Leadership
Executive Team | Board Of Directors | Advisory Board
Executive Team
Dr. Timothy Day
CEO, CTO, Chairman of the Board of Directors
Dr. Timothy Day is a cofounder of Daylight Solutions and serves as the CEO and CTO for the company. Dr. Day has over 20 years' experience in both technical and business management in the photonics industry. He has led engineering, research, product development, manufacturing, and marketing operations. He started his career as a cofounder of New Focus, where he served from 1990 through 2004. During his time at New Focus, he was involved in all aspects of the company’s history, concluding with his work on the sale of the company to Bookham Technology PLC for $338M. While at New Focus he also contributed to the raising of over $500M though public and private equity offerings. From 1990 to 2009, while at New Focus and Daylight Solutions, Dr. Day has developed extensive patent and product portfolios and transferred numerous products into production, both onshore and overseas. Dr. Day has extensive technical knowledge and experience, and is considered an expert in the field of photonics.
Dr. Day holds both a BS and an MS in Physics from San Diego State University and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Paul Larson
President, COO, Director
Paul Larson is a cofounder of Daylight Solutions and serves as the company’s President and COO. He is a seasoned executive with over 25 years' experience managing business operations and developing leading-edge technologies. Mr. Larson has held senior management positions with successful start-ups such as San Diego-based Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC), and Qualcomm Inc. As Director of ASIC Programs for Qualcomm, Mr. Larson contributed significantly to the company's early efforts to establish a commercially viable ASIC division, generating over $600M in revenue during its third year. Mr. Larson also contributed to business operations of larger, global companies such as Ericsson, where he was Director of Business Management.
Mr. Larson began his career as an Electrical Engineer with Motorola’s Integrated Circuits Research Applications Laboratory (MICARL). He holds a BSEE from the United States International University and an MBA from San Diego State University.
Dr. William B. Chapman
VP, Engineering
Dr. Chapman brings over 20 years of experience in research, design and development of infrared laser and detection technologies for scientific, industrial and telecom applications. As individual contributor and Principal Investigator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Focused Research, Inc. respectively, he contributed to ground-breaking work in infrared detection, semiconductor laser tuning range and wavelength stabilization. At New Focus, Intel and most recently as Senior Director of Engineering at Emcore/Telco Division, Dr. Chapman led engineering teams in developing three generations of tunable lasers and transmitters that have been deployed extensively in metropolitan and long-haul optical telecommunications networks. His responsibilities have spanned all phases of product life cycle from proof-of-concept to oversight of offshore high-volume manufacturing.
Dr. Chapman holds a BS in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and a PhD in Chemical Physics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Board of Directors
Timothy Day, PhD
Chairman
Paul Larson
Director
Frank Levinson, PhD
Director
Before Finisar, Dr. Levinson developed fiber-optic technologies at Raychem/Raynet in Menlo Park, California, and at Bell Labs and Bellcore in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In 1984, he founded Netek Corporation in Lincoln Park, New Jersey in partnership with AMP.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Levinson has been associated with a number of areas of technical development resulting in the creation of intellectual property such as optical fiber couplers, WDM couplers, optical switches, diffused waveguides, optical fiber connectors, optical transmitters and receivers, high speed network architectures and protocols, and broadcast network architectures. He has worked on more than 35 successfully granted fiber optics and technology patents, with more pending.
Dr. Levinson’s interests range from astronomy and fiber optics innovations to global ecology and tropical rainforests. He founded Small World Group to help advance world awareness of a number of scientific issues and new technologies that may help improve our quality of life.
Dr. Levinson earned a BS in Mathematics and Physics from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, and both an MS and a PhD in Astronomy from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
William L. Potts, Jr.
Director
His accomplishments include private and public equity transactions, syndicated bank facilities, acquisitions, divestitures, domestic and international joint ventures, formation of offshore manufacturing entities, international tax strategies, and corporate restructurings. The public and private equity transactions raised over $750M and $100M, respectively. The syndicated bank facilities raised $345M.
During his tenure at New Focus and Komag both companies underwent significant expansions and established sizable offshore manufacturing facilities. He played a key role in these expansion activities and the subsequent restructuring activities that were required at both companies in response to unprecedented downturns in the fiber optics and storage component industries.
Mr. Potts holds a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University and an MBA from Stanford University. He is a member of Financial Executives International.
Jeffrey Harper
Director
Mr. Harper returned to San Diego in 2000 as Vice President of Operations. Since that year, Harper Construction Company has performed $1.3B of work, and in 2005 Mr. Harper purchased the company and owns 100% of the stock. Mr. Harper and his team completed $225M in revenue for 2008 and as of January 2009 anticipate a construction backlog of nearly $350M. Mr. Harper and his company have been involved in a wide variety of projects for both public- and private-sector clients across the United States, including the US Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Army, General Services Administration, City of San Diego, State of California, University of California, and the Los Angeles Community College District. Harper Construction also anticipates an international role as Construction Manager at Camp Humphreys in the Republic of Korea for a nearly $1B Bachelor Enlisted Quarters housing project commencing in 2009.
