MANAGEMENT TEAM

Chet Farris, President and CEO- Chet Farris is the President and CEO of Stion. He has 25 years of experience in semiconductors, including more than 10 in photovoltaics. He was previously the President of Shell Solar, where he managed the unit’s day-to-day operations globally. He also served as President of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), a national trade association, and as a Founding Board Member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Center for Photovoltaics.

Dr. Howard Lee, Co-Founder and CTO- Howard Lee has 28 years of R&D experience and over 80 scientific publications. He worked for 13 years at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, where he was Group Leader of the Advanced Photonics Materials Group and researched multiple applications for nanostructured materials. He also worked at IBM Research Laboratory and The Aerospace Corporation. Howard received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Stanford University and a BS in Chemistry from Harvey Mudd College.

Dr. Vineet Dharmadhikari, Senior VP of Engineering and COO- Vineet Dharmadhikari has 27 years of experience in the semiconductor industry.  He joins Stion from KLA-Tencor, where he worked as Vice President / General Manager for the Metrology Division.  Prior to joining KLA-Tencor, Vineet spent six years at Novellus Systems, where he held various senior management positions, including Vice President and General Manager of their PECVD business unit.  He also spent more than eight years in various engineering and product development roles at Intevac Systems and Genus Inc. (now Aixtron AG), including Vice President of Engineering and Vice President of R&D.  

Dr. Robert Wieting, Senior VP of Research and Development- Bob Wieting has over 28 years in the photovoltaics industry with the majority focused on thin films.  Bob joins Stion from Regenesis Power LLC, a provider of turnkey photovoltaic systems financed using power purchase agreements, where he served as the company’s CTO.  He previously served as Director of Engineering at Shell Solar, where he led the technical team from R&D to megawatt-scale manufacturing of the world’s first fully qualified thin film CIS module.  He also spent more than 20 years with Shell’s predecessors Siemens Solar, PV Electric GmbH, and ARCO Solar, where he managed a variety of R&D and engineering initiatives developing a-Si, a-Si/Ge and CIS thin film PV devices.  Bob holds his PhD in Physical Chemistry from Stanford University and a BA with Honors in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology.  He also holds 5 U.S. patents.

Dr. Steven Aragon, VP of Engineering- Steve Aragon has more than 20 years of experience in thin film materials, processes, and systems.  He previously worked as the VP of Engineering at Daystar Technologies, a publicly traded manufacturer of thin film CIGS cells and modules.  Steve also served as Program Manager of DC Plasma Power Products at Advanced Energy and in a variety of process engineering and process application roles with SciVac/Optcom and Intevac Systems.  Steve holds his PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of California, an MBA in Finance from Santa Clara University, an MS in Chemistry from the University of California, and a BA in Chemistry from the University of Northern Colorado.