Heather Fleming, Founder | Chief Executive Officer
Heather is a designer, an engineer, and an entrepreneur motivated by social inequality. In 2005, she helped found and then led a volunteer group of engineers and designers focused on humanitarian design projects via Engineers Without Borders (EWB). In July 2008 Heather was named a 2008 Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow, a program aimed at high-potential young leaders with new approaches for transformational impact, for her work with both EWB and Catapult Design. She previously worked in the Silicon Valley product development consulting world and has six years experience working with multi-disciplinary teams to design, develop, and deliver product solutions for a diverse range of companies. Heather also lectures the class “Design for Sustainability” at Stanford University in the Mechanical Engineering department. Heather has a BS in Product Design from Stanford University.
Tyler Valiquette, Founder | Chief Operations Officer
Having lived, worked, and traveled extensively in Latin America in his mid-twenties, Tyler returned to the United States in 2005 determined to devote the rest of his career to tackling the problems of human inequality and environmental degradation that had played such a major role in his travels. In 2007 he joined Engineers Without Borders and became very active in the San Francisco Professionals Chapter, particularly the Appropriate Technology Design Team where he has led the development of a small wind turbine for rural Guatemala. Inspired by the role that technology can play in addressing social injustice and the ongoing global environmental crisis, he was one of the founders of Catapult Design. Tyler has worked both as an industrial mechanical engineer for Chevron and as a project manager for a premier commercial construction company in San Francisco. He prospers most in collaborative, team-oriented environments and thrives on creative problem solving. He has his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Idaho.
Dr. Charlie Sellers | Technology Specialist
Adept in new environments, and combining a background in materials and processes with manufacturing management methods, Charlie serves as a Catapult Tech Specialist. His primary focus is the 3+ billion who depend on wood burning cook stoves, and the economic, health, and environmental effects this has. Charlie has devoted the past several years to implementing and testing of various fuel-efficient and indoor air pollution stoves around the world. Charlie’s skills reside in his ability to quickly assess and analyze operations and manufacturing strategy and optimize their potential. In the Bay Area, he co-founded and served in leadership positions in various corporations taking technologies from concept to market. His passion: adapting developed world knowledge to local conditions in developing countries. Charlie received his BS in Physics from College of William and Mary and his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University.
Catapulters
Danny Alexander, Design Specialist (Black and Blue Design)
Lauren Peters, Marketing (Agency.com)
Morgan Springer, Development Strategist
Emily Eisenhart, Research + Strategy Associate
Board of Directors
Rob Anderson
Managing Director, NY Offices, FENTON | communications
Rob Anderson has a 20-year professional history passionately devoted to one ideal: to leave the world a better place than he found it. A nationally known expert on social marketing and one of the chief strategists behind the highly successful “truth” anti-smoking campaign, Anderson is a frequent speaker at professional conferences on the subject. Anderson was executive vice president for GolinHarris and director of Change, the name of the company’s corporate citizenship, social marketing and cause branding practice, addressing some of society’s toughest challenges. In the public sector, Rob has worked with nonprofit and government agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, American Legacy Foundation, Home Safety Council, Special Olympics, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Ad Council, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. He has advised on many cause marketing campaigns for clients such as State Farm, Lowe’s, Toyota, PacifiCare, Capital One, and Burger King Corporation for its college scholarship program for low-income youth.
Prior to joining Fenton, Anderson founded his own educational services company, Jabberü, With the tagline “growing up global,” the Jabberü brand communicates to parents the importance of learning another language and about other cultures at a young age. Jabberü is now the leading provider of early childhood language learning in the Washington, D.C. area, with plans for national expansion. He has also worked as a television reporter and press secretary to the Governor of Florida and is a member of the Public Relations Society of America, the American Marketing Association, the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the National Network for Early Language Learning.
Graham Hill
VP Interactive Planet Green, Discovery Communications
Founder, Treehugger.com
Alternately described as serial entrepreneur, do-gooder and designer, Graham Hill certainly enjoys variety although now finds this future happily confined to the social entrepreneurship arena. Hill and the TreeHugger.com team recently joined the Discovery Communications family of networks as part of its Planet Green multi-platform, global environmental initiative. Besides this, he owns a product business that sells a New York souvenir he designed a few years ago, available in 175 stores including MOMA. Graham has a Bachelor’s of Architecture with distinction from Carleton University in Ottawa and did advanced studies in Industrial Design at E.C.I.A.D, Vancouver. Graham has lived all over the world and his guiltiest sin is air travel (offset of course). He speaks English, French, German and Spanish and is addicted to squash.
