Why We Are Here

We believe in the dignity and value of work. We are in business to make workers’ lives better.

How We Do It

We reduce drudgery and risk in work. We believe in workers and believe that by reducing drudgery and eliminating risk we can elevate their role.

What We Do

We build worker integrated robotics and automation. We learn the work and build the robotics that perform the dangerous, mundane and awful tasks.

Our Team

Chris Ziomek, CEO

Chris brings more than 30 years in high-tech – as an entrepreneur, investor, manager, engineer, and electronics designer. He was Senior VP at LitePoint, a division of Teradyne (TER). Chris was President and Founder of ZTEC Instruments, a high-tech startup acquired by Teradyne in 2013. Previous experience includes work as a Section Leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Microwave Engineer, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

Professional:
BS, UC-Davis & MS in Electrical Engineering, UNM.
Licensed Professional Engineer in New Mexico.
Board Member – ABQid & Kane Robotics.

Fun Fact: At age 14 while riding my bike, I barely survived a head-on collision with a pickup truck. Carpe Diem!

Matthew Ennis, CSO

Seasoned business leader who relentlessly seeks to create value across all stakeholder groups. Passion is building high functioning teams to solve tough problems.

Professional:
VP of Business Development at Lumidigm.
CEO and Investor in NTxBio.
VP of Open Source Intelligence & Media Analytics.
Graduated Magna Cum Laude from Bowdoin College.
PhD in Chemistry from Stanford University.

Fun Fact: Spent a year hitch-hiking and working around the South Pacific and Asia during which he was snow-bound in the Chandra Valley (Himalayas) for 6 weeks before he hiked out over 14,039’ Hamta Pass during a whiteout.

Xavier Lemon, Director of Sales

Xavier is a passionate technologist and avid cyclist bringing a host of problem-solving experience and customer relationship management to the Build With Robots team. His background has been building and growing successful tech driven companies with a focus on sales strategy and enablement. His core belief is that a company’s tech is important but building relationships is what keeps the doors open and lights on. Xavier doesn’t hesitate to be the first contact an organization speaks to or meets with when evaluating Build With Robots.
He is always happy to meet virtually for a cup of coffee and discuss how to automate your organization through the power of robots.
You can reach him at Xavier.Lemon@buildwithrobots.com or book a meeting on his calendar here.

Professional:
BA, Economics, Washington & Jefferson College
Strategic Management, Harvard Extension
Phi Gamma Delta

Fun Fact: Xavier maintains over 55 house plants controlling the temperature, light, and humidity in different rooms to mimic their native environment as best as one can in the New Mexico High Desert.

Nathaniel Matter, Head of Engineering

Nathaniel has 15 years of industry experience in both startup and corporate environments as an electrical engineer and data scientist. He worked in product R&D at VeraLight, Inc. Lumidigm, Inc. and HID Global, typically involving system integration and the design of both hardware and machine learning algorithms. He is a native of Albuquerque, NM and frequents the nearby trails in the Sandia mountains.

Professional:
BS, MS, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Medical Imaging Systems, Stanford University, Phi Beta Kappa.

Fun Fact: Nate is working on his US Soccer Federation Coaching D License.

Shane Davis, Head of Operations

Shane brings 15 years of experience at start-ups and public companies in the medical and technical field as an accountant, manager, and director. He was an accountant, supply chain manager, and operations manager at a start-up called ZTEC that was acquired by LitePoint, a division of Teradyne in 2013. Shane was the Director of Operations at a start-up called SAVSU, a high-tech medical transport company acquired by BioLife Solutions in 2019.

Professional:
BBA UNM in Accounting.

Fun Fact: Has an Australian cattle dog named Addie that runs his life.

Drew Tulchin, VP-Biz Dev

Drew brings 25+ years growing start-ups. He was the first CFO, then VP-Investments, at Meow Wolf, facilitated company expansion to 500 employees, grew revenues to $9 million/year, and raised more than $100 million. He Founded UpSpring, a certified B Corp. Previously, he worked in banking, international development, technology, and wireless. He is an investor and advisor to several New Mexico companies.

Professional:
BA, cum laude, Washington University & MBA, University of Washington.
Board Member, WESST; Member, Acoma Pueblo Business Council.

Fun Fact: Drew has worked in nearly 50 countries world-wide.

Karl Haack, Lead Mechanical Engineer

More than 33 years of industry experience in start-ups, R&D, and energy development. Has worked as a Mechanical Engineer, Systems Engineer, Experimentalist, Petroleum Engineer, and Program Manager. Played key roles in multiple R&D prototype development efforts at Northrop Grumman.

