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Proteus has assembled a unique and powerful team which brings together deep environmental technology and marketplace expertise, rare end-to-end new venture incubation and technology commercialization know-how, first-hand alternative energy investment management experience and an insider network of key relationships across universities, government agencies and major corporate players in the energy and environment space.
Managing Partners and Directors
Tony Michaels was the founder and Director of the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California from 1996-2008 with combined research and operational budgets of over $15M per year and over 100 faculty, staff and students. He has 27 years of experience in marine and environmental research including research on the global carbon cycle and the role of the oceans in absorbing carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. He co-created and managed a program on the value of climate forecasts in the management of hurricane-related risks by the international reinsurance industry. He was the founding President of the Council of Environmental Deans and Directors, a professional organization for leaders of academic environmental programs that now involves over 140 universities and colleges. He attended the University of California, San Diego (1976-1979), the University of Arizona (B.S. 1982, M.S. 1983) and the University of California, Santa Cruz (Ph.D. in Biology, 1988). He worked at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Bermuda Biological Station for Research before coming to USC in 1996. Link to CV.
Jim Rhodes has over 25 years working in the financial service industry. In 2005, Jim co-founded a trust company called San Pasqual Trust, which was launched in 2007. Jim served as the first CEO and continues to hold a significant equity position in the firm. From 1984 to 2005, he was with Manulife Financial (John Hancock), the last four years as a Senior Vice President in charge of distribution in the US Insurance Division. Prior to that, he ran the West Coast pension operation. In 2007, he co-founded Proteus Environmental Technologies with Tony Michaels. He then left the trust company to spend his full energy on Proteus. Jim sits on the board of the Huntington Medical Research Institute and the Braille Institute. Jim received an A.B. in Biology from Occidental College and has research experience in clinical immunology at the University of Southern California.
Mark Bernstein is an expert in energy and environmental markets technologies and policy. He is currently Managing Director, of the University of Southern California’s Energy Institute where he facilitates research activities and interfaces with corporate and government partners. Previously he was Senior Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation and worked on variety of activities in energy and environmental issues for the US Department of Energy, the National Intelligence Council, major foundations and companies. Prior to RAND Mark was Senior Energy Policy Analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Clinton Administration working on climate change technology strategies and alternative energy programs. Mark was also Principal Analyst for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania where he ran the Center on Energy Management and Environmental Policy and worked in the Advanced Engineering Group of United Engineers and Constructors. Mark has been a private consultant to companies, governments and non-profit organizations. Mark has a Ph.D. in Energy Management and Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, a M.S. in Mathematics from Ohio State University and a B.A. in Mathematics from the State University of N.Y. at Albany. Key Team Members and Contractors
Michael Lindsay has worked in and around the new venture space throughout the entirety of his career. Michael was most recently at the world-renowned X PRIZE Foundation where he was in charge of incubating all of the foundation’s multi-million dollar prizes in health, medicine, energy, education and venture philanthropy as well as building their education outreach programs as their Executive Director of Education and Vice President of Prize and Program Development. He started in corporate banking, helping large multinationals set up their operations in Tokyo, and has since started several pioneering technology-centric ventures as an entrepreneur and, within larger companies like the Los Angeles Times, as an intrapreneur. Michael has done a great deal of corporate advisory work in the new venture category with clients ranging from first-time entrepreneurs to a Fortune 500 CEO, most recently as the Senior Managing Director of Workshop Ventures in that capacity. He has written a plethora of business, marketing and strategic plans to meet a broad array of objectives ranging from seed and bridge financing to comprehensive corporate realignment and has developed, launched and managed dozens of new products from the idea stage into ongoing operations. He has a BA from Duke University and an MBA from the Wharton School.
Don has worked in financial services for over 25 years. Most recently at GE Capital he served as Vice President, Vendor Programs for GE Technology Finance. He led the strategic planning, budgeting processes and sales operations for the business units responsible for bringing lease and loan structures to the marketplace for several leading information technology providers such as Apple, Sun and Unisys. Don has arranged and overseen financing for more than $1.5 billion worth of commercial leases and collateralized loans for corporations and governmental entities throughout the United States. MBA in finance and international business, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, B.A. in political science, Occidental College.
