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Gregory M. Smith, PhD
Managing Principal – Executive Summary
Executive and Technical Leader
Structured innovation Expertise
Versatile Technical Toolkit
Greg Smith is Managing Principal of ScienceSmith Consulting, Inc., a consultancy focused on technical
leadership for new product discovery and development using structured approaches to innovation.
With experience in multiple fields (chemistry, catalysis, polymer science, fuel cells & energy storage,
and electronic materials) and a proven innovation toolkit, Greg is a unique resource for discovering
technical or B2B new product opportunities, guiding their development, and leading technical projects.
Structured Innovation Toolkit: Three strategies for opportunity discovery.
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Market Pull. Collaborative interviewing that goes beyond the voice of the customer to
discover unvoiced needs, yielding products competitors don’t even know the market wants.
Technology Push. Monetize technologies by successfully matching ‘jobs’ enabled by
technology with attractive market needs; enable technology-driven competitive advantages.
Market Adjacency. A hybrid approach leveraging technical capabilities to build new
businesses within ‘nearby’, markets, combining market pull with technology push.
Professional Experience: Large company, startup & ownership; R&D, marketing & innovation.
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ScienceSmith Consulting, Inc., 2008-present – Managing Principal/PI: structured innovation,
technical marketing, market research, testing & methods, regulatory & standards,
Product Genesis, 2009-present -- Lead Consultant: market adjacency opportunity discovery.
Millennium Cell, Inc., 2001-20008 – Director: catalysis R&D, consumer electronics & standby
power product management; including regulatory & standards support.
Akzo Nobel Polymer Chemicals, 1989-2001 – Research & Technical Marketing Leadership:
organometallic specialty chemicals, olefin polymerization, electronics materials, catalysis.
Dow Chemical, 1986-1989 – Research Scientist –Olefin polymerization, polymer science.
Education: In depth chemistry know-how.
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Northwestern University, PhD, 1986 – Tobin Marks, organometallic chemistry.
MIT, SB, 1982 – Richard Schrock, chemistry & organometallic chemistry.
Gregory’s particular strength is the ability to take ownership of projects, master new technical fields
rapidly, identify and evaluate critical issues in technical validity, and bring to bear a practical
understanding of marketing and business realities. He is a scientist that understands business and
marketing with proven tools for identifying and developing new product and business opportunities.
To contact Greg, send a message to greg@sciencesmith.com or call 1.732.851.4232.
For Greg’s thoughts on innovation, see: www.linkedin.com/today/author/3429165.
For more information visit www.linkedin.com/in/sciencesmith or sciencesmith.com.
See page two for representative outcomes and accomplishments.
Gregory M. Smith, PhD
Managing Principal – Executive Summary
Representative Work: Key insights & accomplishments from past work & projects.
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Critical Outcome: Characterization of water-reactive materials for transport – assembled &
led team that won a grant to overhaul division 4.3 dangerous-goods testing. Implementation
now with experts on UN Subcommittee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods.
Critical Outcome: Materials technology opportunities – evaluated need for technology within
the Materials Technology Institute membership & identified EPRI as having already built
relevant technology resources. MTI evaluating collaboration with EPRI to gain access.
Critical Outcome: Battery adjacent-market opportunities evaluation – as part of market
research team, identified (among several options) LAB replacement with Li-ion in mobile
medical cart applications. Client developed product & entered market.
Critical Outcome: Consumer electronic fuel cell applications – coauthored micro fuel cell
safety standard 62282-6-100 (as part of IEC TC 105 Working Group 8). Enabled passenger
carry-on of qualifying fuel cell systems & fuel.
Key Insight: Evaluation of accommodating intraocular lens technology – interviews with
experts revealed that no technology, including the market incumbent, delivered objective
accommodation. Client dropped market entry ambitions.
Key Insight: Evaluation of grid-scale energy storage requirements – surveyed likely
requirements during 2010. Identified < $250/kWh, >2000 deep cycle and > 100,000
shallow depth of discharge cycles, manufacturing scale, and credible, demonstrated
performance as keys to adoption. Client technology could not meet this, and was
abandoned. Subsequent industry development has validated these conclusions.
Key Insight: Fuel cell systems for telecom landline standby power systems – interviewing
showed that planning engineers have shorter tenure than the proposed payback period, and
are generally innovation adverse. Development moved to other opportunities.
Critical Outcome: Hydrogen production catalysis program – led program that converted a lab
prep to a stable, reproducible commercial development process. US Patent Applications
20060292067, 20060293173 and 20070172417.
Critical Outcome: Trimethyl aluminum process development – as part of process team
suggested ‘distillative redistribution’ to improve yields. Now part of commercial process.
Critical Outcome: Precision & reproducibility in analysis – application of basic principles in
NMR to a plant assay for oxygen in trimethyl indium improved sensitivity & accuracy 10x.
Critical Outcome: Methylaluminoxane (MAO) cocatalysts for single-site olefin polymerization
catalysis – processes for ‘modified’ MAO. Product commercialized. US Patent 6,046,347.
Critical Outcome: MAO cocatalysts for single-site olefin polymerization catalysis – developed
quantitative MAO synthesis. Product commercialized. US Patent 5,831,109.
Critical Outcome: Polymer processing – evaluation of Mw before and after processing
identified pigment catalyzed polymer cleavage as cause of ‘melt flow rate shift’. US Patent
5,082,890.
Critical Outcome: Precision & reproducibility in analysis – coaching of operators on injection
molding stabilized testing outcomes within control limits.
Critical Outcome: Carbon-hydrogen bond activation – synthesis & characterization of model
compounds & intermediates, along with mechanistic experiments, demonstrating a
concerted four-center process for C-H cleavage.