David A. Basiji, Ph.D. is co-founder of Amnis Corporation and serves as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. As a co-inventor of the ImageStream system and other key Amnis technologies, Dr. Basiji has been deeply involved in all phases of corporate development since the company began operations in 1999. In addition to providing technical leadership, Dr. Basiji has guided the marketing and sales operations and negotiated the investment of more than $30 million in financing for the company.
Dr. Basiji earned his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Washington, where he developed an ultra-sensitive DNA and protein analysis platform for the Human Genome Project, a technology that was later commercially licensed to Oxford GlycoSciences. Dr. Basiji received his Master’s degree in Bioengineering from the University of Washington and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley. He currently holds 32 U.S. Patents.
William E. Ortyn is co-founder of Amnis and serves as the Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Ortyn co-invented Amnis' technologies and has 25 years of experience in technology management and commercialization of complex image processing-based systems. Since the Company's inception Mr. Ortyn has led Amnis' research and product development efforts, built the production and customer service capacities of the Company and developed its operating and business plans. Mr. Ortyn has also served principal roles in developing the Company's intellectual property portfolio and securing funding through both the venture capital community and government granting agencies.
Prior to founding Amnis, Mr. Ortyn was a Senior Manager and product architect at NeoPath, Inc. where he managed product development, oversaw third party technology partnerships, and helped build the Company's FDA GMP production facility. He was one of three speakers representing the Company at its FDA, PMA panel hearing. During the past 25 years Mr. Ortyn has developed, managed and launched dozens of technically complex products. He has authored over a dozen peer reviewed scientific publications and holds 50 issued US patents in the areas of high throughput image processing systems architecture, optical design, algorithmic methods and automated quality control. Mr. Ortyn has also worked with IBM Corp., KLA-Tencor Inc., and the Stratos Product Development Group LLC.
David J. Perry serves as Amnis’ Vice President of Engineering, Mr. Perry was a Bausch and Lomb Science Scholar at the University of Rochester and was awarded the Bachelor’s Degree in Optics with Honors. He was selected for a TRW Fellowship and completed graduate research in thin film coatings at the University of Arizona where he earned the Master's Degree in Optical Sciences.
For over 23 years he has held many positions in management and leading edge development for advanced medical and biotech instrument developers (TriPath Inc., Amnis Corp.), commercial laser-based printing developers (ECRM Inc. and Vital Technology Australia Ltd), and major aerospace and defense corporations (TRW, Honeywell). His expertise has been instrumental in the development and production of free space laser communication systems for the military, laser scanning and recording products for the printing industry, and automated video microscopy and flow cytometry system for biological research, drug discovery, and clinical diagnostics. He has a broad background in the design, fabrication, and testing of optical instrumentation and a proven track record of developing successful products from conceptual design to volume production. Mr. Perry is a named inventor on 9 patents and has additional patents pending.
Jeff Hudson joined Amnis in April 2004 and serves as Director of Domestic Sales. For more than 20 years Mr. Hudson has sold capital equipment to pharmaceutical, biotech and research labs in the life sciences marketplace. He excels in the lean and fast paced environments of early stage companies and his expertise has played a significant role in leading these companies to profitability.
Mr. Hudson served as the first sales representative for Molecular Dynamics (MDYN) where he helped to propel MDYN to one of the leading instrumentation tools companies on the sales successes of the Computing Densitometer™ film & gel reader, the PhosphorImager® gel scanner and the Sarastro® Confocal Microscope. Mr. Hudson followed his sales success at MDYN by joining Molecular Devices (MDCC) where he helped to identify and demonstrate the appropriate market positioning of the FLIPR® High Throughput Screening system by outselling the sales team and consistently beating sales forecasts. Mr. Hudson also worked at eBioinformatics® where he recruited and hired sales positions in the Northeast US as well as LKB® Instruments where he was responsible electrophoresis and separations instrumentation sales.
Pat joined Amnis in September, 2005 as Chief Financial Officer. He has over 25 years experience in the financial, accounting, and general management areas. Pat graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in business administration in 1976. After graduation, he joined Price Waterhouse as a staff accountant and obtained his CPA certificate. In 1979 he entered private industry as the division controller for Marco, a ship builder and equipment manufacturer.
Pat’s varied work experiences have centered in the manufacturing and distribution areas with industry expertise that includes forest products, construction, and optical measurement systems. Pat spent five years with US Bank, with the last three years as a commercial lending officer. Prior to joining Amnis he spent seven years as the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Cully Enterprises, a distributor of fasteners and construction supplies to the electrical industry.
