Bill Kroll, Chairman and CEO
Matheson Tri-Gas

Bill Kroll completed his undergraduate and graduate work at Northwestern University. He's an established author, having penned more than 50 papers in the areas of physical and chemical vapor deposition for semiconductor technology, and he is a member of IEEE, SEMI, SPIE, SAE, The Electrochemical Society and MRS. Bill has served on the Boards of Princeton Photonics and Optoelectronics Materials Center, and currently serves on the boards of the CGA, AeA, IOMA, Matheson Tri-Gas, Inc. and Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation. Kroll was inducted into the New Jersey High Tech Hall of Fame in 2004, and was named as one of the top 25 Entrepreneurs in NJ by NJ Biz in 2006. Under Kroll’s leadership, Matheson Tri-Gas, Inc. was named Large Company of the Year by the New Jersey Technology Council in 2006. And in addition to being a master marketeer (especially in CS gasses and MOCVD technology), Bill Kroll is also a master sailboat skipper.
 

Phil Yin, President and CEO
AXT

Phil served as general manager of North America for Aixtron, a position he held from 2003 until taking over the helm at AXT in 2005. Prior to Aixtron, Phil... who holds a Ph.D. in material science from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute... was sole proprietor of Philip S. Yin Consulting, specializing in epitaxial deposition, starting wafers, and strategic business development. From 1999 to 2002, he served as president of ATMI Epitaxial Services and prior to that he was senior VP, sales and marketing of Crysteco, and director of sales for Mitsubishi Silicon America. He came up through the ranks originally at Monsanto Electronics Materials and IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. A former Marine, Phil's one of the most personable and jovial people I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know. He's so cool, that, as a 21 year member of "HOG" (Harley Owner's Group), in his spare time he serves on the Harley Davidson Advisory Panel (as in motorcycle giant). Phil's also a member of the Electrochemical Society, The American Association of Crystal Growth (AACG) and past executive committee member of the Northern California Crystal Growers (NCCG). In his role now as the head of AXT, and because of AXT's strong ties and many joint ventures in Asia, Phil is considered an expert in doing business in mainland China. He also considered an expert in GaAs and InP substrate technology with exceptional breadth and depth of knowledge and understanding about epitaxy.
 

Keith Evans, President and CEO
Kyma Technologies

Keith Evans, who received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Purdue University, has a compound semi pedigree that would make anyone in the field envious. Getting his start in the field at the USA's Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) in Dayton, Ohio at Wright Patterson AFB, Keith built a world class Air Force research group while at AFRL, where he established a precedent-setting effort in the sensor-based control of MBE crystal growth and published over 200 publications. His decade plus at Wright Pat provided him uniquely strong ties with all the DoD agencies involved in compound semi R&D, many of which help support Kyma's outstanding research and development in native GaN substrates. Keith left AFRL in 1996 to join a laser startup and has gone on to hold a number of key executive positions in the CS industry that span the entire supply chain including substrates, epitaxial growth, epitaxial growth equipment, and devices. Prior to becoming president and CEO of Kyma Technology, he served as senior VP business development and chief marketing officer for Crystal IS, where he enabled A-round equity financing and scored a key NIST ATP grant. Keith also served as VP of advanced technology at Veeco-St. Paul, where he developed and won funding for that company's Epitaxial Growth Process Integration Center (PIC). When he was VP of operations and advanced technology for QED, Keith drove record production efficiencies, revenues, and profits and proposed the successful merger between QED and Epitaxial Products International, which resulted in the formation of IQE. IQE has gone on to become the industry's largest compound semiconductor wafer manufacturer and it is still growing, as evidenced by the recent merger with Emcore's epitaxial group and the recent acquisition of MBE Technologies.