Our Mission
The specific public benefit purpose of the Corporation is to economically scale an energy efficient adhesive, improving environmental sustainability in commercial applications and simplifying attachment and adhesion for consumer applications.
geCKo Materials, PBC
Our Team
Capella Kerst, Founder and CEO
Capella holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. She is the inventor for mass manufacturing of geCKo adhesive. She also holds degrees from UC Berkeley and UCLA. Cheering for sports is easy. Capella holds the patents in mass manufacturing of geCKo Materials adhesive.
Denis Fastert, COO
Denis holds an MBA from Claremont Graduate University - Drucker School of Management, a BSME from Syracuse University and has over 30 years of executive, finance, marketing, engineering and philanthropic leadership experience at IBM, General Dynamics, Silicon Graphics, LightPoint, Expedia and Rebuilding Together Silicon Valley. He is an avid builder, hiker, golfer, photographer, and world traveler who speaks fluent German.
Dan Hurley
Founding Head of Engineering
Dan has BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, and has over 12 years of experience in team development, operations, supply-chain management, and risk mitigation developed during his service in the US Marine Corps, in addition to more than 5 years of high-tech manufacturing and product design expertise. In his free time, he is a short story author who enjoys sports and the outdoors.
Hunter Hartshorne
Founding Mechanical Engineer
Hunter earned a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and has over 7 years of hands-on experience designing, testing, and deploying complex electromechanical systems. Outside the office he can be found running, surfing, or back-country skiing and skating.
Our Advisors
Naomi Boness, Phd
(board of directors member/advisor) who is the Managing Director of Stanford’s Natural Gas Initiative and Co-Managing Director of the Stanford Hydrogen Initiative. Naomi is an experienced practitioner in the energy sector with a focus on decarbonization pathways and technology development. Prior to Stanford, Naomi held a variety of technical and senior management positions at Chevron. As an advocate for women and gender equality, she is a member of the organizing committee for the Women in Clean Energy, Education and Empowerment (C3E) Initiative. Naomi holds a PhD in geophysics from Stanford.
Jonathan Salfity
(board of directors member/advisor) was a Lead R&D engineer at HP Labs with over 6 years of experience and 10 patent filings in the robotics’ domain. He has led university research in 3D print technology and commercialization. He joined geCKo pre-incorporating and holds a MS and BS in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from UCLA. He is transitioning into an advisory role while he pursues a PhD in Robotics.
Mark Cutkosky
(technical advisor) Professor at Stanford and inventor of the field of biomimicry and geCKo adhesive, who is seen on his LinkedIn picture scaling a wall using geCKo adhesive.
Our Investors
