DayStar Technologies

Dr. DeLuca was appointed director in October 2006 and as DayStar’s Chief Executive Officer in November 2006. Dr. DeLuca joined DayStar in April 2006 as its Chief Operating Officer.

From January 2001 to April 2006, Dr. DeLuca was Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Business Development for INFICON Holding AG (“INFICON”), a leading developer, manufacturer and supplier of innovative vacuum instrumentation, critical sensor technologies, and process control software for the semiconductor and related industries. Dr. DeLuca joined INFICON in January 1991 as Product Manager for Gas Analysis products. In 1994, he assumed responsibility for the start up of INFICON’s Environmental Health and Safety (“EHS”) business unit, and from May of 2000 through December 2002 he managed INFICON’s Asia Sales operations, based in Taiwan. Dr. DeLuca holds a Ph.D. in Applied Chemistry from the Colorado School of Mines, an MBA from Syracuse University, a MS in Geochemistry from the Colorado School of Mines, and a B.A. in Chemistry from University of California, San Diego.

Mr. Ratson Morad brings over 20 years in building and leading startup companies and global organizations in the high tech sector, mainly in PV solar and semiconductor equipment.  Prior to joining DayStar, Mr. Morad was part of the founding team of Solyndra, Inc. and served as Vice President of Engineering and Technology since July 2005. While at Solyndra, Mr. Morad was responsible for the development of new solar panels and the architecture and build of the production systems.  From December 2002 to July 2005, Mr. Morad served as President and Chief Executive Officer at Blue29, a wafer processing startup Company in semiconductor capital equipment industry that was successfully acquired by KLA-Tencor in late 2004. From 1995 to 2002 Mr. Morad held several executive positions at Applied Materials including Vice President and General Manager of a business division where he led the development and commercialization of new 300mm wafer processing systems.  Between 1989 and 1995 Mr. Morad was responsible for the development of new MRI systems at Elscint Medical Imaging in Israel.

Mr. Morad’s prior experience includes serving as Director of Engineering at ECL in Oxford England, where he developed new superconductive magnets for MRI.

Mr. Morad holds a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Ben Gurion University in Israel and completed his studies of Business Management in the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.

Mr. Steckel was appointed as Daystar’s Chief Financial Officer in June 2008.   He brings nearly 20 years of management experience at both public and private companies, ranging in size from $30 million to more than a billion dollars in annual revenues.  He has extensive experience in running large manufacturing organizations, in financial planning and restructuring, in raising significant amounts of capital and in operations of both electronics and biotechnology companies worldwide.

From April 2006 until June 2008, Mr. Steckel was Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President and Treasurer at Norwood Promotional Products, a the leading supplier of imprinted promotional products. Before Norwood, he was with Lambda Power (a division of Invensys plc), a global manufacturer of power supplies, power filtering and power protection equipment, where he was President from 2003 to 2005 and CFO from 2001 to 2002. Earlier in his career, Mr. Steckel served in various financial and general management roles at medical device, microelectronic and electronic components companies.  

Mr. Steckel earned his Bachelor of Science in industrial management at Iowa State University, and his M.B.A. from Western Illinois University. He is also a Certified Public Accountant.

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. Adams has over 20 years experience in technology related sales, marketing and product development.  He joined Daystar in April 2008 from Solyndra, Inc. where he was responsible for market development of new solar module technologies.  Prior to his entry in the solar photovoltaic space in 2006, Mr. Adams spent several years at major semiconductor equipment suppliers in marketing leadership positions for the industry’s most successful companies and products.  At Varian Semiconductor (2003-2006) and Applied Materials (1991-2003) he held various positions in product management, corporate marketing, market research and strategic planning.  Prior to semiconductors, he held various product development positions in the laser and disk drive industry.  He has been granted 9 US patents and has authored several technical papers.

Mr. Adams holds an MBA from the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin and a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.