Investment Team

The AMT investment team brings more than money to a transaction. Their real world operating and transactional expertise has been learned from the ground up
over many years and adds significant value to any potential acquisition.

Harry C. Wechsler, Chairman

Harry C. Wechsler received his Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from Polytechnic University, New York. He began his career with Borden, Inc. – a company with a broad line of products ranging from petrochemical materials, plywood adhesives and molded plastics to packaging films, farm fertilizers, consumer products (Elmer’s Glue-All, etc.), a total of 30 profit centers and 37 plants. Dr. Wechsler served as President of Borden Chemical Company, encompassing all non-food products, and Vice President of Borden, Inc. until late 1971. While at Borden, Dr. Wechsler created several new divisions, establishing Borden as a force in the field of thermoplastics and packaging films. He supervised a workforce of over 9,000 employees.

In 1972 Dr. Wechsler joined Beatrice Foods (later re-named Beatrice Companies, Inc.), where he established the Beatrice Chemical Division. He became corporate Senior Vice President and a Member of the President’s Office. He supervised the operations of 23 domestic and international profit centers. Under his management, by 1985, the Chemical Division had grown 15-fold with activities in 10 lines of business including: the manufacture of advanced composites for the aircraft/aerospace industries, compounded engineering plastics, acrylic and polyurethane polymers, leather finishes, engineered performance lubricants, and others.

In 1985, when Beatrice sold its Chemical Division in a $760MM transaction, ICI, one of the world’s largest multi-national chemical companies, acquired all but the Farboil Company division, which was purchased by Dr. Wechsler. He managed Farboil as President–Owner, producing electronic and electrical high-performance encapsulating compounds, powdered coatings for decorative applications, anti-corrosive coatings used in gas and oil transmission lines, and other chemical specialty compounds.

After selling Farboil Company in 1999, Dr. Wechsler has been active in the venture-investing field.

Dr. Wechsler is a former trustee of the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy, former Advisory Board member, Worchester Country National Bank, former member of the International Planning Council of the American Management Association, and former member of the Board of Overseers of Tufts University.

He has been a Trustee of Polytechnic University since 1980 and a member of the Board’s Executive Committee, having also served as Chair of Polymer Chemistry. He is the founding donor of the endowed Wechsler Award for Faculty Excellence at Polytechnic University, and the donor of an endowed fellowship in orthopedic tumor research at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Wechsler was recognized by Polytechnic University with the Distinguished Alumnus Award and is the recipient of the Massachusetts Institute of Chemists Honor Scroll in 1985. In 2002, he was awarded the Herman F. Mark Technology Medal by the Polymer Research Institute of New York.

Paul W. Pendorf, President

Paul W. Pendorf is an experienced leader in the aerospace, composites, and specialty chemical industries. Currently, he is majority share owner, President and Director of AMT II Corporation. Mr. Pendorf has held the position of Managing Shareholder, President and Director of the Advanced Products Corporation (APC), a holding company founded by Kline Hawkes LLC (a Los Angeles private equity fund), and AMT II. APC owns aerospace companies in California and New England.

Prior to APC, Mr. Pendorf was President and Managing Director of Hitco Carbon Composites, Inc. (HITCO), located in Gardena, California. Subsequent to purchasing a minority position from SGL Carbon AG (Wiesbaden, Germany and parent company of HITCO), Mr. Pendorf led the turnaround and re-establishment of brand equity of the 86 year-old composites company. He ended his partnership with SGL to pursue an active M&A strategy with Kline Hawkes Corporation and formed APC.

He joined Cytec as part of the stock purchase of AMT I by Cytec Industries Corp (NYSE: CYT). His first assignment as Vice President was the successful integration of Culver City Composites Corporation (a wholly owned subsidiary of AMT I). While at Cytec, he established, organized and led the Global Purchasing Team, to buy carbon fiber from all of the major merchant producers. This team saved $23 MM in purchasing costs in two years. He also led the acquisition team that successfully targeted a $0.2B acquisition for Cytec.

In 1995, Mr. Pendorf founded (with his own capital and grew from “no sales” to a profitable $50MM enterprise with 350 employees), The American Materials & Technologies Corporation (AMT I). As President and Director, he led its initial public offering ($14MM) on the NASDAQ market in 1996 (symbol:AMTK). Several carbon fiber technology companies were acquired as subsidiaries to AMT I, including Culver City Composites, Inc., a pre-preg manufacturer that was a leading supplier to the aerospace and defense industries.

