John brings over 35 years of blended experience in product engineering, operations and executive leadership starting with 16 years in automobile engineering at General Motors and Ford followed by 10 years of increased responsibility at multi-billion revenue automotive suppliers such as GKN, Collins & Aikman and Magna Corporation before moving to Tesla Motors where he was selected to be the first Head of the Model S program and future factory operations. 

While at Tesla, John helped secure the $462 million US Dept of Energy loan after completing the technical, market and financial diligence that launched Tesla as a manufacturer.  

Inspired by Tesla, John later founded and ran his own startup called ALTe Technologies for over 6 years achieving a $100 million valuation.  Forbes magazine selected his ALTe startup to receive the “America’s Most Promising Companies” award. 

After exiting that company through a JV and a 4 factory / $200 million deal he brokered in China, John served as a C level consultant for several client firms in the electric vehicle, vehicle to grid, renewable powered charging infrastructure, energy storage and cleantech industries based in China, the USA, Australia and the EU including NIO corporation, Helix Motors and EnerBlu.  

Building on the intimate real world performance characteristics of multiple competing chemistries of electro-chemical batteries, John expanded his expertise of energy storage solutions relavant to the needs of the emerging long duration energy storage (LDES) market.  This work continues, to accelerate solutions for electric utilities and large load customers to cooperatively expand grid capacity and the role of energy storage in that capacity, while minimizing negative economic impacts.

John holds Bachelors’ Degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration from Lawrence Technological University in addition to an MBA from Eastern Michigan University.  He also has certifications in Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma. 

John was selected by Ernst & Young as one of the “EV100” a designation given to the most significant contributors to the global EV industry in 2012 and 2013.