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Meet the Team
Bill Edwards
CEO & Co-founder
Dr. Bill Edwards is an alumnus of the M.C. Gill Composites Center at the University of Southern California and Founder of Apogee Composites. His doctoral research focused on developing a fundamental understanding of design, production, and processing of through-thickness permeable prepregs.
Edwards produced the first embodiments of a robust unidirectional prepreg, generating data indicating the efficacy of discontinuous resin distributions. He conceived of several of the prepregging methods to be exploited for scalable production of through-thickness permeable prepreg, and his work has led to identification of process phenomena and defect formation mechanisms that have been leveraged to inform the design of next-generation prepregs.
Edwards has further experience successfully qualifying new materials for insertion on commercial aircraft. He managed technical communication between material suppliers and aircraft assemblers, developing and winning approval for test protocols used in lot acceptance testing.
Professor Steve Nutt leads a group of students and personnel devoted to understanding and developing processes for composites manufacturing. He is the founding director of USC’s M.C. Gill Composites Center.
The scope of his research emphasizes defect control in prepregs and liquid molding processes for aerospace composites. He joined the faculty at USC in 1994 after spending 8 years on the faculty at Brown University.
Prof. Nutt is an Associate Editor of the journal Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, a member of the SAMPE (Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering) Board of Directors, and has published >250 manuscripts in academic journals.
Prof. Steve Nutt
Researcher Supervisor
& Consultant
Mark Anders
Researcher, Consultant,
& Co-founder
Dr. Mark Anders is a Ph.D. graduate from the M. C. Gill Composites Center and a former postdoctoral researcher. During his Ph.D. and postgraduate research, Mark studied defect mitigation in composites manufacturing by designing and building lab-scale composites processing equipment that enabled in situ visualization of defect formation phenomena.
These tools – a resin transfer molding (RTM) system and a miniature autoclave – provided critical insights into the causes of previously-unidentified defect formation mechanisms, and inspired the development of additional tools for in situ process analysis (including one for VBO prepreg processing) at the Composites Center.
His experience has given him an intimate understanding of process-induced defects and how to prevent them, as well as familiarity with design and construction of prototype industrial equipment.
Dr. David Bender is a recent graduate of USC in Chemical Engineering with a research emphasis on composites processing. His work primarily focuses on repair and fast cure of prepreg composites.
He has experience designing and testing prepreg materials for in-field conditions. He has designed OoA prepreg systems capable of minutes-scale cure cycles while maintaining minimal porosity.
His work on optimized repair prepregs has been published and presented at conferences including SAMPE and Aerodef.
David Bender
Researcher & Co-founder
David MacInnis
Chairman of the Board
David MacInnis is currently the CEO of a financial services company. David has been in the financial services space for more than 40 years.
He has many years of entrepreneurial experience launching companies, serving on boards and in advisory roles, working through issues and obstacles to help these organizations grow and flourish. These companies are in the following fields: non-profits, digital sports marketing, long distance hauling/transportation, medical testing devices, restaurant operations, corporate and private security, and financial services.
His experience has included securitization, mergers and acquisitions, warehouse lines, operational efficiencies, human resources, and IT oversight.
Mike Richardson serves as the CFO/COO of Apogee Composites. Mike earned his degree in economics from University of California, Los Angeles.
Mike has professional experience in accounting, auto lending, commercial banking, asset securitization, and second mortgage lending. Mike also is involved in commercial real estate as a private investor.
Through his experience in finance and operations, he is excited to be a part of Apogee Composites’ business growth and development.
