Our Team

Mr. Lakios has over thirty years of experience serving the semiconductor, data storage, and optical device industries and is the holder of several patents in the field of process equipment and device structure. From 2015 until earlier this year, Mr. Lakios was the President and Chief Executive Officer at Sensor Electronic Technology, Inc., overseeing that company’s transition from R&D to a leading global commercial UV LED supplier. From 2003 to 2011 he was the Executive Vice President of Field Operations and President and Chief Operating Officer at Imago Scientific, bringing it from pre-revenue to a commercial leadership position in the 3D atomic scale tomography field.  Mr. Lakios was previously employed at Veeco Instruments Inc. from 1984 until 2003, where he held several positions, including President of the Process Equipment Group and Executive Vice President of Field Operations. He has been involved in several acquisitions and numerous product line launches. He received his BE in Mechanical Engineering with focus in Material Science from SUNY Stony Brook in 1984.

Thomas McNeill was appointed as the Company’s Chief Financial Officer, Secretary and Treasurer effective as of March 4, 2019. Mr. McNeill has been a Chief Financial Officer ("CFO") since 1996 and has seventeen years' of SEC reporting experience with two public companies, as well as a full range of financial and operational experience. Since April 2015, he has been CFO at Century Direct, LLC, a printing and mailing company serving the direct mail marketing industry. From November 2014 to April 2015, he was a consultant at Mailmen Inc. until its assets were purchased by Century Direct, LLC. Mr. McNeill was CFO/COO at Nina McLemore from July 2013 to June 2014, a woman's retail apparel Company. On the Public reporting side, he was CFO at DineWise, Inc. from April 2006 to April 2013, a direct to consumer prepared frozen foods company, and from October 1996 to April 2006, was CFO at Global Payment Technologies, Inc, a hi-tech manufacturing and engineering company. Mr. McNeill is a Certified Public Accountant who began his career at KPMG, achieving the position of audit manager. Mr. McNeill holds a BBA in accounting from Hofstra University.

Dr. Aragon has over twenty-five (25) years of thin-film process, materials, and system expertise applied to photovoltaic, optical, electronic, and magnetic device fabrication.  He received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1990 and his MBA from Santa Clara University in 1996.  Dr. Aragon is the holder of five (5) process equipment design patents.  He was a co-founder of Optimus Energy Systems International Inc. and served as its Chief Technical Officer and Sr. Vice President – Engineering.  Prior to his service at Optimus Energy Systems International Inc., he was Vice President – Engineering at Stion Corporation.  His prior experience also included serving as Vice President – Engineering at Day Star Technologies.

Dr. Karlheinz Strobl has served as Vice President of Business Development since October 2007.  From 1997 - 2007 Dr. Strobl served as founder and President of eele Laboratories, LLC.  From that venture, two separate spinoff companies were created; Projector Lamp Services in the United States, and JiangSu CLP Lamp Opto-electronic Technology Co., Ltd. in China.  From 1993-1997 Dr. Strobl held several Executive Positions at Karl Storz Endovision, a German Medical Equipment Manufacturing Company.

Dr. Strobl holds over 14 Patents and earned an MBA from Boston University, a PhD from the University of Innsbruck in Austria through the Max Plank Institute in Garching, Germany, an M.S. from the University of Innsbruck, and an M.S. from the University of Padova, Italy.  He also worked as a Post Doctoral Graduate at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

William S. Linss is the Vice President, Operations for the CVD/FirstNano® Division of CVD. In addition to managing daily engineering and production operations, Bill is instrumental in expanding the company’s technology capabilities, developing new products and positioning CVD for growth. Prior to his promotion in 2013, Bill was the Division Manager for the CVD/FirstNano® Division since 2005. Bill has worked in Semiconductor Manufacturing and Chemical Vapor Deposition for 25 years. From 1980 through 1988 Bill worked at Standard Microsystems Corp. in Hauppauge, NY, advancing to Equipment Engineering Manager with all capital equipment responsibilities for SMC’s MOS/VLSIC manufacturing. Bill was employed by CVD from 1988 through 1994, advancing through various positions as Electrical Systems Designer, Field Service Engineer and Production Manager.  From 1994 through 2001 Bill served as a Software Quality Assurance (SQA) Manager with Otari Corporation, at their Long Island pro-audio R&D office; and later with AP Engines in Sacramento, CA, a Cable TV billing solutions start-up.  In 2001, Bill re-joined CVD to head the newly acquired Research International Division for SMT reflow oven manufacturing, which then resulted in CVD’s acquisition of the Conceptronic product line.

Prior to his appointment as Vice President & General Manager SDC Division, Mr. Collins served as the General Manager of CVD’s SDC Division since 1999. From 1990 to 1999 he was employed by Stainless Design Corp. as Manager of Field Operations and Product Development Advisor. Mr. Collins attended Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Dr. Shatalov has over twenty years of experience serving the semiconductor research and device industry and is the holder of more than 75 U.S. patents in the field of process equipment, semiconductor devices, and their applications. Dr. Shatalov joined Sensor Electronic Technology Inc.(SETi), a subsidiary of Korean LED company Seoul Viosys, in 2006, and held multiple technical management positions. From 2017 until earlier this year Dr. Shatalov was Vice President of Technology at SETi responsible for the UV LED technology and LED applications development. He received his MSc in 1994 from the St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University “LETI” in Russia. In 1994 he joined the Ioffe Institute, one of Russia’s largest institutions for research in physics and technology, as research scientist and obtained his PhD there in 1999. Max performed his post doctorate research at the University of South Carolina from 1999 through 2006 contributing to pioneering research and twice was a recipient of the Japanese Society of Applied Physics Award.