Management Team

Executive Management

Neal Gutterson, President and Chief Executive Officer
Greg Ikonen, General Counsel
Jeffrey B. McElroy, Vice President, BioEnergy Seeds
Murray Phimester, Chief Financial Officer
Oliver J. Ratcliffe, Vice President, Research
Aaron Schuchart, Vice President, Corporate Development and Strategy
Christopher Williams-Campbell, Vice President, Human Resources
James Zhang, Vice President, Business Development

Science Management

Joshua Armstrong, Director of Research
Garry W. Martin, Director of Bioinformatics
Peter Repetti, Director of Research
T. Lynne Reuber, Director of Research

Neal Gutterson, President and Chief Executive Officer

Neal has been Chief Executive Officer since February, 2007. He joined Mendel June 2002 and served as VP, R&D, and then Chief Operating Officer, prior to his appointment as President & COO in December, 2005. Neal is a member of the Board of Directors. Neal has been involved in plant biotechnology since 1983, when he joined the fledgling biotechnology company AGS, to develop genetically improved microbial biocontrol agents. Before joining Mendel, he spent 18 years at DNAP, where he managed diverse research programs and corporate relationships, and then served as VP, R&D for several years. He is a named inventor on more than 2 dozen patents and pending applications,. Neal holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. in Chemistry from Yale University. He also attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business for an executive education program. He serves as a member of the Food and Agriculture Section and the Industrial and Environmental Section Governing Boards of the Biotechnology Industry Organization. He also serves on the executive committee of SCRA, a program to support regulatory approval of biotech specialty crop products, and on the steering committee of CSBP, the Council for Sustainable Biomass Production.

Greg Ikonen, General Counsel

Greg joined Mendel in December 2007 with over fifteen years' experience across a broad range of legal and business matters, including structuring and negotiating complex transactions, intellectual property counseling, and general corporate and litigation issues, with a focus on biotechnology companies. Greg previously served as general counsel at a Bay Area biotechnology company. Prior to that he was a partner in the Life Sciences Group at Heller Ehrman LLP, and a partner at Venture Law Group, a Silicon Valley law firm focused on venture-backed life sciences and technology companies. Greg holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Jeffrey B. McElroy, Vice President, BioEnergy Seeds

JB McElroy joined Mendel Biotechnology, Inc. in June 2008 as Vice President BioEnergy Seeds, responsible for the development of the BioEnergy crops program at Mendel. This includes the establishment of the breeding programs and support functions, seed production logistics and new product development activities for the BioEnergy crops to be used primarily for cellulosic biofuels production.

Dr. McElroy received an AB degree from Harvard College in Biology - Economic Botany (1976), and MS and Ph. D. degrees from Cornell University (1982, 1985). He was a Visiting Scientist in the dry bean program at CIAT in Cali, Colombia from 1982 to 1984. After a year Postdoctoral position at the University of Nebraska in dry bean research, he began a professional career in the vegetable seed industry. He was a Plant Breeder at PetoSeed Co. Inc. from 1986 to 1994, based in Italy and California, Head of Vegetable Breeding at L. Daehnfeldt, Odense, Denmark from 1994 to 1997, Divisional Manager Vegetable Seeds at L. Daehnfeldt from 1997 to 1998, and prior to joining Mendel, Dr. McElroy was Vice President Research at Harris Moran Seed Company, CA, where he managed the plant breeding programs and research activities for many vegetable crop species. Dr. McElroy has travelled extensively throughout Europe, Asia and South America and his expertise includes economic botany, plant breeding and research management.

Murray Phimester, Chief Financial Officer

Murray joined Mendel in September 1997 at the commencement of operations. Prior to Mendel, Murray accumulated 20 years experience as a financial consultant and an internal and external auditor serving a broad range of public and private clients in Canada. Murray holds a Bachelor of Business Administration and Commerce from the University of Alberta.

Oliver J. Ratcliffe, Vice President, Research

Oliver joined Mendel in June 1999. He was appointed to the position of Vice President of Research in December 2005, following a two year period as a research director. He is a named inventor on more than 30 issued patents and published patent applications and has authored a range of scientific papers on topics including developmental biology, the control of flowering, and the regulation of environmental stress responses in plants. Oliver holds a B.A. in Genetics from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the John Innes Centre at the University of East Anglia.

Aaron Schuchart, Vice President, Corporate Development and Strategy

Aaron joined Mendel in July 2007 with twenty years of experience in both the biotechnology and energy industries. Prior to Mendel, Aaron structured and negotiated many collaborations and alliances at Amgen, Inc where he was responsible for global outlicensing activities. Prior to Amgen, he held various positions in operations, finance, and business development at Atlantic Richfield Company. Aaron holds a BBA from Texas Tech University and an MBA from UCLA.

Christopher Williams-Campbell, Vice President, Human Resources

Chris joined Mendel in April 2008 with over 23 years of human resource experience. Chris has served in a variety of human resource and management positions in the transportation (UPS), pharmaceutical (ALZA), medical device (VOLCANO), and software (ABSO) industries. Chris holds a BA in History from the University of California, Davis.

James Zhang, Vice President, Business Development

James joined the company in August of 1997 as one of the founding scientists. James holds a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of California at Davis and completed postdoctoral studies at Stanford University where he studied plant embryo development.

Joshua Armstrong, Director of Research

Josh joined Mendel in August, 2004 and now directs chemical genetics and new technology development programs at Mendel. Josh was appointed to his current position in January, 2008. Prior to joining Mendel, Josh was a post-doctoral fellow at the Plant Gene Expression Center in Albany CA, where he demonstrated one of the first applications of forward chemical genetics in Arabidopsis thaliana. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

Garry W. Martin, Director of Bioinformatics

Mendel hired Garry in 1998 to help run bioinformatics for the company's ground-breaking charter effort to identify all transcription factors in the Arabidopsis genome. In 2001, he was appointed to another lead role, in Mendel's successful Advanced Technology Program project, then distinguished as the second largest funding grant in the history of the federal NIST ATP agency. In 2004, Mendel picked him to launch cheminformatics for its new Helmont Chemical Genetics subsidiary project. Garry's career in information technology began in the mid 1970's, as a student of computer science at the University of California, at Berkeley, and since then he has accumulated more than 30 years of experience in data management, systems analysis, and software development in research settings.

Peter Repetti, Director of Research

Peter joined Mendel in June, 2002 and was appointed as a research director in January, 2008. Peter has extensive expertise in the areas of plant-pathogen interactions, abiotic stress tolerance and expression profiling and currently directs a systems biology program to develop high resolution maps of plant transcriptional networks. Prior to joining Mendel, Peter worked at DNA Plant Technology in Oakland, CA. He holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Plant Biology, where he studied the molecular signaling of plant defenses against bacterial pathogens.

T. Lynne Reuber, Director of Research

Lynne joined Mendel in 1998, and was appointed to the position of Research Director in 2002. She currently directs a research program aimed at elucidating the mode of action of transcription factor leads for trait areas including yield enhancement, abiotic stress tolerance, and disease resistance. Prior to joining Mendel, Lynne was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, working in the area of plant-pathogen interactions. She holds a Ph.D. in Biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lynne is a named inventor on over 30 published patents and patent applications, and has authored publications in the area of plant-microbe interactions and plant transcription factor biology.