Mr. Stark is an accomplished expert in sustainable development and the next generation of green housing developments. Until 2009, he was managing director of Urban Private Equity Funds for Phoenix Realty Group’s Western Region, where he targeted investments in urban residential and commercial properties. PRG invests more than $700 million in institutional capital to create market-rate and tax-credit affordable housing as well as commercial development throughout the United States. Prior to joining PRG, Mr. Stark was director of development for The Lee Group, Inc., a leading urban residential development company where he was involved in the development of over $300 million of urban housing for first-time homebuyers in Southern California. He serves on the State of California’s principal Affordable Housing Committee, the Department of Housing and Community Development’s (HCD) Local Assistance Loan and Grant Committee and co-chairs the City of Los Angeles Building Industry Association Government Affairs committee. He is project developer for the environmental organization TreePeople, overseeing the group’s Platinum-level LEED certified campus redevelopment in Los Angeles, and he is a member of the Leadership Council at the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. Also, Mr. Stark serves on the Board of Advisors of LivingHomes, a leading builder and designer of sustainable, modern prefab homes and commercial structures. B.A. from University of California, Santa Cruz and masters degree from the University of Southern California in Urban Planning and Real Estate Development.
Dr. Spuck is the Principal of the William Spuck Consulting Group, a firm offering system engineering and technical management services to government and industry. In 2000 he left the Jet Propulsion Laboratory after a 40 year career, during which he managed the development of several multi-disciplinary programs and hundreds of technical projects, including projects to mature and commercialize space technology. He attended Stanford University (B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering) and the University of Southern California (Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering).
Mr. Ward is Of Counsel at Christie, Parker and Hale and has over 40 years of experience in patent law. In his practice he has an emphasis in intellectual property litigation, counseling, prosecution and licensing in many fields including aerospace, computers and networking, defense and security technology, electrical engineering, electronics, mechanical engineering, medical devices and telecommunications. He was admitted to the bar in California in 1965. He is registered to practice before U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. From 1993 to 1995, Mr. Ward was Special Master U.S. District Court, Central District of California. From 1991 to 1993, he was Lawyer Representative from Central District of California, Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference. Mr. Ward graduated from St. Louis University with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1958 and from the University of California with a Juris Doctor degree in 1964. He has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Pasadena since 1996 and is also a member of the Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Association and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Founder of Scientific Hatcheries – a leading high-tech fish hatchery that produced and sold 20,000,000 fish a year primarily to the research and ornamental fish markets. Among the many innovations created by Dallas are the invention of fine media fluidized bed biofilters for both waste treatment and aquaculture; the application of packed column re-aeration in aquaculture; the use of pure oxygen systems with feedback control in aquaculture; the design, development and use of automated feeding systems; and the use of computer automation for feeding, monitoring and control functions. Ph.D. and M.S. in Applied Science from University of California at Davis, B.S. in Engineering from University of California at Los Angeles.
