Why We Started our elateq

The Problem

Water is a necessity for all living creatures, however human needs and industrial activities are exceeding capacity and driving a water scarcity. These unsustainable activities are reducing accessibility to clean water. The shortages, in addition to vast water pollution challenges, transpire the need for changing water use practices and exploring the use of non-conventional water sources such as reuse of commercial, industrial and municipal wastewater for non-potable and potable applications. Also, increasingly difficult is to remove certain contaminants and their mixtures from wastewater to meet the regulations for discharge and protect the ecosystems and

human health.

The cost and complexity of the current advanced water treatment technologies has made addressing these issues difficult for most municipalities and industries. Elateq offers cost-effective, cleaner and greener solution for advanced wastewater treatment removing heavy metals, pathogens and toxic man-made chemicals through all-in-one approach. Our technology is applicable for municipal and industrial wastewater including metal plating, pharmaceuticals manufacturing, food & beverage, and agriculture.

Our Process

Simple solution for a complex problem.

Elateq’s patent pending technology uses low-level electricity and proprietary carbon material developed by Elateq. The novelty of our technology intertwines and improves properties of

carbon and electrochemical process. Concept relies on basics of electrochemistry but enhanced by innovative design and application of electric field, providing multiple zones of reaction for different contaminants.

Simply put, multiple steps of contaminants removal happen within a single treatment unit as the contaminated water passes through leaving behind heavy metals, pathogens and toxic man-made chemicals.

Our Team

Ljiljana Rajic, PhD

Co-Founder & CTO
lrajic@elateq.com

Dr. Rajic has over 10 years of experience in electrochemistry and environmental engineering. She received a B.S. (2007) and Ph.D. degree (2010) in Chemistry from University of Novi Sad (Serbia).

She worked on various projects involving electrochemically-based technologies for water, soil and solid waste treatment, and has over 50 publications in highly-ranked international scientific journals and books. During 5 years at Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Northeastern University, Dr. Rajic co-lead Green Water Remediation Project, primarily as postdoctoral associate and, later, as senior research scientist.

Currently, Dr. Rajic also serves as Chief Science Officer at Pioneer Valley Coral & Natural Science Institute (PVCNSI) and Adjunct Associate Professor at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.

Roderick Anderson, MA

Co-Founder & CEO
randerson@elateq.com

Roderick Anderson, MA, is also a President of PVCNSI, where he offers the planning and diagnostic skills of a social worker together with the analytics and stratagems learned while he was in the military.

Roderick forwent completing his PhD at UMass Amherst in the Department of Anthropology, in order to launch Pioneer Valley Coral & Natural Science Institute. His dissertation research as a socio-cultural anthropologist focuses on Afro-American civic leadership, civil society, social movement theory, critical theory, political economy and the African Diaspora.

These research interests emerged out of his experiences of attending high school in New Britain, CT.; his time in the U.S. Air Force Reserves (Westover Air Force Base – Sgt. Security Police); ten years as a social worker for the State of Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families; and eleven years of teaching in higher-ed. He utilizes these varied experiences to engage the intersections of institutional and structural power relations of race, gender and class.

This unique background brings together firsthand knowledge and practical experiences that engage complex issues at the regional and international level.

Charlene Gruhn

Chief Operating Officer
cgruhn@elateq.com

Charlene Gruhn serves as the chief product officer for Zoetic. She brings more than 20 years experience in international business operations and leading large teams delivering solutions for Fortune 500 clients including Google, Citibank, and General Motors. International client-focused technology solutions are a trademark of her career making her the ideal candidate to lead Zoetic’s operational delivery of clean technology solutions around the globe.

Gruhn is an inspiring leader and consummate team player with a track record of fueling the growth of international businesses. As managing partner and executive vice president of global delivery operations for avVenta Worldwide, she grew a small digital business team of two to 600 employees and $38 million in annual revenue in just seven years, ultimately leading the company to be acquired by Accenture in 2011.

Kevin Kolb

VP, Finance
kkolb@elateq.com

Kevin is currently Vice President, Portfolio Management and Strategy for Zoetic Global. He is responsible for overseeing the management of Zoetic’s equity portfolio in companies dedicated to the renewable energy generation, energy efficiency, digital and cyber solutions, and healthcare markets. Kevin helps to properly structure partnership and sale contracts, gages market conditions and properly positions each of Zoetic’s equity holdings in the marketplace to ensures shareholder satisfaction.

