MANAGEMENT

Dr. Berhan Tecle, Founder, President and Chief Technology Officer 

Dr. Berhan Tecle has over 30 years of experience in basic and applied research, nanoparticle materials and technologies, process and product development, and scale-up and manufacturing.

Formerly of DuPont, Dr. Tecle has served in positions with the company’s R&D Division of the White Pigments and Mineral Products business unit, and the Printed Circuit Materials Research Program for DuPont Electronics.

In addition to his technical achievements, Dr. Tecle is the author of numerous publications and holds several patents. Dr. Tecle was awarded a Ph.D. and an M.S. in Inorganic Chemistry from Wayne State University and a B.A. in Chemistry from Goshen College. Prior to joining DuPont, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.

Jean-Pierre Vanderreydt, Managing Director

Jean-Pierre Vanderreydt, Managing Director for European Operations is a serial entrepreneur who has developed proprietary products and solutions for his own account and for major corporate clients including Volkswagen, Monteedison, Petrofina and Smith Klein.  He was the key person in the fund raising, development and transfer of proprietary outdoor large scale  ultra high brightness video display technology from Canada to his facilities in Belgium where he managed the design of the product and built a pilot automated manufacturing line. Collaboration with the central lab of GE Lighting in Cleveland resulted in common patents in fiber optic displays.  This technology was ultimately sold to a government sponsored high technology development corporation in Malaysia and Mr. Vanderreydt directed the design and deployment of its high volume manufacturing line in Malaysia.  He has twenty years experience in direct development and deployment of information technology solutions for major technology corporations  including ITT, Philips and Emerson Electric.  He has a Master of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Leuven in Belgium.

Dr. Omar M. Kekia, Senior Development Scientist

Dr. Kekia joined Ultrafine Technologies in September 1998 as a Senior Development Scientist. Prior to joining Ultrafine he was a Post Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he worked on the synthesis and characterization of precursors for advanced materials.

He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Delaware. During his graduate research he synthesized and studied novel metal clusters and investigated the incorporation of main-group elements into transition metal clusters to study their impact on thermal stability and catalytic pathways. Dr. Kekia received his B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from Addis Ababa University. Following his graduation from Addis Ababa University he served as a lecturer of Chemistry and a Department Chair at the Bahir Dar College of Addis Ababa University. While at the University of Delaware he was awarded the 1994-1995 Elizabeth Dyer Award for Excellence in Teaching.