Advisory Board
Ralf Hotchkiss
Founder, Designer of Whirlwind Wheelchair
A wheelchair-rider, an engineer, an inventor. Ralf Hotchkiss is the co-founder of Whirlwind Wheelchair International and currently Whirlwind’s Chief Engineer and principal instructor in their wheelchair design class at UC-San Francisco. He’s also an Advisory Board member of Women Pushing Forward (formerly Whirlwind Women). In 1989 he was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow and has since received countless other honors and awards. For 35+ years, Ralf has been a wheelchair designer, builder, and trainer. With Whirlwind, Ralf has worked in 42 countries teaching people who need wheelchairs how to build and maintain them for themselves.
Kurt Kornbluth
Director of the UC-Davis Program of International Energy Technology
Kurt Kornbluth is the Director of the UC Davis Program for International Energy Technology (PIET). He holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UC Davis and is a UC Davis Graduate School of Management Business Development Fellow. Kurt has worked in the field of renewable energy and energy efficiency since 1993, most recently as an emerging ventures analyst at the UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center. Kurt Started his career in the Detroit auto industry and has a diverse background including implementing appropriate technology projects in Africa and Central America, and implementing the “Village Power” project for DEKA Research and Development in Bangladesh. In 2004, he worked with Amy Smith at MIT to develop the curriculum for “D-Lab” which exposed students to energy issues in developing countries. He received a 2008 World Bank Lighting Africa Development Marketplace grant to design and disseminate a low-cost alternative to kerosene lighting in Zambia. Kurt is also an active member of Humdinger Wind Energy LLC as an international energy specialist.
Chris Tacklind
Founder of TwillTech
Chris Tacklind is a serial entrepreneur known for outside-of-the-icosahedron thinking. A prolific inventor he holds dozens of patents including the first patents on Hewlett Packard’s ink jet technology. His current commercial project is the development of a new type of electric car – called the “Twill” – that promotes safety, efficiency, and comfort. Chris also served as technical founder of several companies that produced Laser construction tools, medical devices, and even toys. Chris is also behind Laser Finger, a device for quadriplegics that allows them to control their environment. Chris led the engineering effort by a team of high school students, sponsored by a grant from Lemelson-MIT. Chris will use Laser Finger as a national program for bringing the work of young inventors to people in need. He is also active in a number of technical education programs including 7 years with FIRST Robotics, a founding mentor in WeTeachScience.org and 11 years as a mentor in Destination Imagination. Chris holds BS degrees in Mathematics and Physics from UC Santa Cruz and a Masters in Mechanical engineering from Stanford University.
Jocelyn Wyatt
Jocelyn Wyatt leads IDEO’s social impact domain. Jocelyn’s career has focused on building social enterprises and advising businesses in the developing world. She is passionate about using the market to create social change and believes that design is an effective tool to address some of the world’s largest problems. At IDEO, Jocelyn has brought a business perspective to a variety of social impact projects with clients including Rockefeller Foundation, Kickstart, Acumen Fund, and Gates Foundation. Prior to joining IDEO in October 2007, Jocelyn was selected as an Acumen Fund fellow and worked in Kenya for eight months with an agro-pharmaceutical company involved in the production of malaria treatments. Jocelyn served as VisionSpring’s Interim Country Director in India and helped increase the distribution of low-cost reading glasses to the urban and rural poor. Additionally, Jocelyn worked in project management and business development at Chemonics International, a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Jocelyn received an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management and a BA in Anthropology from Grinnell College.
Brian Lamb
Elevate Design Consulting, Principal
Brian Lamb is a visionary business and design leader at Elevate Design Consulting. He has been a hands-on, multi-disciplinary Director and consultant for 10 years in Silicon Valley at D2M, a technology-oriented product design and development firm. He has worked with over 30 Silicon Valley startups in such wide ranging sectors as consumer electronics, medical, biotech and industrial. He has consulted on the development of new products for leading companies such as HDTV technologies with Intel and Texas Instruments; drug delivery devices with Johnson and Johnson internal ventures, power tools and safety equipment for Black & Decker and many more. Brian has adjunct lectured at Stanford University in their foundational design class Introduction to Visual Thinking, and coached students in the Mechanical Engineering, Product Design and d.School program classes. Brian has an MSME from Stanford University, a BSME from the University of New Hampshire and grew up in Rochester, New York.