In his previous roles, Mr. Kolb helped start a number of companies in the biotech space, ranging from modular clean room manufacturing to tissue procurement and cryopreservation services. Kevin is a graduate of Marian University in Indianapolis, Indiana with a degree in Business Management. While enrolled, Kevin was a two-time Student Body President and served as a representative to the Board of Trustees of the university. Kevin currently advises the university as a Board Member of the Marian University Alumni Association.

Chun Pong Ng

Chief Technology Officer
cpng@elateq.com

Chun is SVP Technology at Zoetic Global, where he is responsible for designing product and project implementations for power initiatives around the world. Chun’s deep experience in engineering, construction, and implementation of green technology for commercial applications enables Zoetic to continually challenge the impossible to provide practical energy solutions.

Chun is a creative thinker and has worked on clean and renewable energy, water reclamation and waste to energy projects since 1979. He has been the Program Manager for an award winning energy-improvement project that achieved over 50% annual energy savings and a 3-year payback. A sought-after architect and designer, his custom-designed homes have fetched up to $100 million setting records in markets.

Michael Peters

SVP, Sales and Marketing
mpeters@elateq.com

Michael has over 25 years of experience in the areas of business development, sales & marketing and client account management. Recently, he was engaged as a manager of solutions development in the contract communications field. He focused on enterprise markets, targeting global Fortune 500 organizations. He navigated and negotiated multi-million-dollar agreements, while establishing and supervising vendor relations.

Throughout his years involved in corporate engagement, Michael always kept his entrepreneurial spirit alive with projects focusing on energy and emerging technologies. Most recently he has been focusing his interest on the vast potential of blockchain, learning to understand how the disruptive technology will impact and reshape our world. Michael graduated from Ohio University with a bachelor’s degree in Business Communications.

Nicholas R. DiCaprio, BA

Electrical Engineering Consultant
nrdicaprio@elateq.com

Nicholas is an electrical engineering consultant with expertise in the design, development and production of industrial and military electronic systems.

He worked on various projects including design and production of microprocessor based ultrasonic sensors for non-contact detection, fluid level measurements, collision/obstacle avoidance for automotive applications, bulk level monitoring, and doppler motion detection.

As a senior design engineer for military sonar systems, Nicholas have been developing high-power sonar transmitters for submarine acoustic countermeasures, an autonomous lobster robot, long range sonar towed array receivers, mine detectors and the development of Navy R&D sonar projectors.

To Elateq, his experience brings practical hands-on electrical engineering knowledge of development and production of electronic systems. Nicholas is a graduate of Northeastern University and a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Aidan Barry, MBA

Business Development Specialist
abarry@elateq.com

Aidan is a recent graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He finished in 2019 with a dual degree in Economics and Finance, and a minor in the Russian language. In 2020, he completed a Master of Finance in Alternative Investments, again at UMass in the Isenberg School of Management. Upon completion of his master’s degree, Aidan was waived for completion of the CAIA I (Charted Alternative Investment Analyst) exam. He will sit for CAIA II and his charter membership in the Spring of 2021.

Aidan’s academic experience is specialized in hedge funds, private equity and venture capital, financial derivatives, real assets and real estate, and sustainable finance. Over his college career, Aidan interned in a number of different areas, including a business brokerage office, a private equity firm, a wealth management firm, and with the Irish Consulate General in Boston. In completion of his economics degree, Aidan participated in systemic corruption research and the creation of corruption measurement variables. Further, his master’s research included the creation of data vendor alternatives in cooperation with quantitative trading hedge funds over the course of the 2020 school year. Aidan began working for Elateq as a business development intern in the Winter of 2020.

Mina Liang

Business Development Intern
mliang@elateq.com

Mina is an Economics major at Columbia University. She is the Chief Operating Officer for ReneCycle – a dockless bikeshare company she co-founded. She is also a consultant for 180 Degrees Consulting, where she specializes in improving communication and organizational structure.

As a freshman at Swarthmore College, Mina was a Swarthmore Government Organization senator, orchestra violinist, and varsity athlete on the women’s swimming team. In 2019, Mina was the Distinguished Young Woman of Massachsuetts, representing MA at the Distinguished Young Women National Finals and winning top prizes in the talent category and community outreach program. In 2019, Mina graduated from Deerfield Academy as a four-year honor roll student, national merit finalist, track captain, and student council representative.

While she is a business development intern with Elateq, she is also working for the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Lauder Institute.