Mr. Zuback is the President and Founder of Global Water Advisors, Inc., a firm that specializes in providing support to global water managers, solution providers, and investors regarding the performance, development, and commercialization of advanced water technology products and systems. Mr. Zubackís thirty-five years experience in the water industry spans the spectrum of municipal, industrial, commercial, and residential water and wastewater treatment markets around the world. He retired at the end of 2008 from Siemens Water Technologies Corp. where he served as Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President, and a member of the Executive Council management team. Before that, he was in a variety of leadership roles at USFilter from 1994 to 2004 and at Infilco Degremont and Dow Chemical. He is a serial inventor of many water technology improvements and a passionate supporter of continuous global water technology innovation. B.S. Purdue University in Chemical Engineering and licensed General Engineering Contractor in the State of California for 20 years. Science and Technology Advisory Board Acting Director of the Marine Science Institute and Professor of Biology (Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is an expert in algal physiology and ecology, particularly in diatoms. A major focus of Brzezinski's research is to assess the role of silicon as a limiting resource for diatom growth in the sea and the role of diatoms in controlling the silica cycle. He is the developer of numerous advanced analytical approaches to the study of diatoms and is leading a research effort to develop next generation open bioreactors. His research interests include phytoplankton ecology and physiology, phytoplankton cell cycles and elemental cycling in surface ocean. Ph.D. Biological Oceanography, Oregon State University and B.S. Biology/Marine Science, Southampton College- Long Island University. Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Southern California. Marine and freshwater microbial ecology, with emphasis on the trophic relationships between protists (microalgae and protozoa) and other planktonic and benthic microorganisms. Recent research programs have focused on the distribution, feeding ecology, respiration and nutrient regeneration of bacterivorous and herbivorous protozoa, the ecology of harmful algae, the physiology of Antarctic protists, feeding and growth of phagotrophic (mixotrophic) microalgae, and the development of molecular biological approaches for studying the ecology of free-living microorganisms. Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and past President of the International Society of Protistology. Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, B.S. and M.S. in Oceanography, University of Rhode Island. Paxson H. Offield Professor of Fisheries Ecology in the Depatment of Biologcal Sciences at the University of Southern California. Formerly he had a nearly 30-year career at UC Davis. Hedgecock has published over 110 scholarly articles on the population, quantitative, evolutionary and conservation genetics of marine fish and shellfish, primarily Pacific oysters, white seabass and Pacific salmon. He was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Ken Chew Endowed Visiting Professorship in Aquaculture at the University of Washington in 2007. Hedgecock was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1986, and is currently a member of several other scientific societies, including the American Genetics Association, the Genetics Society of America, the National Shellfisheries Association, and the Society for the Study of Evolution. He serves on the editorial boards of Aquaculture and the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. B.S. in Biology from St. Mary's College, California, in 1970, and a Ph.D. in Genetics, from the University of California, Davis, in 1974. Professor of Oceanography at the University of Hawaii. Dr. Karl is a leader in the study of microbial ecology and ocean biogeochemistry. Karl has focused his research on the ecological role of microorganisms in the sea, ranging from the sunlit surface waters to the deep abyss and the tropics to Anarctica, and has enjoyed successful and groundbreaking research discoveries along the way. He was the co-leader of the Hawaii Ocean Time-Series, one of the longest running and most successful biogeochemistry time-series studies ever conducted. He is a Moore Fellow and one of the leaders in the application of novel molecular approaches to understanding microbial biodiversity and ecosystem function. Karl has received numerous honors including membership in the National Academy of Science (2006), Fellow of the American Association of Microbiology (2006), a White House Presidential Young Investigator Award (1984), and the G.E. Hutchinson (1998), A.G. Huntsman (2001) and H.B. Bigelow (2004) medals for his scientific contributions. He received a bachelor’s degree in biology from the State University College at Buffalo, New York, in 1971, a master’s degree in biological oceanography from Florida State University in 1974, and a doctorate in oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, in 1978. Director of the Microbial and Environmental Genomics Research Group at the J. Craig Venter Institute, San Diego and Wrigley Professor of Geobiology at the University of Southern California. Nealson pioneered the field of modern geobiology – an area of science that tackles the still largely unexplored domain where the processes and chemistry of life intersect with the planet's mineral and metal chemistry. Nealson discovered quorum sensing and, as one of the first to recognize the importance of microorganisms in catalyzing redox reactions in the environment, he has led the development of tools to study these organisms. Nealson's techniques, used to study microbial populations through genetic identification, are now considered standard in analyzing microbes found in biofilms. He is the principle investigator of many large research grants and operates active research labs at both the University of Southern California and the J. Craig Venter Institute. Ph.D. in Microbiology, University of Chicago, B.S. Biochemistry, University of Chicago.
