Sun Synchrony Team
Led by James Hoffman, President and CEO, the talented team behind Sun Synchrony includes individuals with expertise in diverse engineering disciplines, intellectual property development, business, and marketing.
James Hoffman, President and CTO, is an inventor and entrepreneur with a background in software engineering, scientific visualization, and materials science. In the 1980s, Hoffman's computational modeling was instrumental in proving one of the most significant recent results in differential geometry, overturning the 100-year-old conjecture that the plane, the catenoid, and the helicoid comprised the only finite minimal embedded surfaces. During his tenures at GANG at UMass Amherst, and MSRI at the UC Berkeley, Hoffman worked as a DOE-funded research scientist, developing visualization software, and working with geometers to model and visualize newly discovered mathematical objects, such as minimal surfaces, and documenting the research as part of the Scientific Graphics Project. Hoffman's visualizations were widely published, including in Science, Science News, Science Digest, and Scientific Amercian, and he has co-authored articles in pure mathematics, and applied mathematics - including the use of geometry modeling in engineering nano-structured materials.
David Jimenez, COO, holds a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA in Finance. He has over 30 years of industry experience including positions with Mobil Oil, NV Philips, and General Signal, and, most recently, as President of Wright Williams & Kelly, Inc. (WWK), the largest privately held operational cost management software and consulting services company. He has assisted numerous PV companies in optimizing manufacturing operations by providing insight into the most likely paths to reach and exceed grid parity, including Solarex (now BP Solar), Pacific Solar (acquired by CSG Solar), Plextronics, and Alta Devices. David was responsible for the design of the semiconductor industry's de facto standard in cost of ownership (COO) modeling, TWO COOL and holds a patent for his work on PRO COOL. His large scale program management experience includes SEMATECH's COO commercialization and semiconductor equipment database, the United States Display Consortium (USDC) factory simulation program, Sandia National Labs factory cost model commercialization, and Ultratech Stepper's scanner replacement development. He received the Texas Instruments Supplier Excellence Award for his contributions to their $500M manufacturing cost reduction goal and has authored numerous papers on productivity and cost management, including articles on PV cell and module manufacturing.
Victoria Ashley is a co-founder of Sun Synchrony and serves as Research Officer. She received her Bachelor of Architecture degree from Syracuse University and Masters in Psychology Research from San Francisco State University. Ashley's architecture experience includes high-rise commercial building design, and her psychology experience includes publications of experiments to measure attention and emotional responses. At Sun Synchrony, Ashley has applied her diverse talents toward bringing the highest efficiency solar panel to the residential rooftop.
John Haggis, Vice President of Engineering, has over 20 years of experience prototyping and producing highly-compact cost-reduced electronic devices for consumer and industrial use. John holds both a BS in Computer Science and a BS in Biomedical Science from the University of Michigan. His specialties include automation and product prototyping, consumer and industrial product design, electronic design, printed circuit board layout, embedded micro-controller firmware and software applications. John has been an Engineering VP at Aerielle, Inc., a wireless audio technology company, and Principal Software Engineer at findtheDOT Inc., where he developed an image processing method for an innovative medical technology that would replace bar codes in medication verification. While at UniLinear Inc., John helped develop the Parachute PCMCIA adapter for the Palm Pilot. John also has experience with startup leadership and the management of technical teams.
Julio Magalhaes, Chief Scientist, Dr. Julio Magalhaes, Chief Scientist, was a key scientist on the Mars Pathfinder space mission & other NASA missions. As a Climate Scientist with the Space Science Division of NASA, Julio modeled the atmospheric physics and climates of Mars, Jupiter, and Venus. Current / recent affiliations: Bay Area Air Quality Management District Hearing Board, San Jose State University Energy Professor / Sierra Club Global Warming Program Coordinator. Deep modeling & data analysis expertise; strong project management, communication, & fundraising experience. Julio is responsible for modeling the efficiency and energy production of Sun Synchrony's products.
John Weld, Senior Reliability Engineer, has over 25 years of experience in the research, development, design, and analysis of mechanical technologies including electromechanical systems, plastics processing and design, and electronics packaging. John has held principal management positions at IBM and the research arm of Bell Labs at AT&T and Lucent Technologies. He has founded a successful mechanical design solutions firm providing engineering design and product development to a wide array of markets including consumer products, medical devices, automotive, telecommunications, and electronics. John is inventor on 33 US patents with others pending in the areas of telecommunications, microelectronics, and power electronics. John holds a BS degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan and M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from Cornell University.
Henry Hutton, Vice President of Product Engineering, Henry Hutton has more than 25 years of experience in engineering, semiconductor product development and project management at SanDisk, Nortel Networks and Litton Systems. With skills bridging marketing, engineering and operations, his product development experience spans power systems, telecommunications, voice mail and secure NAND Flash storage systems. Hutton joined Sun Synchrony in 2012 and has been responsible for outreaching and interfacing with development partners and bringing important experience to product development efforts. Hutton has also been an IEEE P2200 working group contributor.
Mark Perlin, Vice President of Development, is co-founder of CrossPoint Financial, a cutting-edge brokerage utilizing collateralized debt and underwriting protocol to maximize project returns, and SolarSipper, a hub to connect and finance residential solar consumers in geographic clusters using economies of scale and collective bargaining practices. Before transitioning to a career in renewable energy, Perlin was a top business development executive with Cox Media in San Francisco. Perlin received his Bachelors of Arts in Law, Cum Laude from The University of California, Santa Barbara.