Paul Pendorf led XXsys Technologies, Inc. of San Diego, California. As President and Director, Mr. Pendorf was able to turn around this small foundering high-tech start-up with employees and led its 1992 Initial Public Offering (NASDAQ: XSYS).

In the early 1980’s, Beatrice Chemical led by Dr. Harry C. Weschsler (a wholly owned subsidiary of Beatrice Foods) purchased Fiberite. Dr. Wechsler recruited Mr. Pendorf to run international operations for Beatrice Chemical. Mr. Pendorf spent most of his tenure with the Beatrice Chemical team growing Fiberite until it was sold to Imperial Chemical Industries, PLC in the mid ‘80s.

As Vice President of ICI Composites, Inc. a division of Imperial Chemical Industries, PLC (London, UK) he was the responsible executive for the ICI complex located in Tempe, Arizona. He served as Co-Managing Director of Kasei Fiberite Ltd., a Japanese joint venture with Mitsubishi Chemical. He became President of Fiberite Europe (a wholly owned subsidiary of ICI), and Vice President of the Composite Materials Group (Orange, California). He also served as Director, Composite Materials Group after ICI acquired the company from Beatrice Chemicals Companies from Beatrice Foods of Chicago, IL.

Earlier executive experience in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries include Pfizer, Inc., Virginia Chemicals, Inc. and the American Cyanamid Company. He studied General Engineering at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, and Chemistry at New York University, New York, N.Y. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, and an M.S. degree in Management from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.

Mr. Pendorf was honored as one of “Ten Outstanding Young Men in America” in 1976. He was elected to the Tau Beta Pi Honorary Engineering Society. President Nixon appointed him as a Presidential Interchange Executive after being nominated by the President of Pfizer. He received the U.S. Government Medal for Excellence in Management during his White House Assignment for his work at the newly created Environmental Protection Agency.

Steven Georgiev, Vice President

Mr. Georgiev began his career at Avco Systems Division (now Textron Systems) where he was instrumental in building the business and became Chief Operating Officer of this $300 million revenue aerospace business. He left Textron to found and manage (sequentially) several early-stage technology companies, many of which went public and achieved valuations ranging from $60 million to $400 million. Investment exit positions also included company sales to strategic buyers.

Mr. Georgiev has worked closely with Mr. Pendorf for nearly 20 years. He has participated in over 30 merger and acquisition transactions as well as numerous private and public financings. He has an Engineering Physics degree from Cornell University and an M.B.A. from MIT where he was a Sloan Fellow.

G.A. Ben Binninger, Vice President

G.A. Ben Binninger is a senior Executive with hands-on experience leading both large and small technologically sophisticated global, process and service businesses. These include businesses from a few million dollars to a billion dollars for ARCO, Hercules, and Rio Tinto Borax. Mr. Binninger brings an unusual combination of global management, strategic positioning and operations experience in chemicals, energy, materials, mining, and consulting and defense.

He has led businesses for industry leaders with worldwide market shares of 40-90%, and has negotiated deals in almost every major industrialized country. His broad functional background includes sales, marketing, distribution, technical, financial and business development. His strong expertise in strategic positioning, profit enhancement, financial restructuring, organizational realignment, mergers and acquisitions, and cost control has made him a valuable asset to AMT II.

Mr. Binninger holds a B.E. in Chemical Engineering from Manhattan College, where he attended on a New York State scholarship. He also holds an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School where he was a Teagle Foundation Fellow. He has taught international business management at UCLA. He has been a director of a number of organizations including KCET- Community Television of Southern California as well as, Chairman of the Institute of Cooperation in Environmental Management.

John W. Douglass, Vice President

General Douglass was commissioned in the U.S. Air Force after graduation. He has been associated with Pentagon procurement programs with a focus on high tech and composite weapon systems since he was a junior officer. He later was assigned by the Air Force to be deputy U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium. In this capacity, General Douglass was the highest ranking U.S. military official at NATO and was directly responsible to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He retired from the United States Air Force in 1992, having attained the rank of Brigadier General.

In 1995, President of the United States Bill Clinton nominated General Douglass as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisitions)and he subsequently held this office from November 1995 to August 1998. Upon leaving government in 1998, General Douglass became President and CEO of The Aerospace Industries Association. General Douglass joined AMT in 2009 and provides high level access to policy makers in the government.

