Leadership

Emily Liggett - CEO

Emily joined NovaTorque in March 2009 after 30 years experience as engineer, technology entrepreneur and CEO. Her passion is to successfully commercialize new technology-based products, which she has done many times in her career.

She began her career at DuPont as a process engineer and worked through a variety of assignments in manufacturing, development, strategic planning and customer technical support. She joined Raychem Corporation in 1984 and enjoyed assignments in Sales, Marketing, Operations and General Management, including GM of the Raychem Telecommunications Division and CEO of Elo TouchSystems, the global leader in touch technology products. Emily become CEO of Capstone Turbine in 2002, the world's leading producer of low-emission microturbine systems, and later became CEO of Apexon, a supply chain analytics provider for discreet manufacturing companies. Emily has had several international experiences; Lausanne Switzerland with EPFL, Sydney Australia with McKinsey consultants, Tokyo Japan with TouchPanel Systems and Brussels Belgium with the European Community Task Force for Industrial Innovation.

She has a chemical engineering degree from Purdue University and an MBA and a MS in Manufacturing Systems from Stanford University.

 

John Petro - Founder and CTO

John Petro is founder and CTO 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.