Management
Executive Officers
Jeremy Young was elected Chief Executive Officer and a Director of our Company effective June 5, 2019. Mr. Young was elected President effective January 2, 2019. Prior to becoming President, Mr. Young served as Vice President of Operations from June 2016 through December 2018. Mr Young joined the Company as Production Manager in March 2006 and also served as operations Manager from December 2013 through June 2016. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Young held Quality and Production management positions with Accel, Inc. from 2005 to 2005. From 1998 to 2004, he held process chemist and technician positions at Worthington Industries and SCI Engineered Materials. Mr. Young earned a bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Otterbein University and an MBA from Ohio University.
Gerald S. Blaskie has served as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since March 2006 and the Company’s Chief Financial Officer since April 2001. He also serves as our Treasurer and Assistant Secretary. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Blaskie was the Controller at Cable Link, Inc. from February 2000 to March 2001. From 1997 to 2000, he was the Plant Manager at Central Ohio Plastics Corporation, where he also served as Controller from 1993 to 1997. Mr. Blaskie earned a B.S. degree in Accounting from Central Michigan University and passed the CPA exam in the State of Ohio.
Michael A. Smith has served as the company’s Corporate Secretary since December 2006. Mr. Smith is a Partner at Carlile Patchen & Murphy LLP (CPM). He chairs CPM’s Business Law Practice Group and serves on the Executive Committee. He graduated with honors from Kenyon College and earned his law degree from The Ohio State University.
Board of Directors
Laura F. Shunk was elected chairperson of the Board of Directors effective April 26, 2019. Ms. Shunk joined our company as a director in 2014. Ms. Shunk graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1980 with an A.B. degree in Chemistry and German, and from Case Western Reserve Univeristy in 1983 with a J.D. She began the practice of law at the Cleveland firm of Pearne, Gordon, Sessions, and Granger, where she worked on the prosecution of US patent application originating in foreign jurisdictions and in the United States. As the daughter of entrepreneur Ed Funk, she began to develop an interest in the interaction between entrepreneurial ventures and intellectual property. She wrote several key patents for a young Cross Medical Company. These patents later became the subject of extensive litigation, and resulted in millions of dollars in settlements with Johnson & Johnson, and later with AlphaTech Spine, and which were a key asset in the purchase of Interpore/Cross for $280 million by Biomet. Presently, Ms. Shunk is a shareholder of Hudak, Shunk & Farine, Co. L.P.A where she has been employed for more than five years. At this firm, she has expanded her areas of representation to include sophisticated material science research, and was awarded appointments to represent the University of Akron, Kent State University, Case Western Reserve University, and NASA, as well as Akron and Northeast Ohio polymer manufacturers and molders. She has continued with her interest in guiding star-up ventures with respect to the development of intellectual property portfolios. Ms. Shunk acted as counsel to an Akron area orthopedic implant company that was able to complete its acquisition in its seventh year at at 5.5x sales multiplier in part as a result of its extensive multi-national patent and trademark portfolio which Laura helped create. M. Shunk’s experience with intellectual property and the development and commercialization of new technologies is experience that the board considers valuable.
Jeremy Young was elected Chief Executive Officer and a Director of our Company effective June 5, 2019. Mr. Young was elected President effective January 2, 2019. Prior to becoming President, Mr. Young served as Vice President of Operations from June 2016 through December 2018. Mr Young joined the Company as Production Manager in March 2006 and also served as operations Manager from December 2013 through June 2016. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Young held Quality and Production management positions with Accel, Inc. from 2005 to 2005. From 1998 to 2004, he held process chemist and technician positions at Worthington Industries and SCI Engineered Materials. Mr. Young earned a bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Otterbein University and an MBA from Ohio University.
