Leadership

Lawrence Palley - CEO

Lawrence Palley joined NovaTorque in January 2008 after a 20 year career at Intel and 7 years working independently with small businesses.

He started his career at Intel in 1981 in strategic marketing for the non-volatile memory group.  In 1984, he helped start up Intel’s efforts in Programmable Logic, eventually becoming the groups general manager in 1991.  After growing the business further, he successfully sold the business, in 1994, to Altera Corp. From 1994 through 2001, Larry was a Director of Business Development at Intel, working jointly at Intel Capital and with the Peripheral Components Division.  During that time he was involved in numerous licensing and acquisition deals most notably involving the acquisition of Chips and Technologies and the Real3D operation of Lockheed-Martin, the basis of Intel’s current graphics technology.

After leaving Intel in 2001, Larry was the VP of Finance at a private, family business, guiding it through strategic challenges toward growth and continuous profitability.  During this time he also consulted with several other small businesses on strategy.

Larry has a BSEE from the University of California, Irvine and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

John Petro - Founder and CTO

John Petro is President and founder of NovaTorque Inc.  Mr. Petro has a strong background in innovative product design, with particular expertise in electromechanical design, magnetics, control theory, and vendor relationships (including international sourcing).
 
John obtained his B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1973 from the University of Virginia. After working for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), he attended Stanford University, where he received his M.S.E.E. in 1977. Mr. Petro worked for SRI International for nine years, where he met Don Burch (see below). After SRI he went on to do robotics work at Phase II Automation.
 
Mr. Petro founded Quizix, Inc. in 1987, where he served as President for 18 years. Quizix designs and manufactures precision pump systems for use in oil field research labs. Quizix has sold pumps to all the major Petroleum companies in the world. In addition to his management duties there, Mr. Petro served as lead engineer in the development of the control electronics and the mechanical design of the SP-5000, SP-6000 and QX high pressure pump systems. Mr. Petro recently sold Quizix to Ametek, Inc. so that he could focus his efforts on the high potential motor innovations introduced through NovaTorque Inc.
 
He is the holder of three patents and is the inventor on a number of new patents which have been filed on NovaTorque Inc's new motor technology.
 

Don Burch - VP of Product Development

Don Burch has had a long career developing new technology and products in Silicon Valley. His core areas of expertise include product definition, electronic design, test and evaluation processes, project and engineering management. Mr. Burch is co-inventor on six issued US patents.
 
After receiving a BSEE in 1972 at the University of Colorado - Boulder, Mr. Burch moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to pursue military and medical electronics projects at SRI International. While there, he completed a MSEE at Stanford in 1978. Don also met John Petro at SRI International, where they had a joint interest in solar energy and medical instrumentation.
 
After SRI Mr. Burch joined Acuson, a leading medical ultrasound company, during its start-up phase in 1982. During his nineteen years with Acuson, he designed major hardware subsystems in the Acuson 128 and Acuson 128 Pulse Doppler products. He was the architect and project manager for the Acuson 128 Color Doppler and Acuson 128XP products. Don spent the next several years in engineering management at Acuson, including a role as VP of Engineering.
 
After Siemens acquired Acuson in 2000, Mr. Burch decided to return to the small company environment he found so stimulating in the early Acuson period. He renewed his work relationship with John Petro when he joined Quizix, Inc. in the spring of 2001. At Quizix, Mr. Burch pursued control designs for a unique magnetic valve technology and was part of the design team for the Quizix QX pump. For the last eighteen months, Don has been part of the team developing the new motor technology that is now the core of NovaTorque Inc.