
TRION’s Leadership Team
TRION’s proprietary technology is being advanced by highly qualified scientists. TRION’s four PhD scientists are supported and governed by a dedicated Management Team, Board of Directors and Advisory Board.
Board of Directors & Management

Eric M. Leslie
Director
- Co-Founded TRION in August 2013
- Extensive experience with start-ups & growing businesses
- 30 years experience in VC funding
- Entrepreneur in residence – South Dakota School of Mines & Technology
- Director Metamaterial Inc. (Nasdaq: MMAT)
- BA in Economics from Western University

EDWARD R. BUIEL, PhD
Director
- CEO/Founder Coulometrics, an advanced energy storage consulting and battery production/testing business based in Chattanooga, TN
- 26 years of experience in development materials & energy storage devices including Lithium-ion batteries, supercapacitors, NiMH batteries & lead acid batteries
- Former CTO of Axion Power & Ioxus
- Extensive connections with battery manufacturers, OEMs, material companies and U.S. government agencies.

MARK R. SMITH, LL.B
Chairman
- CEO Surmont Energy Ltd. & CEO Strategic Lithium Mining Corporation
- International experience including; cross-border transactions, strategic alliance partnerships, commodity trading arrangements and regulatory matters
- Former Partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer LLP
- LL.B and B.Comm degrees from University of Alberta

DAN HURAS, CPA
Director
- CPA (CA) with extensive experience in management, finance, projects and business development
- Leadership roles in several large organizations, as well as leading start-up ventures
- Wide-ranging Board experience including sitting on audit committees

Jeffrey Milne
Director
- Former Head of Global Capacity Planning at Amazon
- Former Director of Global Supply Chain Management at Duracell
- 20+ years of Supply Chain experience with P&G
- Proven track record of delivering outstanding product supply and business results
- Extensive experience in mfg. ops and financial management

Thomas R. Zwaska
Director & Secretary
- Electronics Engineer with BSEE degree from Drexel University
- 30+ years of expertise in embedded computer systems and systems architecture
- Broad expertise used in advancing TRION’s Battery Management System

VINCENT CHEVRIER, PhD
Chief Technology Officer
- PhD Physics Dalhousie University J. Dahn Group
- Post Doc, MIT, G. Ceder Group
- 10 years of industrial experience developing materials and technologies for LIBs at 3M
- Commercialization of Si alloy materials
- Prelithiation, materials synthesis, electrode design & cell design
- Computational and experimental experience
- 6,000+ Citations

ROBERT GILLIES, CPA
Chief Financial Officer
- Extensive experience working with start-ups as a CFO
- Assisted in numerous go public transactions
- Experienced with junior listed companies and security filing requirements

Brian Humphry
VP Bus. Dev. / Director
- Extensive experience as Founding Partner in multiple start-up companies
- 25+ years experience as an entrepreneur
- Experienced board member,
with extensive board audit committee experience
Advisors

LARRY KRAUSE, PhD
Strategic Advisor – Battery Materials
- Principal of Cyclikal, a consultancy firm specializing in high precision analytics and testing of batteries, based in St. Paul, Minneapolis
- 36 year career at 3M as a Battery Scientist and Executive. Developed extensive IP portfolio for 3M
- Principle Investigator of 30kWh USABC project managed by 3M with partners Hydro-Québec and Argonne National Laboratories
- 3M spearheaded the development of NMC cathode material, invented by Prof. Jeff Dahn, for use in lithium-ion batteries. NMC materials have been used in the production of tens of billions of Lithium-Ion batteries in recent years
- Initiated early efforts in main group metals and metalloids (e.g. Si, Sn, etc.) for use in high energy density Lithium-Ion batteries

DAVID S. DEAK, PhD
Strategic Advisor – Commercialization
- Operating Partner – Azimuth Capital Management, a $1B private equity low-carbon energy fund
- Principle – Marbex LLC, consultancy firm focused on energy materials markets and deployments
- Formerly CTO and SVP – Lithium Americas Corp., TSX and NYSE listed lithium mining developer
- Formerly Senior Manager – Tesla Inc. – built up Tesla’s battery raw materials supply chain and pursued upstream investment strategies

ROBERT PURDY
Strategic Advisor – Capital Markets
- Principal Purdy & Partners Inc. – Private Equity and Venture Capital Firm founded in 2008
- Formerly senior advisor at Peters & Co., Canaccord Capital and began his career in 1993 at RBC Dominion Securities
- Co-Founder of Benevity, Founder Chronos Resources, Strategic Advisor and Board member to a number of Early-Stage Ventures in the Energy, Infrastructure and Technology sectors
- Advisor and Mentor at the Founders Institute and keynote speaker at Start-Up incubators and events
Passionate about technologies that “change the way we do business and live our lives”

DARYL H. GILBERT, P.Eng.
- Director JOG Capital Inc.
- Former President & CEO GLJ Petroleum Consultants
- Broad understanding of traditional and renewable energy sector
- Extensive senior management & board experience with multiple energy related companies

Darren Haar
- Business turnarounds, leadership, product development, cross-functional team leadership, and entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneur in residence – South Dakota School of Mines & Technology
- Former global business director microcircuit materials for DuPont
Scientific Team

DAVID SALEM, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
- PhD, University of Manchester, UK
- CPhys, Chartered Physicist, UK
- Director, Composites and Polymer Engineering Laboratory (CAPE)
- Team Leader - Joint Collaboration TRION/CAPE SiMoGraph™
- Expertise: Processing, structure and properties of polymers, composites and nanocomposites
- >90 refereed scientific publications, 15 book chapters, 1 book
- 9 granted US patents

FAN ZHENG, PhD
Battery Scientist
- PhD, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
- Materials Synthesis Lead
- Extensive materials formulation and synthesis experience
- Expertise: nanomaterials synthesis, thin film deposition, polymer synthesis
- >15 refereed scientific publications
- PhD thesis: Flexible electronics for space applications: development of new materials and device processing technologies

GEORGE LANE, PhD
Battery Scientist
- PhD, Monash University, Australia
- Developed fluorine-free lithium battery
- Former Research Director at Ioxus – spearheaded scientific development & commercialization of TITAN™ Cell technology
- Expertise: Electrolyte chemistry
- Key patents for lithium-ion batteries, magnesium batteries & ultracapacitor electrolytes
- Numerous highly cited academic publications
TRION Energy Solutions
TRION Energy Solutions Corp. is a private Delaware corporation, incorporated in August of 2013. To date TRION has raised over $12 million to advance the Company’s goal of delivering a cost-effective way to improve energy density storage capacity in multiple different devices. TRION is commercializing its proprietary silicon modified graphite anode materials (“SiMoGraph™”) that are engineered to improve Lithium-Ion battery performance by about 35%. Utilization of SiMoGraph™ by Lithium Ion battery cell manufacturers will not require them to change out their legacy equipment or radically change their manufacturing processes.

