William E. Ott, President and CEO
William E. (Bill) Ott is the President and CEO of ActaCell, Inc. which he co-founded in 2007 to commercialize next generation Li-Ion battery chemistries developed in Professor Ram Manthiram’s Lab at the University of Texas Austin material sciences program. Along with Dr. Manthiram and the University, ActaCell was formed specifically to focus on commercializing these breakthrough technologies in the emerging motive energy storage market.
Prior to ActaCell, Bill was an Entrepreneur in Residence with StarTECH Early Ventures based in both Austin and Dallas. STARTech Early Ventures was founded in 1997 as a business incubator to focus on developing technology-based start-up and entrepreneurial activity in North and Central Texas, specifically working with larger Venture Capital firms to streamline the process from idea to commercially successful company. Bill was involved in several early company formations including Mirage Networks and as CEO and founder of HyEnergy Systems.
Bill moved to Austin in 1997 to join Active Power as VP of Worldwide Field Operations. During his tenure at Active Power, he built the Sales, Service and Business Development organization prior to the company’s $1.8B IPO in August 2000. Active Power revolutionized the Flywheel Energy Storage market by creating a cost effective, integrated system that could effectively provide premium power with mechanical energy storage. Bill’s career includes other technology startups most notably Dallas based Convex Computer Corp (CNVX) that was later acquired by HP in 1994.
Bill obtained an MBA from the Trulaske School of Business at the University of Missouri at Columbia and holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri at Columbia.
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Dr. M Yazid Saïdi, Vice President of Research and Development
Dr. Yazid Saïdi has over 14 years of industrial experience in energy storage systems. As VP of R&D, he is managing the development and scale up of Actacell’s next energy devices founded on its proprietary manganese based technology from its fundamental to the pack level stages and targeted for the automotive sector.
Prior to ActaCell, as Director of Materials, Yazid managed the battery research and development group at Valence Technology. His responsibilities included the research and development of novel and higher energy materials and electrochemical systems. He was also involved in the scale up efforts and implementation of the company’s technologies in both small and large format applications. Yazid has played an integral role as the co-inventor of the Company’s phosphate based materials portfolio and its proprietary Lithium-ion technology.
Prior to Valence, Dr. Saïdi directed the research efforts of the world’s smallest power source for RFIDs at Micron Communications. He has authored over 50 peer reviewed technical papers and holds more than 80 patents. He is also a technical reviewer for several international journals.
Yazid Saïdi holds a PhD in electrochemistry from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and an MS in Physics.
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Marc Kohler, Director of Product Management
At ActaCell, Marc directs our strategic approach into the automotive and other markets.
He has focused his career on vehicular electrification, holding various engineering and administrative positions for electric vehicle drive train manufacturers such as DAX Industries and VSComposites. He worked as a technical solutions engineer for AeroVironment in their fast charger division.
As a business development manager at Valence Technology, Marc promoted lithium ion batteries for use in automotive hybrid and electric vehicle programs. His career started at the Center for Electrochemical Systems and Hydrogen Research (CESHR), part of the Texas A&M University system where he was program manager for the South Central Electric Vehicle Consortium. He is familiar with various battery systems including lead acid, ni-cad, zinc-bromine, and lithium ion.
Marc holds a MS in Engineering Management from the University of Texas at Austin and a BS in Electrical Engineering Technology from Texas A&M University.
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