About Me:

Chuck has a graduate degree in Industrial Design from the University of Washington, 5 years at Boeing Aircraft in Structural Test Engineering and twenty years experience in product design, engineering and development. He has done additional studies at Stanford University and Darden School of Design. His design involvement has mostly been with small companies, where he wore many hats and was usually responsible for market research, product design, engineering, manufacturing processes, cost analysis and collateral.

Over the past 20 years, Chuck has been involved in business development with hi-tech Silicon Valley start-ups, helping them to bring their new ideas and technologies to the market, via the Design Thinking processes.

During that period, he has worked as a team member with 10 start-up enterprises – two were acquired, and one went to IPO.  Chuck’s  “generalist” background provides a valuable asset to the start-up industry in Silicon Valley, where the vast majority of individuals are highly specialized. This enables him to assist in product design and positioning with  a “customer centric”  viewpoint to ensure that the developed value proposition meshes closely with the target market needs.

Chuck also owned and operated a solar sales, design and distribution company and developed a dealership channel throughout the San Joaquin Valley. Designed active DHW and Pool Systems, and designed Passive Solar Homes.

He has also worked with Department of Housing and Urban Development as an Urban Renewal Analyst for Region 10 – Wash, Idaho and Alaska, assisting municipalities and LPAs in securing and utilizing Federal funding for projects.