waste streams.
Paul is a leading expert in the field of international development. Having worked with and for the full spectrum of the world's leading multinational, bilateral and not-for-profit aid and development agencies and organizations, the breadth of his experience is significant: - from The World Bank, UNICEF, FAO, WHO and UNDP to USAID, CARE and OXFAM. He's worked as a university faculty member specializing in both theoretical and applied science domains. He's formed, managed and grown several NGOs and for profit companies specializing in community and agricultural development, food production, water and wastewater treatment and management and new crops and new materials development and commercialization. Personally, Paul believes his greatest achievement has been to pull together all this expertise to develop and implement at scale, a cutting edge model for rural development that employs the largely urban principle of functional interdependence to realize massive increases in the welfare of rural households - income gains of 10x and greater in a single project cycle.
Ramiro Priale - Chief Commercial Officer
Job Titles:
- Commercial Director
- Partner
Ramiro has an European Diploma in Advanced Studies and a Ph.D., in Economics and Business Management from University of Seville, Spain. Ramiro is a university professor, author and international management consultant and is fluent in Spanish, English and Italian.
Over 20 years of experience in Information Systems design, applied informatics and project management. Ramiro has been involved in the management of international information systems projects at UNOP, IICA-OEA, and Pan-American Health Organization - PAHO/WHO, Washington DC since 1993. Nominee candidate to the Parvin Program Fellowship of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton (1988). Ramiro was the senior management executive and Technical Director of the Health Information System and Management Information System -HIS/MIS - a 4.7 million dollars USAID project granted to Perú, to build its national statistics health information system (1992). Lecturer at many private and public institutions: ESAN, IPAE, Ebert Foundation, and Pan-American Health Organization - PAHO/WHO, in México, Ecuador, Perú and Washington D.C. USA. Author of PAGUM banking system in 2001 - with intellectual property registered at INDECOPI (Peruvian National Patent Office).
Job Titles:
- International Director of Biwater
- Water Sector Advisor
A Professional Civil Engineer with over forty years' experience, mainly in International Markets working with leading contractors. In addition to Operational Management skills, Bob has worked extensively in Strategic Development and Business Procurement. This has covered Project winning through to Company acquisitions. Bob has held executive positions on a number of Boards for over 20 years with full P&L responsibility.
As International Director of Biwater, Bob was in charge of the design and construction of major water and wastewater schemes in over thirty-five countries.
Job Titles:
- Scientific Advisor
- Professor
- Scientific Officer
Professor Simon J Davies has a BSc degree in Biochemistry, University of Wales, 1978, and a Masters in Animal Nutrition from Newcastle University, 1979 and a PhD from the Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, Scotland in 1984. He spent two years at the University of Idaho, USA undertaking his postdoctoral fellowship in fish nutrition 1984-86. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of International Aquafeed trade magazine since 2009.
Professor Davies has over 36 years' experience in academia and extensive teaching and research attainment. His aquaculture specialisation is in fish nutrition and feed technology that has enabled over 34 full time PhD student completions and supervision of generations of undergraduate and Masters Students in aquaculture and related biosciences. He has developed and led masters' programmes in aquaculture at Plymouth University for over 28 years and served 6 years at Harper Adams University, UK and is currently an adjunct Professor at the National University of Ireland, Galway and Emeritus Professor at Harper Adams. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Nottingham and visiting Professor at Bristol University Veterinary School. He has authored over 200 scientific papers, book chapters and commercial reports and was recently appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and a Fellow of the Institution of Aquaculture, Singapore. He has advised many government agencies and grant awarding bodies, and acted as a consultant to numerous commercial companies in biotechnology and the feed industry. Professor Davies has made extensive visits overseas in each continent speaking at prestigious international events and scientific meetings.