Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The Mover

Sun Catalytix CEO Decelle has seen good and bad of startup life

By Bridget Botelho, Special to Mass High Tech

Mike Decelle
President and CEO, Sun Catalytix Corp.
Previous Positions: President and CEO of Lumenz and NoblePeak Vision.
Education: Bachelor’s in electrical engineering from the University of New Hampshire; and master's in electrical engineering from Cornell University.

Cambridge-based startup Sun Catalytix Corp. has the potential to revolutionize the alternative fuel industry, if it can successfully commercialize its technology.

That critical piece of the equation is in the hands of Mike Decelle, a veteran CEO in the technology startup space who has witnessed the good, the bad and the ugly in venture-backed companies over the past decade. He took over the reins at Sun Catalytix as its president and chief executive officer on June 1.

Sun Catalytix products will be based on research from MIT professor Daniel Nocera, who seeks to combine sunlight and water to provide affordable, highly distributed renewable energy.
New England native Decelle comes to Sun Catalytix from LumenZ, a Boston startup that was developing next-generation LEDs until it was shut down this spring. He also served at the helm of three startups in the photonics industry: NoblePeak Vision, Apogee Photonics and ASIP. Those companies raised more than $50 million in financing and had sales exceeding $100 million.

Decelle started his career on the technical staff at AT&T Bell Labs in the 1980s, right out of University of New Hampshire’s engineering school. At the time, Bell Labs paid for employees to attend graduate school, so Decelle earned a masters degree from Cornell University on Bell’s dime. He then did “hard core” engineering work at Bell from 1983 until about 1990, when he moved into commercial sales for AT&T. Over the next decade, he served as a sales executive and managed the company’s massive network software business.

In 2000, Decelle made his move away from big corporate to the turbulent world startup companies. “(At AT&T) I was involved in operations, and I wanted to do more field work,” he said. “I needed to move to a smaller, higher growth company where I could be more connected to the business.”

Over the next 10 years, Decelle experienced the highs and lows of venture-backed startups, beginning with Chorum Technologies in Dallas, a company that provided optical processors and subsystems for communications networks. It was the dot-com bubble era and that company was just about to go public, so it was a good learning opportunity. He led marketing, sales and business development for 18 months, until the market for fiber optic equipment collapsed and the company was unable to go public, he said. “That was my introduction to the harsh reality of the venture industry,” Decelle said.

In 2002 he joined Pennsylvania-based Apogee Photonics Inc. As president and CEO, he grew that company from a pre-product startup to a top supplier of high-speed laser transmitters and in April 2007, Apogee was successfully acquired by CyOptics.

Decelle then shifted to startup NoblePeak Vision Corp. in Wakefield. “It was an interesting experience,” Decelle said. “I was brought in as an advisor on the competitive placement of (NoblePeak’s) product. We realized it would have challenges competing in the market, so we decided to shut the company down not long after I joined.”

Decelle moved to LumenZ in 2010, which had been developing lower cost LEDs. “I was brought in in July 2010 to work with the investors to determine whether the company’s technology (based on the Zinc-Oxide material system), when it came to market, would be competitive with the incumbent technology (i.e. Gallium Nitride). Our conclusion was that it would be a very tough competitive battle requiring significant additional investment over a very long period of time.”

Decelle stayed in the startup world despite some tough stops. But the green technology space in Boston is a growing market with long-term potential, he said.  “When you look at the cost of fuel, given sufficient time there will be plenty of opportunities for new products in clean tech,” Decelle said. “There is real a connection between what (Sun Catalytix) is doing and what the country needs.”

Sun Catalytix scientists have demonstrated that low cost, reliable energy can be harnessed from the sun and natural materials. Decelle’s job will be to commercialize the technology and distribute it. For now, Decelle’s focus is on learning the market and developing a strategy. 

“I know what adversity looks like, I know what opportunity looks like, and I know the characteristics we need to apply to run a successful business,” Decelle said.


 

Bridget Botelho is a freelance writer in Warwick, R.I.