Anthony Freda, Jr.
Marshall C. Phelps, Jr.
Randall H. Riley
John Sheehan
Anthony Freda, Jr.
Anthony Freda, Jr. has spent several decades in business development, engineering, and senior management roles. His career progressed from design engineering to management in the 1960s at Cutler Hammer, an electrical systems and engineering firm now owned by Eaton Corporation, a Fortune 500 electrical systems and engineering firm. While at Cutler Hammer, Mr. Freda ran the international systems business unit and was responsible for all aspects of the Air Traffic Control unit in 20 countries. He followed this with several corporate marketing positions at Telephonics Corp., a division of Griffon Corporation.
In the 1990s, Mr. Freda held several corporate management positions at Telephonics including staff VP for strategic alliances. At the time of his retirement in 1998 he was the General Manager of the Electronic systems division. Mr. Freda received BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from Villanova University and Polytechnic University of NY in the 1960s. He did his graduate work in business under a Beloit College program.
Marshall C. Phelps, Jr.
Marshall C. Phelps, Jr. is currently Corporate Vice President for IP Policy and Strategy for Microsoft. In this position, Mr. Phelps is responsible for establishing global policy and strategy for Microsoft's intellectual property, and interfacing with governments and technology companies about intellectual property issues. During his tenure at Microsoft he has also overseen management of the company's trademark, copyright, patent, trade secret and related divisions. Prior to Microsoft, Mr. Phelps spent 28 years at IBM where he served as vice president for intellectual property and licensing. At IBM, Phelps oversaw the company's patent licensing program and intellectual property portfolio development amongst other things.
In between IBM and Microsoft, Mr. Phelps spent two years as chairman and chief executive officer of Spencer Trask Intellectual Capital Company LLC, which specialized in spin-offs from major corporations such as Motorola Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp. and IBM. Phelps holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Muskingum College, a Master of Science degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a doctorate from Cornell Law School. He is an Executive-in-Residence at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, and also serves on the Board of Visitors. He has also recently been asked to advise Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on IP matters and was elected to the initial class of the Intellectual Property Hall of Fame, in 2006.
Randall H. Riley
Mr. Riley has many years of state, national and international expertise and political experience to the advisory board. Riley has served his home state of Texas in leadership roles in several state agencies, including the Texas Department of Economic Development, Texas Department of Insurance, Texas General Services Commission and Texas Building and Procurement Commission.
John Sheehan
John Sheehan coordinates research on biofuels at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. In addition, he consults to clients in biotechnology and renewable energy under the auspices of Sheehan Boyce, LLC. His work focuses on the multifaceted question of biofuels and their sustainability as a future energy source. He is studying the direct and indirect consequences of biofuels production on land use around the world, along with other social, political and environmental aspects of biofuels.
Sheehan has spent nearly two decades working on biofuels. For 17 years, he worked as a project manager and analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. His published works include groundbreaking studies on the impacts of biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol technology. While at NREL, Sheehan also led research on the production and conversion of algae to biofuels, a technology now receiving a great deal of attention. In 2007 and 2008, Sheehan was the vice president of strategic planning and sustainable development at LiveFuels, Inc., an algae startup company in Menlo Park, Calif. Prior to NREL, Sheehan worked as a biochemical engineer at Merck Pharmaceutical, W.R. Grace & Co, and Radian Corporation.
