Advisory Board

LISA KUUTTILA, CHAIR

Lisa joined STC.UNM as President & CEO in 2003. She works with the STC Board of Directors in developing strategies for implementing STC's vision to play a vital role in New Mexico's economic development and to be a leader in technology commercialization. Under her leadership, STC is substantially growing its technology-transfer program as a door to the marketplace.

Lisa has more than 20 years of prior leadership experience in technology commercialization and licensing. This includes positions as Assistant Vice President for Technology Commercialization at Purdue Research Foundation; Director, Technology Commercialization, University of Georgia; and Director, Office of Technology Commercialization, Center for Advanced Technology Development, Iowa State University. Her prior experience also includes a consulting practice that provided strategic marketing and technology-transfer consulting services for a wide variety of well-known technology corporations, universities and foundations, including Stanford University. Lisa began her career in industry in several engineering and technology-marketing positions. She has exhibited exceptional skills in the marketing and start-up company aspects of technology commercialization, having significantly increased the number of spin-off companies at each university she has served. She also has substantial expertise in university-based equity transactions. She managed the seed-capital venture fund on behalf of Purdue Research Foundation.

Lisa has published extensively in her field, is an active speaker and has made presentations throughout her career to many organizations, such as the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), the Association of University Related Research Parks (AURRP), the Licensing Executives Society (LES), and other national and international conferences and forums. Lisa serves on the Board of Directors of New Mexico Angels, a not-for-profit affiliation of accredited private investors and members of venture capital companies, and is affiliated with a number of other initiatives.

BARBARA BRAZIL

Barbara left part-time retirement to accept a full time position as Deputy Secretary of the State’s Economic Development Department.

She is the former President of New Mexico First, a state wide public policy not-for-profit. Prior to New Mexico First, she retired from Intel Corporation in Rio Rancho where she worked as the Manager of Government Affairs and Public Affairs. Before her career at Intel, Barbara worked as a public relations staff manager at U.S. West Communications in Albuquerque and spent 12 years working for the State’s largest savings and loan association. She has also worked as the community relations director for the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, was public relations manager for the United Way of Greater Albuquerque, and public information director for the YMCA in Albuquerque.

Barbara served on two of Governor Richardson’s appointed boards; the Technology Research Collaborative and the State Ethics Task Force. Previously, Governor Johnson appointed Barbara to the New Mexico Information Technology Commission and Governor King appointed her to the State Personnel Board and then to the Board of Regents of the University of New Mexico, where she served as the Secretary of the board and Chair of the Academic and Student Affairs Committee.

Her community service included terms as Chair of the United Way of Central New Mexico Board, the New Mexico Business Roundtable, the Association of Commerce and Industry, Rio Rancho Chamber, Rotary and the New Mexico Chapter of the PRSA, two advisory boards for the University of New Mexico, the Rio Rancho Economic Development Board as well as the AAA Foundation National Advisory Board. She also served for a short period on the Kirtland Partnership Board.

She is a graduate of Leadership New Mexico. She is a graduate of Oklahoma State University; an accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), and has served on numerous community and state boards and commissions.

JOHN GARCIA

Director of the Economic Development Department for the City of Albuquerque for Mayor Richard J. Berry.

John has a strong business background with corporate hospitality management experience in the Bennigan’s Restaurant and Marriott Hotel chains. He founded Hospitotally, an Albuquerque based consulting business that specializes in customer service applications.

In January 1995, Governor Gary Johnson appointed John to be Secretary of the New Mexico Department of Tourism. Since then, he has also served as the manager of the New Mexico State Fair and the Senior Officer of Cultural Affairs. He was appointed to lead the New Mexico Economic Development Department in January 1999 as the Cabinet Secretary. Recently, John served as Senior Officer of Economic Development consulting for the University of New Mexico and recently accepted a Presidential appointment to serve on the National advisory board for Historic Preservation.

MARTIN LEVION

Martin Levion is Managing Partner of Integral Investment Capital, a privately held firm which invests in financial services opportunities in the Life Insurance industry, and he is an active early round investor in private equity funded technology and service companies. Martin serves as Chairman of CProjects, a commercial construction logistics company, on the board of Antenna Software, an enterprise mobile technology company, and as an advisor to companies in several other fields. He also serves on the board of the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation.

