Chris Ford Email Address

Family owned and family operated manufacturer of American Made power lift and recline chairs, power wheelchairs, and mobility scooters.

Overall, I am interested in corporate, government and entrepreneurial opportunities in energy. Currently, I am serving as a technology commercialization consultant with the Department of Energy (DOE) through the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity (http://energy.gov/diversity/office-economic-impact-and-diversity). In short, I am developing an innovation ecosystem for the DOE to better commercialize technology include diverse groups.My primary role is to advise the Director on strategies for commercializing the Department of Energy’s (DOE) more than 16,000 patents utilizing minority businesses (MBs) and minority serving institutions (MSIs) as collaborative partners. I am responsible for designing, developing, and deploying a national commercialization program which will improve small and minority business utilization, increase job growth, and modernize and diversify the workforce. I also work with other DOE offices that are stakeholders in DOE commercialization infrastructure to collaborate and leverage respective goals. Externally, I collaborate with various stakeholders (investors, entrepreneurs, etc) to create an innovation ecosystem which will commercialization technology and stimulate economic development. Professionally, I have been a researcher of fuel cells for 10 years and an entrepreneur in the healthcare and technical/business consulting the past 4 years. I began my research on PEM fuel cells and have been modeling and conducting system studies of solid oxide fuel cells (inclusive of hybrid scenarios) for six years. I have a passion to cutting edge technology become commercialized. My doctoral dissertation was entitled, "Thermodynamic Optimization of Planar Solid oxide fuel cells. In short, I developed a 2nd Law design methodology to optimize performance and adverse temperature gradients. Also, I received special graduate training in technology commercialization and entrepreneurship through the two year TI:GER program at Georgia Tech. Specialties: thermal analysis, finite element analysis, energy system analysis, fuel cell analysis, heat transfer modeling, technology commercialization