Executive Director for Programs at the W.M. Keck Foundation in Los Angeles. Formerly Vice President for Research at Brandeis University and before that the Program Director for Science and Engineering and the Liberal Arts at the Keck Foundation. Before joining the Keck Foundation Dr. Pellegrini spent 20 years on the faculty of the University of Southern California as Professor of Biology. During that time, she served as department chair for five years, and as Dean of Research in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. She was a fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the recipient of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher Scholar Award. Dr. Pellegrini received her A.B. in Chemistry from Connecticut College, and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech. Dr. Pellegrini currently serves on the Boards of the Santa Catalina Island Conservancy and the USC-Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. Director of Polymorphic Robotics Laboratory, the Associate Director of the Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems, both at the the Information Science Institute, and a Research Associate Professor in Computer Science at the University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. under Nobel Laureate Professor Herbert A. Simon from Carnegie Mellon University in 1989. Dr. Shen’s current research interests include self-reconfigurable and metamorphic systems, autonomous robots, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Life Science. He has over 100 publications in these areas. He is the recipient of a Silver-Medal Award in 1996 AAAI Robotics Competition, a World Championship Award in 1997 Middle-sized RoboCup Competition, a Meritorious Service Award at ISI in 1997, and a Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award at USC in 2003. He is the author of "Autonomous Learning from Environment" (W.H.Freeman), a book on how machines learn from their environment based on "surprises". He is the inventor of SuperBot, a co-inventor of CONRO, and the inventor of hormone-inspired distributed and decentralized control for self-reconfigurable systems (US Patent #006636781). B.S. Jiao-Tong University, Beijing (1982) graduate study at Institute of Automation, Academy of Sciences, China, M.S and Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University, (1986, 1989). Director of the Institute for Computational Earth System Science and a Professor in the Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on the coupling of physical, biological, optical and biogeochemical processes on micro to ocean basin scales. Specifically, ocean color remote sensing and optical oceanography, mesoscale eddy & coastal processes, numerical modeling, Lagrangian approaches to understanding mixing and its implications, quantification of subgrid scale processes, human-natural system coupling, role of radiative exchanges in air-sea interactions and data information systems. Several of Dr. Siegel’s currently funded research projects include the global analyses of ocean color using satellite imagery, the modeling of coastal fisheries and the long-term study of coastal ecosystems. Ph.D. Geological Sciences (Ocean Physics) and M.S. Geological Sciences, University of Southern California, B.S. Engineering Sciences and B.A. Chemistry, University of California, San Diego. Government Relations Partner at Oldaker, Belair and Wittie and the National Group. Served in senior positions for more than three decades in the House of Representatives, the United States Senate, and the Washington, D.C. business community. In the House, Mr. Cushing was named the twelfth Clerk and Staff Director of the Appropriations Committee since the Committee’s creation in 1865. He previously served as the clerk/staff director of the House Veterans, Housing, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee and the Senate Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee. In the Senate, he also served as Staff Director of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Mr. Cushing has served as a corporate vice president for a Fortune 50 integrated energy firm and, prior to his appointment as staff director of the House Appropriations Committee, was a partner in an appropriations-focused consulting firm. Mr. Cushing is widely regarded as one of the most knowledgeable and experienced individuals in Washington concerning the Congressional appropriations and federal budget processes. Partner at Oldaker, Belair and Wittie. Previously at Lewis-Burke Associates LLC where he represented a premier climate and weather research organization, a number of ocean and coastal research associations, a major public television enterprise, and assisted in the representation of a number of major research universities including the University of Illinois, Caltech, the University of Southern California, and Rutgers University. From 1982 to 2002, Mr. Widder was at the National Science Foundation where he last served as the Acting Director and then Deputy Director for the Office of Legislative and Public Affairs. In this capacity, his responsibilities included working directly with the NSF Director and the National Science Board in their relations with the Office of Management and Budget, the White House Science Advisor’s office, the Congress and the external science and engineering community. Before leaving NSF, Mr. Widder also served for two years on detail to the former Senate Veterans, Housing and Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee where he had responsibility for issues related to research and education including the environmental sciences. Mr. Widder has extensive experience working with institutions of higher education as well as a variety research and education concerns where he has effectively advocated for the development and support of research grant programs, specific major research projects, and associated science and technology policy issues before the Congress and the relevant federal agencies.
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