Mr. Levion founded, and then managed, the Derivatives and Financial Products Group at Societe Generale from 1990 to 2007. The DFP Group managed a 250 billion dollar business consisting of Fixed Income Derivatives, Credit Derivatives, Municipal Finance and Derivatives, Structured Credit Products, credit arbitrage, emerging markets arbitrage, principal finance, and structured tax. DFP operated out of Greenwich, Connecticut.

Previously Mr. Levion was a member of the Fixed Income Arbitrage group and the Interest Rate Swap group of Salomon Brothers in both New York and London from 1985 to 1990. Before joining Salomon, he was a trader in the Municipal Bond department at Lehman Brothers from 1983 to 1985. Mr. Levion lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He graduated in 1982 from Cornell University with a B.A. in Economics. He is an active pilot, triathlete, and father of two college students.

JIM RIKER

Dr Jim F. Riker, a member of the scientific and technical cadre of senior executives, is the Chief Scientist, Space Vehicles Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. He directs the technical research for space in six major technology areas: space situational awareness; offensive space control; defensive space control; operationally responsive space; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and satellite communication and satellite control.

Dr. Riker has served in a variety of research roles and spent nearly 10 years in optical surveillance and space-based laser system program offices. He then generated and led the Active Track Program at AFRL, which has resulted in many first-ever technology demonstrations and subsequent transitions to the Missile Defense Agency's missile defense system defending the United States. Dr. Riker has also served as Chief of the Air Force Maui Optics and Supercomputing site. He was directly responsible for all aspects of research and development at this $100 million-a-year site. Prior to his current assignment, he was Technical Director for the Optics Division of the Directed Energy Directorate at the Starfire Optical Range, Kirtland AFB.

Dr. Riker's principal technical interests include designing, building and testing space-related and directed energy system concepts, components and algorithms. He is nationally and internationally recognized for contributions in the areas of laser beam control, atmospheric propagation, atmospheric compensation, active and passive tracking, and imaging. He has published more than 50 articles in a variety of scientific and professional publications.

ANDREW SALAZAR

Andrew Salazar brings a broad range of commercial experience to assist start ups in structuring a realistic approach to success. He has held responsibilities in a variety of disciplines including management positions in engineering, manufacturing, finance, sales and economic development. Throughout his career, Mr. Salazar has focused on bringing together the top-flight resources needed for business success. He has a BSME with an EE option from General Motors Institute (now Kettering University) and an MBA from Stanford University. Andrew serves as the Board President of the New Mexico Biotechnology and Biomedical Association (NMBio), and is the Board President-Elect of New Mexico Math, Engineering and Science Achievement (NM MESA). He also serves on the Board of Advisors for both the New Mexico Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Resource Center, and the Albuquerque branch of the Small Business Development Center (SBDC).

TONI TAYLOR

Dr. Taylor received her B.S. (1977), M. S. (1979) and Ph.D. (1982) degrees in physics from Stanford University where she was a Hertz Foundation pre-doctoral and doctoral fellow. She pursued postdoctoral research in ultrafast spectroscopy at Cornell University. In 1984 Dr. Taylor then became a Member of the Technical Staff in the Lightwave Systems Department at AT&T Bell Laboratories. In 1986 she joined Los Alamos National Laboratory where she served as Director of the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies and is currently the Leader of the Materials Physics and Applications Division. Dr. Taylor has co-authored ~300 publications and 3 book chapters and has co-edited 5 books. Her research interests include ultrafast dynamical processes in complex and nanoscale materials, the development of novel optics-based measurement techniques for the understanding of new phenomena, and metamaterials, plasmonics and nanophotonics. She is a former Director-at-Large of the Optical Society of America (OSA), Topical Editor of Journal of the Optical Society B: Optical Physics and Chair of the Joint Quantum Electronics Council. Currently, she is the Chair-Elect of the APS Division of Laser Science. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has held leadership positions in these societies. In 2003, Toni won the inaugural Los Alamos Fellow’s Prize for Outstanding Leadership in Science and Engineering.

DAVID WICK

Dr. David Wick has worked at Sandia National Laboratories for 13 years as a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in the Integrated Military Systems and, most recently, as a Licensing Executive in the Partnerships group. Prior to coming to Sandia, he spent 9 years at the Air Force Research Laboratory working as an optical physicist. His technical efforts have primarily focused on military systems, working on applications including wavefront control/correction, phase conjugation, beam steering, and optical correlation. He has over 50 technical articles and 3 patents to his credit and is a Fellow of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.