Pat is one of the founders of Charter Bank, a commercial business bank located in Bellevue, Washington. He is a member of the Board of Directors and has been the chairperson of the loan committee since the inception of the bank (1998).
Christopher Doman joined Amnis in June of 2008 as Director of International Sales and brought with him over 25 years of extensive international experience in the biotechnology and medical device markets. Chris, received his B.A. from the University of St. Thomas and went on to obtain his MBA in international business from the Thunderbird Graduate School of International Business in 1977. His strategic and operational effectiveness was well demonstrated during his previous seven years with the Gentra Systems company introducing advanced capital equipment instrumentation products in the DNA analysis markets.
Chris was promoted to Vice President of Sales in October of 2009 following his proven effectiveness in expanding the global distribution system at Amnis which represented 50% of our annual growth in 2009. This accomplishment along with his previous experience with large multinational companies such as Amsco/Steris and Spacelabs Medical, combined with start up organizations at Cascade Medical and Gentra Systems provides Amnis with the strong depth of experience required to rapidly expand Amnis to the next level of global growth.
Dr. Thaddeus C. George joined Amnis in 2002 and serves as Director of Biology. As one of the first biologists at Amnis, Dr. George has been intimately involved in targeting and developing novel applications for the ImageStream system. Dr George has been instrumental in the development of customer training programs, marketing and sales of the platform to academic, biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers, management of collaborative efforts with academic and industrial partners, as well as providing customer-oriented guidance for all instrumentation and software projects at Amnis.
Dr. George earned his Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas) in 1999 for his work elucidating the role of natural killer cell receptors in bone marrow transplant rejection. He performed his post-doctoral training at Immunex and Amgen (Seattle), establishing their cell-based models for the study of murine and human regulatory T cells. Dr. George has authored or co-authored 27 publications, 12 while at Amnis.
Cathleen A. Zimmerman serves as Amnis' Director of Software. She joined Amnis in 2002 to lead the design and development of INSPIRE and IDEAS, the fundamental software packages of the ImageStream system. Ms. Zimmerman received her Bachelor's Degree in Computer science from Washington State University and has, in addition, a strong background in project management.
For over 20 years she has held many leadership positions in the development of a wide variety of software applications. She has a proven track record in delivering robust, user-friendly solutions, as well as providing technical support during the sales process and post software delivery. While at Boeing, she developed real-time communication software for the Airborne Warning and Control System Airplane, programmed and tested firmware for the B1-B Weapon System Trainer real-time computer image generation system, and developed software tools to analyze and reduce guidance and navigation data from B1-B test flights.
As a project manager at Gentronics Wang, she led the analysis, design, coding, and implementation of a centralized security project for over 500 U.S. Citibank branches. Serving as Program Manager for ThinkShare Corporation, Ms Zimmerman exercised comprehensive responsibility for design, development, production and support of the company's applications for hand-held devices.
Jon joined Amnis in March, 2006 as Director of Manufacturing. He has over 25 years experience in procurement, materials, and production management. Jon graduated from Seattle University with a BA in business administration in 1982. After graduation, he joined Saab Systems and supervised purchasing and production activities for non contact laser based vision and measurement equipment used for quality control and optimization in the lumber industry. In 1985 he joined Automation Research & Technology as the purchasing and production manager where he successfully helped transition from R&D to full production a scanning system used to read hand written symbols on lumber in motion for final trim and sorting operations.
Jon's additional experience includes working for Boise Cascade as the materials coordinator for their paper mill in Tacoma Washington. In 1994 Jon joined Phocus Systems, a contract manufacturing and design company specializing in optical electronic R&D, where he brought engineering ideas into manufacturing reality as the operations manager for 7 + years. Prior to joining Amnis, Jon served as warehouse manager for Dealer Tire out of Cleveland Ohio. Jon successfully helped set up and manage a new distribution warehouse in Kent Washington that provided same day delivery of OEM tires to local dealerships in the greater Seattle / Tacoma region. In addition, the warehouse supplied Toyota Motors Corp. with tire and rim packages for new vehicles arriving in Portland Oregon.
Jon's experience has been centered on the manufacturing and procurement of materials and equipment, bringing optical electronic designs into production and distribution logistics with industry expertise that includes forest products and optical measurement systems.
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