Executive Team
Eric C. Close – President and CEO
Mr. Close is an recognized entrepreneur who leads the overall strategy and direction of RedZone. He has extensive experience building and managing both product and serviced based early stage and growth companies. Prior to RedZone, Mr. Close co-founded and successfully built three companies: PartsZone, a provider of parts for construction equipment, ProLine Services, a provider of railcar manufacturing and maintenance, and Blue Fish Labs, Inc., a software application development company. Earlier in his career, Mr. Close served as a management consultant for Coopers and Lybrand and as a design engineer, product line manager, and sales engineer at Performance Controls, Inc., a motion control and robotics company.
Mr. Close received the 1999 Western Pennsylvania Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is the primary inventor on two patents and has five patents pending. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh University and an M.B.A. from Carnegie Mellon University.
Steve Line – Chief Technology Officer
Mr. Line brings more than 25 years of experience in applied technology in the Wastewater industry. Most recently, he served as President and CEO of ICOMMM, Inc. a leading provider of infrastructure asset management software prior to its acquisition by RedZone. Prior to joining ICOMMM, Mr. Line served as Chief Technology Officer for leading Environmental Engineering firms Brown and Caldwell and EDAW, AECOM. Earlier in his career, he provided technology leadership for over 15 years with Parsons Brinckerhoff, a global engineering firm.
Ken Wolf – VP of Sales and Marketing
Mr. Wolf is responsible for the global sales and marketing strategies at RedZone. He has specific expertise in deploying sales channels around robotic technologies, software and data services. Prior to joining RedZone Mr. Wolf was Vice President of Global Sales for Confluence Technologies, Inc., a Pittsburgh based global software firm serving the financial services industry with offices in London and Luxembourg. During his tenure, Confluence was recognized as one of Pittsburgh’s fastest growing companies. Earlier in his career he was Vice President of Strategic Account Sales for McKesson Automation where he led the sales efforts of the company’s robotics, hardware and software technologies.
Mr. Wolf has lectured on sales process at the Carnegie Mellon University Don Jones School of Entrepreneurship, and in 2007 he was featured in a Harvard Business School Press book entitled The Point of the Deal, How to Negotiate when YES is Not Enough. Mr. Wolf received a B.A. in English from Providence College in Providence Rhode Island.
Board of Directors and Advisory Members
Wilson Farmerie – Chairman
Mr. Farmerie is a very active chairman, providing continuous direction and leadership in all phases of RedZone’s operations. After a successful engineering and management career with Jones and Laughlin Steel, he co-founded three steel companies: MetalTech (2004), NexTech (1990), and GalvTech (1996) where he held various engineering and business management positions. The three companies were combined to form The Techs, which was later sold to The Jordan Company in 2004, where Mr. Farmerie served as president until Steel Dynamics acquired the company in 2007 for $360M. Mr. Farmerie is a board member of the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, where he received a B.S. Mechanical Engineering in 1968.
Tom Emerson – Board Member
Eric Close – Board Member
Larry Ruggard – Engineering Consultant and Advisor
William L. "Red" Whittaker – Chief Scientist and Advisor
Dr. Whittaker co-founded RedZone and serves as its Chief Scientist. A world-renowned researcher and developer of mobile robots and associated components, Dr. Whittaker is the Fredkin Research Professor of Robotics at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. He is also Director of the Field Robotics Center, which he founded in 1986.
Dr. Whittaker has received numerous awards, including Pittsburgh's Man of the Year in Technology (1994), Carnegie Mellon's Teare Award for Teaching Excellence, and Science Digest's Top-100 U.S. Innovators, for his work in robotics (1987). He has served on several select review panels, including the National Academy of Sciences Peer Review Committee, National Research Council Commission, Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, and National Academy of Sciences Committee.
Dr. Whittaker is a member of the Center for the Commercial Development of Space, Space Studies Institute, American Nuclear Society Robotics and Remote Systems Division, and American Association for Artificial Intelligence, of which he is a Fellow. He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Princeton University, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
