ABOUT US

Our Management Team

Jim Castelaz, CEO and Co-Founder

Jim is responsible for Motiv’s strategic and technical direction and manages Motiv’s technical team. Jim’s engineering strengths lie in framing, partitioning, and designing complex, interdisciplinary systems in new and creative ways. Prior to founding Motiv in 2009, Jim was Chief Architect at an EV start-up focused on designing electric drive buses for the Chinese market. Previously, Jim was a full-time PhD student in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, where he worked on MEMS for power electronics and solar applications. His other projects include developing an electric motorcycle, solid state transformers for the power distribution grid with Southern California Edison, and various other embedded systems. Jim holds an MSEE from Stanford University and a BS in Engineering and Economics from Harvey Mudd College.

 

 

Vishal Parikh, Director of Software / Embedded Systems and Co-Founder

Vishal is the architect for Motiv’s Power Control System and Fleet Management System software, and is responsible for overseeing the design and deployment of all software at Motiv Systems (Embedded, tools, infrastructure, and diagnostics). He is also responsible for developing and overseeing Motiv’s testing and verification infrastructure. Vishal is currently completing his PhD at Stanford where he is studying next generation computing technology. He received his Masters in Electrical Engineering from Stanford, and a BS in Electrical Engineering and a BA in mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin. At the University of Texas, Vishal specialized in embedded systems and was President of the award winning IEEE Robotics and Automation society.

 

 

 

Benson Tsai, Director of Thermal / Mechanical Engineering and Co-Founder

Benson is responsible for thermal and mechanical design at Motiv. He develops innovative thermal management solutions for battery packs, inverters, and brings expertise in heat and mass transfer processes to those designs. Benson received his Master of Science degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. During his studies at the University of Minnesota, he specialized in mass transfer processes and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for liquid coating applications. His Bachelor of Science degree, from Harvey Mudd College (HMC), is in Engineering with a focus on chemical and thermal sciences. Benson’s primary research involved the use of computational fluid dynamics to aid in engineering thermal analysis and design. He also has experience in the controls and systems engineering of dynamical systems.

 

 

 

Doug Mandell, Counsel & Co-Founder

Doug serves as general counsel for Motiv and is involved with business development. Doug has extensive experience working with start-ups and has been general counsel to several venture backed companies including: ememories, Inc. (one of the first on-line photosharing sites) and Tornado Development (a unified messaging software company). Most recently, Doug was LinkedIn's first General Counsel and member of the Executive Team in 2007 and 2008, a company he has represented since its inception. Doug is the managing partner of the Mandell Law Group, PC, a boutique law firm he founded in 2001 specializing in technology transactions, corporate, employment law and general counsel services. Clients of MLG include Fortune 100 companies such as Seagate Technology LLC; venture backed companies such as LinkedIn and 23andMe; as well as entrepreneurs and executives. Doug also currently serves as general counsel for other technology companies including: Originate Labs and Soar BioDynamics. Doug was also previously an attorney with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP in San Francisco, California and graduated with honors from Washington University in St. Louis and Tulane Law School. Doug is passionate about the environment and is a member of the Full Circle Fund’s Environment Circle. Doug’s complete bio is at http://www.linkedin.com/in/dougmandell.

 

Advisors

John Formisano
John Formisano serves as an expert industry advisor to the Motiv Management team. He is also on the Board of Directors of Azure Dynamics. Mr.  Formisano retired as Vice President, Global Vehicles of FedEx Express in Memphis, Tennessee.  In addition to managing the FedEx vehicle fleet mix, FedEx Global Vehicles is focused on the development of fuel-efficient vehicle models.  It pioneered the creation of hybrid vans in partnership with a diverse group of manufacturers such as Eaton Corporation, Isuzu and Iveco in 2003.  Since then, the hybrid-electric and electric truck fleet of 325 vehicles around the globe has covered more than five million miles of revenue service. Over his twenty-six year career at FedEx, Mr Formisano held several operations management positions such as Vice President, Regional Operations and Vice President of Worldwide Ground Operations Planning & Support.  Prior to these positions, he was the Managing Director, District Operations/AAA; Managing Director, Regional Planning & Administration and managed several engineering divisions.  Before FedEx, he worked at Automatic Data Processing, Searle Medical Products, and the United Parcel Service.   

He has been recognized with the FedEx Express Five Star Award, which recognizes team members who have enhanced service and profitability and exemplified the spirit of teamwork, in 2006, 2004, 1992, 1990. It is one of the most prestigious FedEx awards. In addition, Mr Formisano was also the recipient of the FedEx Express President’s Award in 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998.

He has also been on the Board of Directors of CALSTART since 2005 and has held the Vice Chair Board Member role since 2007. He is also on the Board of Safe Kids Worldwide, and he holds an M.B.A from Fairleigh Dickinson University and B.S. from Montclair State College. 

 

 

Marc Herman

Marc is responsible for all operational aspects of Motiv. Marc is a seasoned Chief Executive Officer with 20 years’ experience leading technology companies through periods of strong, profitable growth. Prior to Motiv, Marc was President and Chief Executive Officer of Varsity Logistics, a privately held provider of logistics software and data. Marc led Varsity Logistics for 7 years from its acquisition in 2000 until the company was sold in 2007. Before joining Varsity Logistics, Marc spent 2 years at Activant, a Hicks-Muse company, where, as Division President he managed the post-acquisition integration and growth of a $130 million division providing technology solutions to the automotive parts distribution market. Prior to joining Activant, Marc spent 7 years at Automatic Data Processing (ADP), a global leader in data processing services. During his tenure at ADP he was responsible for the startup and growth of a division of the Company providing IT solutions to the automotive market. Together with his team, Marc built this division to 8,000 clients and $50million in revenue in 4 years. His last position at ADP was Senior Vice President, responsible for managing a $150 million division delivering IT solutions to 30,000+ clients in the insurance claims value chain. Marc holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New South Wales.