American Institute of Chemical Engineers - Northern California Section

Those in tune with the Venture Capital world will have heard of Khosla Ventures. Their portfolio consists of numerous companies in the renewable energy field including LS9, Amyris, Verenium, Cilion and Great Point Energy to name a few. Doug will be speaking about his role within Khosla Ventures, and the role Chemical Engineers are playing in this industry.

Doug grew up in the Chicago suburbs where he developed a passion for science and technology by visiting Chicago's zoos and science museums. Doug attended Duke University, where he majored in biomedical engineering--the broadest and most interdisciplinary major he could find--and graduated magna cum laude.

Doug's first job after college was with a new start-up company called Advanced Harvesting Systems (AHS), funded by International Harvester, where he was the first non-founding employee. The goal of the company was to design and build a protein-harvesting combine, dubbed "the Probine." Doug helped the company grow from four people in 1979 to over thirty in 1981. He also helped build two agricultural laboratories, one in Tempe, Arizona and one in El Centro, California. The company, however, was more than twenty years ahead of its time and didn't last beyond 1982. Nevertheless, this first experience gave Doug a lasting appreciation and fascination with entrepreneurship.

While at AHS, Doug followed the October 14, 1980 Genentech IPO and could hardly wait to go to graduate school to study genetic engineering and become part of the biotechnology revolution. He started at MIT in July, 1981 and graduated with a Ph.D. in biochemical engineering in 1986. His thesis, under the direction of Charles Cooney, was on the metabolism of a thermophilic anaerobic bacterium that produces ethanol and other chemicals. Doug also maintained his interest in business; one of his most memorable classes was "The Management of Technology" taught by Tom Allen in the MIT Sloan School. Although Doug was open to an industrial position, he couldn't resist an offer to join the faculty of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, one of the top departments in the world. Doug taught biochemical engineering, as well as many of the core chemical engineering subjects. He established a research program in metabolic engineering and was a pioneer in its application to industrial chemicals, including 1,3-propanediol and 3-hydroxypropionic acid. While at Wisconsin, Doug was tenured and promoted to full professor. He took a sabbatical in the Institute for Biotechnology at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. He was also on the scientific advisory board of two start-up companies and consulted for DuPont, Genencor and Cargill. In 1998, Doug was recruited to start and lead the Cargill corporate biotechnology R&D group, now called the Biotechnology Development Center (BioTDC), in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The group developed a diverse range of processes and technologies involving enzymes and microorganisms for the production of food, animal feed, fuel and industrial products. While at Cargill, Doug maintained a close relationship with the (renamed) Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in Madison and also became a consulting professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. Doug joined Khosla Ventures as Chief Scientific Officer in 2006. He and his wife, Sally, have four children.

Reservations requested by End of Day November 12, 2007.
On-Line RSVP

November 2007 North Bay Meeting Notice