Mark D. Fischer-Colbrie
President, Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Fischer-Colbrie was named President and CEO in September 2008 after working for one year as a business development consultant for the company. He has over 30 years of experience in companies in the areas of diagnostics, medical devices, therapeutics and high technology and has been involved in three Initial Public Offerings. Prior to joining Labcyte, Mr. Fischer-Colbrie was Senior Vice President of Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer at Adeza Biomedical Corporation, a women’s health care company, which became public in December 2004 and was subsequently sold for over $450 million. During his tenure from February 2001 to May 2007, Mr. Fischer-Colbrie was inventor and co-inventor on five patent applications and ran the Business Development function for three years. Prior that role, Mr. Fischer-Colbrie was the Senior Vice President, Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer for nearly nine years for KeraVision, Inc., a vision correction company. At Maxtor Corporation, a manufacturer of disk drives that grew from a start-up to $1.2 billion in revenue, he held several positions from April 1983 to February 1992 including Vice-President, Finance, Corporate Controller and Advanced Technology Business Manager.
Mr. Fischer-Colbrie holds a BA from Stanford University and an MBA in Marketing and Finance from the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in numerous roles for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, including as President, Greater Bay Area Chapter. He is currently a member of the Nominating Committee for the JDRF International Board and the JDRF National Speaker’s Program.
Richard Ellson
Chief Technology Officer
Mr. Ellson is a founder of Labcyte (formerly Picoliter Inc.) Previously, he was an Area Manager in novel printing technologies at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Prior to PARC, he was at the Eastman Kodak Company in a variety of management and technical roles in the fields of color printing, image data compression, fluid handling, materials transport and net-shape manufacturing applications. His contributions to internal manufacturing processes were acknowledged by a Kodak Doctoral Award in 1988. Mr. Ellson was nominated for the 1994 Lemelson-MIT Prize and is the inventor on 59 issued U.S.patents. He received the 2006 SBS PolyPops Foundation Award by the Society for Biomolecular Sciences for his role in developing acoustic dispensing technology, the basis for the Labcyte Echo liquid handlers.
Mr. Ellson holds a B.S. in Fluid and Thermal Science and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University. Through the Kodak Doctoral Awards Program, he took a two-year paid leave to study mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Stephen Bates
Senior Vice President of Sales, Support and Marketing
Mr. Bates joined Labcyte in June 2008. He had previously served as Executive Vice President, MetaMorphix, Inc. and General Manager of MMI Genomics since February 2002 as part of MetaMorphix's acquisition of Celera AgGen's anmial business. Mr. Bates established PE AgGen in 1994 and it became a world leader in its field of genomic research in agriculture. AgGen became part of Celera in 1999, and he was named Vice President of Celera Genomics and General Manager of Celera AgGen in 1999. Mr. Bates joined Applied Biosystems in 1987 in Warrington, UK. He was named DNA Market Manager for Europe in 1989, and in 1992, became European Marketing Manager with responsibility for the planning, development, and execution of marketing policies through Applied Biosystems' direct subsidiaries and its distributors. Prior to that, he was a Research Officer at the department of Biochemistry at Queen's University, Belfast. Mr. Bates received his bachelor's degree in microbiology in 1979 and his master's degree in biochemistry in 1983 from Queen's University, Belfast.
A. Mark Bramwell
Director, Worldwide Support
Mr. Bramwell has over 25 years of experience in management, manufacturing and automation engineering. He was the founder and President of Labcyte LLC until the merger with Picoliter Inc. to form Labcyte Inc. Prior to Labcyte LLC, Mr. Bramwell was the Automation Manager at Labcon North America, a supplier of plastic products to the life sciences industry. Mr. Bramwell was also the founder of three automation engineering companies: Amarx Mechana, 4.0 Automation and Arlena Research.
Keith Love
Vice President, Manufacturing
Mr. Love has over 25 years of leadership experience in a variety of technology companies, including biotech, telecom, specialty materials, equipment, and semiconductor. He has successfully managed both start up and turn-around situations. Mr. Love was most recently General Manager/Vice President of Operations at InLight Communications, a telecom start up developing optical MEMS solutions. Prior to that, Mr. Love was Vice President of Operations for Synteni, a biotech start up that merged with Incyte Genomics. Prior to Synteni, he spent eight years as General Manager for Heraeus, a leading supplier to semiconductor equipment manufacturers and end users, where he had overall responsibility for their largest and most profitable division. Mr. Love has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Michael F. Miller
Vice President, Product Development
Mr. Miller has 29 years of experience in engineering and management. Previous to joining Labcyte , he was Department Director, Genomics Systems Development and a member of Amersham Biosciences Sunnyvale site senior management team. During his tenure at Molecular Dynamics, which was acquired by Amersham, he held several other positions including Director, Product Development and Director of Mechanical Engineering. He was instrumental in the successful introduction of a variety of products including the PhosphorImager®, FluorImager® and Storm™ imaging systems and the MegaBACE® DNA sequencer. Prior to Molecular Dynamics, he held various management and technical positions at Spectra Physics. Mr. Miller is an inventor on six U. S. patents and holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from San Jose State University.
Joseph Olechno, Ph.D.
Vice President, Business Development & Strategic Marketing
Dr. Olechno has 25 years of experience in life sciences instrumentation. Most recently, he was Chief Technical Officer and Vice President of Marketing at Cell Biosciences in Palo Alto. Previously, he was Vice President of Marketing Support at Applied Biosystems with worldwide responsibilities. Prior to Applied Biosystems, Dr. Olechno served in various positions at Beckman Instruments and Dionex Corp. Dr. Olechno has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California at Davis and a B.S. in Chemistry from the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Jürgen Osing, Ph.D.
Managing Director, Labcyte Europe Limited
Dr. Osing joined Labcyte in February 2008 in the merger of Labcyte with Deerac Fluidics. Dr. Osing was a co-founder of Deerac Fluidics and had managed the company since its inception. He was directly involved in the development of the company's proprietary technology at the outset of the company's existence and supervised the evolution of the LX and GX series of liquid handlers. Dr. Osing has extensive experience in developing the commercial strategies for the company in relation to product development, business partnering, financial planning and operational development. Dr. Osing received his primary degree in Physics from the University of Osnabrueck (Germany) in 1994 and obtained his Ph.D. in Physics from Trinity College Dublin in 1998.
Peter Scott
Director, Finance & HR. Assistant Secretary for the Board of Directors
Mr. Scott has over 15 years of experience in financial and managerial accounting. Before joining Labcyte Inc., he was at Alphagraphics, Inc. in Tucson, AZ as Accounting Manager for seven years. He also worked at Engine Room Equipment and Supply.
Mr. Scott completed his CPA coursework at the University of Arizona and has a B.A. in History from Colorado College.