Since becoming a member of the AMT team, Douglass has been appointed to the Defense Science Board. The Defense Science Board is the senior advisory body of the U.S. Department of Defense. It is composed of members appointed from the private sector, and advises the Secretary of Defense, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics) on scientific, technical, manufacturing, and other matters of special importance to the Department.

General Douglass was educated at the University of Florida(B.A., 1961; B.S. in Industrial Engineering, 1963). Through the Air Force Institute of Technology, Douglass attended the Texas Tech University, receiving an M.S. in Industrial Engineering in 1967. He attended Fairleigh Dickinson University and received an M.S. in Management Science in 1972.

Edward G. Carson, Vice President

During his long and distinguished career at Boeing (1973 – 2004 (retired), Mr. Carson’s duties included Deputy Program Management: responsible for financial, contractual, procurement, facilities, planning, and estimating for multi-hundred million dollar programs such as Minuteman III, Tactical Short Range Missiles, Space Defense (Kinetic Energy and Directed Energy Weapons Development), AWACS, Commercial Satellites (including the development of joint ventures, commercial military initiatives, and space based surveillance systems. Mr. Carson was assigned to the Joint Strike Fighter Program where he assumed duties of Volume Management, the Program Execution Plan, and the Contracts Volume.

At Hitco Carbon Composites, Inc. (2004 – 2009), Mr. Carson was COO responsible for Profit and Loss (P&L) covering Aerostructures product lines: Commercial and General Aviation Aircraft, Naval and Space Structures. He was responsible for the capture of major new business opportunities in support of the Boeing 787 and Lockheed Martin F35 programs of over $4B throughout the life of the programs. He joined the AMT team in 2009 and provides expert evaluation of acquisition targets in the aerospace supply chain.

Mr. Carson has a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) from the University of Washington and a Master of Arts (Economics) from Western Washington University.

Jeet Bhatia, Vice President

Mr. Bhatia has over 30 years of experience in the materials, process equipment and systems, minerals and metals, alternate energy, and the chemical process industries. In addition, he has held positions as Chief Operating Officer, VP Technology, VP Business Development, and CTO. He began his career as an R&D/Process Engineer in new process development. Dozens of processes were scaled-up and commercialized worldwide.

Mr. Bhatia was CEO of Harper International, a process equipment and furnace systems company for 14 years and engaged in an intensive and highly successful effort to turn around a business that had stagnated and suffered yearly losses. He has sold critical equipment for the manufacture of carbon fiber to most suppliers worldwide. The revitalization effort was focused on upgrading the technology and product portfolio of the company, revitalizing and upgrading the management team, dramatically enhancing global presence and implementing superior product development and R&D. Mr. Bhatia recently joined AMT and will assist us in developing a carbon fiber competition/co-supplier strategy for the Company.

Mr. Bhatia has degrees in chemical engineering and an M.B.A. (marketing) from Rutgers University.

Dr. Edward Fornaro, Vice President

Dr. Fornaro is an experienced entrepreneur based in Lugarno, Switzerland. After graduating as a Chemical Engineer from the University of Genoa, he served as an officer in the Italian Army. His big business experience was with P&G Europe and Stauffer Chemical International, where he was Vice President of International Manufacturing. He works with AMT on evaluating European business opportunities.

William Timmerman (on leave)

William Timmerman is an executive with broad experience at several companies in the position of Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer and served on several Boards of Directors. He has extensive banking, financial and international business experience. He has held senior management positions both in the United States, Europe and Africa. Structuring and growing companies via Mergers and Acquisitions are some of his strengths. His experience includes a solid early career at Chase Manhattan Bank headquarters, and international subsidiaries in Europe and Africa. This was followed by executive experience with “high-tech” and financial companies including, AMT I, Pointivity Inc., AMT II Inc., Advanced Products Corporation, and Apex Design Technologies, Inc.

Mr. Timmerman holds a B.A. in History and Philosophy from Washington & Lee University, Lexington, VA and an M.B.A. in International Economics from the Graduate School of Business of New York University. Internationally he holds Certificate d’ etudes, L’ Institut des Etudes Politiques, Paris, France, and a Certificate-SEC Periodic Reporting from the Center for SEC Studies. He is fluent in French.