Emily Lu joined our Company as director in 2014. Ms. Lu is currently the Managing Partner of Gateway Resources Partners, Florida, an entity founded in 2013 to explore business opportunities in oil & gas field service. Ms. Lu has considerable senior management experience, including serving from 2007 through 2012 as Chief Strategy Officer for Solar Power Industries, a vertically integrated manufacturer for photovoltaic solar components with experience in domestic and international markets. Ms. Lu received a B.A. from the School of Law at National Taiwan University with Honors. After high level executive experience at Diamond Shamrock, Taiwan (a wholly owned subsidiary of Diamond Shamrock, USA, and the precedent of Occidental) and Swire & MaClaine, Taiwan (an Asian Pacific business unit of Swire Group, UK, and a 300 year old British Trading house), Ms. Lu earned a MBA majoring in finance from Florida Atlantic University. Ms. Lu speaks English and Mandarin. The experience of Ms. Lu in international markets and development of new products and business opportunities is experience that the Board considers valuable.
Vince Crisler joined our Company as director in 2025. Mr. Crisler has more than 25 years of IT and cyber security leadership within the Department of Defense, federal civilian government, and private sector. He is the Chief Strategy Officer for Celerium, which powers active cyber defense solutions that are easy to implement and effective in the key areas of network defense and compromise defense. Previously, he was CEO and Founder of Dark Cubed, a cyber security product company focused on innovative solutions for small and midsize companies which was acquired by Celerium in 2022. He is the Vice Chair for CompTIA’s North American Cybersecurity Committee and a member of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Worldwide Industry Advisory Board. Crisler previously supported the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Sandia National Laboratories in the development of cyber security protection programs to defend the networks of Federal Departments and Agencies, as well as those belonging to critical infrastructure and key resources (CI/KR) owners and operators. Crisler was the primary author for the five-year technical vision for the National Cybersecurity Protection System, a $3B cyber security program within DHS. He was also a co-author of the DHS Enhanced Cyber Services (ECS) Program, establishing a critical cyber security information-sharing program, which was formally announced in Executive Order (EO) 13636, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity. Crisler also served as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the White House’s Executive Office of the President and was responsible for the creation of the first ever cyber security operations center to protect White House networks. Prior to the White House, Crisler served in the United States Air Force in organizations to include the White House Communications Agency, the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon, and Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Crisler earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer and Information Science from the Ohio State University and a Master of Science in Management from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. He currently lives in the Washington D.C. area. Mr. Crisler’s experience in cybersecurity provides experience that the Board considers valuable.
John P. Gilliam joined our Company as director in February 2017. Mr. Gilliam is currently the CFO and Managing Director of Bluff Point Associates, a private equity firm based in Westport, Connecticut that invests in growth companies in the financial services and healthcare industries. Mr. Gilliam received a B.B.A. degree in accounting from Ohio University and obtained his CPA license in 1978. He joined the national accounting firm of Coopers and Lybrand L.L.P. and became a business assurance partner with the firm in 1988 serving clients primarily in the banking, insurance and investment sectors. Prior to joining Bluff Point in 2009, he served as Senior Vice President of Finance at The BISYS Group, Inc., a diversified publicly-traded financial services company. His responsibilities included controllership, mergers and acquisitions, SEC and management reporting, tax, treasury, and financial systems. Mr. Gilliam’s experience as a senior financial executive has provided him with a substantial background in strategic business planning, organizational restructurings, and financial statement analysis. The various financial experience of Mr. Gilliam is experience that the Board considers valuable.
Charles Wickersham joined our Company as director in August 2017. During most of Dr. Wickersham’s professional career he managed and directed Research and Development of sputtering targets and thin films for integrated circuits and solar photovoltaic products. Dr. Wickersham retired from First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ Global: FSLR), a leading global provider of comprehensive photovoltaic (PV) solar systems using advanced module and system technology where he served as Materials Analysis and Development Manager from July 2006 to March 2017. Prior to First Solar, he was Manager of Research & Development for the Cabot Corporation (NYSE: CBT), a leading global specialty chemicals and performance materials company, from 2002 to 2006. From 1988 to 2002, Dr. Wickersham served as Vice President Engineering for Tosoh SMD (Special Metals Division), a privately owned global leader in sputtering target technology. Additionally, Dr. Wickersham’s work in these fields has contributed to 22 patents and more than 45 articles in scientific journals. Dr. Wickersham earned a PhD degree in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in Physics from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Dr. Wickersham’s extensive thin film solar experience and established expertise regarding sputtering processes is experience the Board considers valuable.
