DayStar Technologies

Mr. Ryde formerly served as President of TSMC-USA, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s United States’ operations.  He also held numerous senior executive positions during his 18 year tenure at KLA-Tencor, the world’s leading supplier of process control and yield management solutions for the semiconductor and related industries, including Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations, manufacturing manager, product marketing manager, KLA Europe Director, and VP of Corporate Sales.  He is a graduate of Linkoping University of Sweden and received his Industrial Engineering MS degree from Stanford University.

Mr. Weiss has served as our Chief Technology Officer since May 2007. He initially joined us in January 2006 as Director of the Equipment Development Group and served as our Vice President of Advanced Technologies from March 2006 to May 2007. From September 2005 to January 2006, he served as a consultant to us. From 1992 to 2005, he was with Intevac, Inc., a supplier of thin film deposition manufacturing equipment, most recently serving as Chief Technology Officer, where he led hardware and process development teams in commercializing tools used in the production of plasma and polysilicon displays, hard disks, and low light cameras. Mr. Weiss has a B.A. in English and Psychology from Grinnell College, Iowa.

Mr. Forkin was appointed as DayStar’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy in July 2009.  He joined DayStar in September 2008.  Mr. Forkin, brings over 25 years of senior level experience in equity research, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions and strategic planning.  He has extensive experience providing strategic and investment research to large institutional investors and private equity firms. 

Immediately prior to joining DayStar, Mr. Forkin was senior vice president, equity capital markets at Tejas Securities Group, Inc., where he specialized in solar photovoltaics, energy technology and other renewable sectors. Earlier in his career, Mr. Forkin was a Senior Manager with the public accounting firm of Deloitte & Touché for 9 years and managed the Corporate Finance Group of Deloitte’s St. Louis office for 5 years. While with Deloitte, Mr. Forkin participated on national, due diligence engagement teams representing two of the largest LBO firms in the country, Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. (“KKR”) and Forstmann, Little & Co.

Mr. Forkin earned his Bachelor of Science in Accountancy at the University of Illinois, Champaign.  He is also a Certified Public Accountant. 

Mr. Dailor was appointed Senior Director of Operations in July of 2009.  He joined DayStar in May of 2008 as our Senior Director of Fab Operations.  Mr. Dailor is responsible for building out our factory and ramping our proprietary technology into production.  Mr. Dailor has over 15 years experience leading high tech manufacturing operations in the semiconductor, thin film hard disk and medical device industries.   Prior to DayStar Technologies, Mr. Dailor held engineering and operations management roles at KLA-Tencor, VLSI Technology and Texas Instruments.

Mr. Dailor earned his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from The University of Florida.