Cobalt Biofuels

Executive Team

Rick Wilson, CEO

Rick Wilson, Ph.D.: Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Wilson comes to the company with over twenty years of global energy commercial and technology experience, recently including Vice President of British Petroleums Global Derivatives Chemicals business unit. He received a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Lehigh University, where he focused on energy efficiency. During his seventeen years at BP/Amoco, Dr. Wilson held a variety of technical, trading and executive positions and was also responsible for BPs $3.5 billion petrochemical business, ultimately spun out as Ineos. Dr. Wilson has also served as a Senior Advisor to the CEO of Codexis, where he led the development of a business strategy for enzyme development technology in connection with a joint venture with Shell.


Steven Shevick, CFO


Steven Shevick: Chief Financial Officer

Steve Shevick has extensive experience in financial management, fundraising and merger and acquisition transactions from both a financial and legal perspective, and has served as Chief Financial Officer for both public and private companies. Most recently, he was the Chief Financial Officer of Ausra, Inc., a start up in the solar thermal energy industry. Prior to Ausra, Steve served as Chief Financial Officer at Synopsys, Inc., a billion dollar public company, where he was instrumental in leading the largest acquisition in the history of the electronic design automation industry, and Wyse Technology, a thin computing company.


Gregory W. Luli, Ph.D: Senior Vice President, Research and Development


Gregory W. Luli, Ph.D:Chief Technology Officer

Dr. Luli brings 30 years of experience in fermentation process development to Cobalt Technologies and will be responsible for the ongoing development of technology for the production of n-butanol from lignocellulosic biomass using the company's proprietary bacterium and process. Prior to joining Cobalt, Luli served as the Vice President, Research at Verenium Biofuels where he led research in the hydrolysis and fermentation of numerous biomass sources including sugar cane bagasse, wood and rice straw, and headed Department of Energy funded research in the development of cellulase enzyme technology. Luli previously held positions at Firmenich, a privately held international flavor and fragrance company and Quest International where he was responsible for scale-up of anaerobic fermentations for the production of flavors and food ingredients from laboratory to production. Luli holds a Ph.D. in Microbiology from The Ohio State University.


Mark Dinello, Senior Vice President, Engineering


Mark Dinello:Senior Vice President, Engineering

Mark brings to Cobalt extensive experience in the chemicals and refining industry. During his 30-year career with BP/Amoco Mark held a variety of senior positions in engineering, procurement, construction, and management, for chemical and refining operations worldwide, including decommissioning a major chemical plant which won the industry “ICE” award for Excellence in Construction. In addition, Mark specialized in capital project management, with responsibility for a capital budget of over $2 billion, and in developing improved strategies for company-wide capital allocation. He earned a B.S. Degree in Chemical Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University and an M.B.A. from The University of Chicago. Prior to joining Cobalt, Mark founded and served as President and Senior Consultant of Plan B Consulting Inc. At Cobalt, Mark will be responsible for capital projects, operations, engineering, and company health, safety and environmental policy and practice.


Andy Meyer, Senior Vice President of Business Development


Andy Meyer:Senior Vice President of Business Development

Meyer brings a deep understanding of both the fuels and chemicals markets to lead Cobalt’s effort to commercialize biobutanol, while driving strategic partnership development and overall corporate strategy. Meyer comes to Cobalt from Amyris where he was Director of Supply and Distribution, having built the company’s fuels marketing efforts from inception. Prior to Amyris, Meyer held senior commercial roles at both Chevron and BP, where he was responsible for chemicals and fuels marketing and procurement, in addition to having significant engineering and plant startup roles. Andy holds an MBA, MS in Chemical Engineering, and a BS in Environmental Management and Mathematics.


David Walther, Director - Engineering

David Walther, Ph.D.: Senior Director, Research and Development

Dr. Walther has over ten years of experience directing research teams focused on developing and implementing microsystems in the areas of biosensing, power and energy. Prior to joining Cobalt, Dr. Walther was employed at the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center where he directed research teams focused on projects sponsored by NASA, DARPA, Chevron, and Toyota, among others.  Dr. Walther was granted Exceptional PI status for several US Government, State of California and Industry Sponsored Research Grants.


Stacy Burns-Guydish, Director - Microbiology

Stacy Burns-Guydish, Ph.D.: Director, Microbiology

Prior to joining Cobalt, Dr. Burns-Guydish held various research positions with the Stanford University School of Medicine where she was awarded with the NIH service award. Dr. Burns-Guydish developed and optimized in vivo models to monitor bacterial infection and immune response utilizing bioluminescence imaging. Dr. Burns-Guydish is an expert in genetic engineering, bacterial pathogenesis, and biophotonic imaging.