In January of 2009, Mr. Harper was appointed to serve on the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) committee for the Association of General Contractors of America. Mr. Harper earned a BA from UCLA.
Advisory Board
Dr. Frank Tittel
Professor
Dr. Frank Tittel is the J.S. Abercrombie Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering Rice University and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Optical Society of America, and the American Physical Society.
Dr. Claire Gmachl
Associate ProfessorDr. Claire Gmachl is a Professor with the department of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University.
Dr. Gmachl's area of research includes Quantum Cascade Lasers for analytic spectroscopy, wireless and optical communications applications, microcavity lasers with chaotic resonators, nonlinear optics in semiconductor heterostructures and Group-III nitride devices. Dr. Gmachl has filed over 25 patents related to her field, of which 15 have thus far been granted. She was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies, where she worked for over 6 years. Dr. Gmachl has numerous awards for her work, including:
- The Snell Premium award of the IEE - UK, August 2003
- "Commendation for Excellence in Technical Communications" - Laser Focus World Magazine, September 2001
- "Outstanding Performer Award" under the DARPA/MTO PWASSP Program - US DoD, July 2001
- "NASA Group Achievement Award", co-recipient - NASA, Washington D.C., 2000
Dr. Terence Risby
Professor
Dr. Terence Risby's research stresses the development of novel, highly sensitive analytical chemical approaches used as non-invasive biomarkers of tissue injury and disease, with primary application to the clinical setting. His laboratory has developed breath markers for biosynthesis of cholesterol, liver function and disease, and nutritional status. He has applied these techniques to human subjects of all ages in a variety of clinical situations, such as patients undergoing transplantation surgery or premature infants in neonatal care. More recently, he has initiated studies that are using his developed biomarkers of tissue injury to investigate the effects of exposure to environmental toxicants.
Dr. Thomas B. Day
Dr. Thomas Day served as President of San Diego State University from 1978 to 1996. He has received numerous awards for academic achievement, distinguished public service, and outstanding contributions to the field of science. He has served on several Boards of Directors, including government appointments and civic and charitable organizations. Dr. Day also served on many advisory groups, including the Subcommittee on Science for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. He is President Emeritus, San Diego State University, a Fellow with the American Physical Society, and a past member and Vice Chairman of the National Science Board, appointed by President Reagan and President Bush.
Dr. Lowell J. Burnett
Dr. Lowell Burnett received his BS degree in physics and mathematics from Portland State University in 1964, and his PhD in physics from the University of Wyoming in 1970. Following appointment as a Presidential Fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (1970-72), he accepted a faculty position at San Diego State University, serving as physics professor, department chairman, and professor emeritus.
In 1987, Dr. Burnett cofounded Quantum Magnetics Inc., a high-technology R&D company specializing in the development of advanced systems for the detection of explosives, narcotics, and concealed weapons. Applications for Quantum Magnetics’ technologies include aviation security, military force protection, and mine detection. As CEO, he guided the company through a period of sustained growth, with revenues expanding at a compounded rate in excess of 25% per year. In 1997, Quantum Magnetics became a wholly owned subsidiary of InVision Technologies, a world leader in aviation security. In December 2004, General Electric purchased both companies. Since leaving Quantum Magnetics in early 2005, Dr. Burnett has served as Chief Technical Advisor to Quantum Applied Science & Research (QUASAR) Inc. and is the CEO of QUASAR Federal Systems Inc.
Dr. Burnett has served as a principal investigator on over 40 grants and contracts for research and development. In his role as a university professor, he developed an applied physics program in scientific instrumentation. Dr. Burnett was appointed to the International Advisory Panel for the McGraw-Hill magazine Electronics, and in addition, served as a consultant to numerous organizations, including Allied-Signal, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, SAIC, UOP Inc., and the Office of Technology Assessment, US Congress. Dr. Burnett is the author or coauthor of over 150 journal articles, technical reports, and conference presentations focusing on the areas of measurement and detection.
Mr. Frank Polese
Mr. Polese is the founder and former President of Polese Company Inc. Founded in 1991, Polese Company grew to be the largest supplier of Refractory Composite Materials (used for dissipating heat from high power electronic devices) in the world. In 2000, Polese Company owned approximately 40% of the $80M worldwide market share of these unique composites. In 1994, Mr. Polese sold Polese Company to SPM (NASDAQ: sym. SEMX). Shortly thereafter, Mr. Polese was elected to the position of CEO by the Board of Directors. He eventually sold the materials operation to Plansee of Austria in 2003. Mr. Polese left Plansee to rekindle his entrepreneurial spirit, and has since started Oasis Materials Inc.