Dr. Steding is a senior corporate executive with an excellent track record in founding and growing successful businesses based on complex, leading edge technologies.  He has been CEO of ten high tech companies and active Chairman of several others. These include Red Condor (sold to St. Bernard Software) ; Liquid Engines, Inc, a tax software company (sold to a private equity firm);  Stion Corp (as founding CEO), a solar photovoltaic company funded by Khosla Ventures, which recently brought total financing to $120M and backlog to over $1B; Metacode Technologies (sold to Interwoven for $150M); RedCreek Communications (sold to SonicWall); and Pretty Good Privacy, Inc (sold to Network Associates). 

Dr. Steding is also Chairman and Founder of Quadrix Partners, a leadership consulting organization for creating high execution organizations.  He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of California, Berkeley, California, and a MS in Management (Sloan Fellow) from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Stanford, California where he graduated top of his class. He was a commissioned officer and the Distinguished Graduate of Armor Officer Basic at Ft. Knox, Kentucky.   He also holds degrees in EE from the University of Michigan.  He is the co-author of Built on Trust – How to Gain Competitive Advantage in Any Organization, Contemporary Press, 2000.

Dr. Zhu has been working in the field of fiber optics communications since 1988. Dr. Zhu joined Zephyr Photonics after serving as the Director of Engineering at Emcore Corp. where he was responsible for the design, development and high volume production of high-speed active optical cables and pluggable optical tranceivers. In addtion to his work at Emcore, Dr. Zhu served as the Product Engineering Manager over the Optical Platform Division at Intel Corp. Prior to Intel, he worked in engineering management and technical lead roles at Infinera, Mahi Networks and Ciena Corporation. In his native China, Dr. Zhu was a manager at Guangzhou Electronics Research Center. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in physics at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, China, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California.

Tuck brings more than 20 years of experience leading development and project teams to deliver software and hardware intensive products. Tuck comes to Zephyr Photonics, after serving as Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Engineering for Datastrip, Inc., a designer and manufacturer of mobile handheld biometric terminals. Prior to Datastrip, he was the General Manager of Microphase Corp., Chief Technology Officer at Pargaon Networks, Chief Technology Officer at IPC Information Systems/Ixnet, Director of Engineering at Ascom Nexion/Ascom Timeplex and Vice President of Engineering at Teleos Communications. Tuck started his career at AT&T Bell Labs in 1981 after graduating from the University of Texas with a bachelor's degree in engineering. He also earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University.

Dr. Louderback joined Zephyr Photonics in 2000 as a Member of the Technical Staff and has held various positions since then including Staff Scientist and Director of Engineering.  In 2007, he became Chief Technology Officer where he is responsible for strategic planning, new product development, and intellectual property.  Dr. Louderback has 18 years of experience in optoelectronics and his experience spans optoelectronic device design, epitaxial growth, device fabrication, device characterization, optoelectronic packaging, reliability and environmental testing, and systems integration.  He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Engineering Physics from Colorado State University and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara.  He has also been on the VCSEL program committee for Photonics West, reviewer for numerous journals, and is a member of IEEE/Photonics Society, OSA, and SPIE.  Dr. Louderback has been Principle or Co-Principle Investigator on numerous development contracts and has six patents/patents pending, over 50 publications, and has presented several invited talks.

As Chief Financial Officer, James Levison comes to Zephyr Photonics with over 35 years of experience driving growth at technology, software and professional service companies.  Levison was most recently CFO of Liquid Engines, a leading provider of enterprise income tax management software for Fortune 500 companies which he helped sell to Thompson Reuters.  Prior to Liquid Engines, he was Vice President of Finance for Think3 Inc, an international product development solutions company where he was responsible for all U.S. accounting and financial functions.  He was also Vice President of Finance and Corporate Treasurer for Selectica Inc. (NASDAQ: SLTC), an enterprise software company.  While at Selectica, Levison managed financial operations from the start-up phase through the company's successful IPO in March 2000.  Earlier in his career, Levison also held finance, accounting management, and consulting positions at Cornerstone Research and Ernst & Young.  Levison earned his MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College and holds a BA from Colorado College plus held a CPA license in California.

Michael Hoag joined Zephyr Photonics in 2008 as the Projects and Quality Assurance Manager where he implemented Microsoft Project Enterprise and Project Web Access in the program management organizational structure. Mr. Hoag has over 15 years of extensive government, private and military management experience as Director of IT, Sandoval County Government; VP of Network Operations, OSO Grande Technologies; Project Control for the Defense Intelligence Agency, McDonald Bradley Inc.; Base Telephone Communications Chief, Marine Corps Base Quantico; Communications Systems Operator aboard HMX1, Presidential Helicopter Squadron; and Satellite Radio Communications Reconnaissance Instructor, Marine Air Ground Task Force Special Operations Training Group.

Terry Thomas joined Zephyr Photonics in 2009 and was responsible for customer and partnership development. He was Zephyr Photonics’ liaison for government legislative funding initiatives. Prior to joining Zephyr Photonics, Mr. Thomas was VP of Sales and Marketing for Intexys Photonics (acquired by Photonera). Before that he was VP of Sales for Phyworks Ltd. (acquired by Maxim0). Previously, he was VP of Sales for Picolight Inc. (acquired by JDSU). Earlier, he was Founder and CEO of TMR Sales, a manufactures representative firm which reached in excess of $100M annually.

Dr. Eustis joined Zephyr Photonics in 2004 as a Member of the Technical Staff specifically in optoelectronic test and measurement. He is currently the Principle investigator on a module development program and previously established Zephyr Photonics’ testing and reliability testing facilities, process development in multilayer dielectric depositions, radiation hardness evaluation of III-V devices and SiGe IC’s. From 2000 to 2004 he was a Member of the Technical Staff at Nova Crystals, Inc. in San Jose, CA, where his work included research and development of AlInGaP LEDs, reliability testing of long wavelength lasers and InGaAs/Si APDs and PINs, and management of development and small scale production level testing of long wavelength lasers. Dr. Eustis earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Cornell University where his research work included molecular beam epitaxial growth and scanning transmission electron microscopy of III-N devices and materials.