Professional:
BSME from Rice University (Cum Laude).
MSME from University of Texas at Austin.
Registered Professional Engineer in the State of New Mexico.

Fun Fact: A Burqueno for 34 years, Karl’s passion, beyond working on multidisciplinary teams developing new and useful things, is to explore the NM mountains on foot and mountain bike with family and good friends.

Simon Jensen-Fellows, Director of Software Engineering

Simon has more than 25 years experience in software engineering in developer and leadership roles. He began his career working on educational CD-ROMs in London and is proud to have written one of the first natural language chat bots for an in-game character. Since then, his career focused on developing software for purpose built hardware, with Avid Technologies, NVIDIA, EMC and DELL EMC. Simon is a hacker/maker in his spare time and coached an FLL Robotics team.

Professional: MA in Linguistics from University of Edinburgh.
MSC in Cognitive Science (with a focus on Natural Language Processing) from University of Edinburgh.

Fun Fact: As a child I loved the theatre. I recently rediscovered this love and began acting again (just in time for the pandemic!).

Sara Magaletta, Head of People Operations

Sara has served up essential structure and support to local businesses and nonprofits in New Mexico for over a decade. She has a strong background in community service along with broad professional experience in administration, development, and event management. Through her previous work with the City of Santa Fe’s Economic Development Department, as well as various roles with local start-ups, Sara has utilized her skills to empower new businesses to succeed. She is currently pursuing her MA in Counseling at NM Highlands University.

Professional:
B.A. in Art History from Boston University.

Fun Fact: Sara loves traveling, candy, dancing, movies and art.

Damien Gonzales, Sr. Mechanical Engineer

Damien brings 34 years of experience in mechanical engineering with extensive background in R&D and production environments. His background includes mechanical engineering design and manufacturing in aerospace, medical and commercial fields from concept level through high-volume production. He spent the last 20 years at two successful startups – SVS, Inc. (acquired by Boeing) and Lumidigm, Inc. (acquired by HID Global/Assa Abloy).

Professional:
BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico.

Fun Fact: Damien is an award-winning landscape artist. His is also into vintage dirt bikes.

Cherif Sy, Software Engineer

My name is Cheikhna Ahmed Tidiane boodnooma Chérif Sy. I go by Chérif. I am from Burkina Faso, in West Africa. Having been fascinated by technology from an early age, the house DVD players, Super Nintendo, and other electronics paid the price of my curiosity. Encouraged by my mother, I studied electronics at a technical high school.

Professional:
Moroccan Engineering School, master’s degree in “Informatique Industrielle”.
Second degree in Electrical Engineering.
MARSHES Lab at University of New Mexico.

Fun Fact: I am an avid, fanatical soccer player.

Edwin Ochoa, Mechanical Engineer

Edwin brings six years of experience working at Southwest Sciences assembling, designing and fabricating laser systems. Previously, he served as Research Engineer for Gryphon Technologies doing critical design and feasibility for the Air Force.

Professional:
BS in Mechanical Engineering with a specialty in Robotics.

Fun Fact: Started building robots at a young age, from using plastic cups, forks and scotch tape at birthday parties, to building a quadcopter from scratch in high school to now working at Build with Robots.

Clint Wolf, Applications Engineer

Clint is fascinated by automated processes. Having automated several back-office applications at the world’s largest microprocessor manufacturer, and automated processes for the city’s school system, he was able to see firsthand the difference it made. Clint is currently focused on hardware automation and believes that cobots work WITH humans and that we will all achieve more because of it. Bottom line – He loves automation.

Professional: BS in Computer Science, Masters in Information Systems Management, Deep-Dive IoT program at CNM

Fun Fact: Clint enjoys teaching too! Whether offering instruction on computer applications or working with people and their dogs, he believes that teaching is a great way to connect with people.

Manwinder Singh, Manufacturing Product Engineer

Experienced Process Engineer with a demonstrated history of working in a variety of industries including HDPE Manufacturing, Pharmaceutical, Medical Specialties, and Space/Defense. Professionally skilled in Automation, Chemical Engineering, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Operational Management, and Process Simulation. Played key roles in multiple facility expansions and process improvement projects.

Professional:
Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering – Texas Tech University.
Master of Science in Operational Management – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Member of American Chemical Society & AlChE – American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Fun Fact: I love to travel and enjoy being outdoors.

Pablo Aranda, Mechatronics Engineer

Pablo holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechatronics Engineering. He has 6 Years of experience in servicing office and network technologies. He has worked as a New Product Introduction Engineer, Mechanical Engineer and Production Planner. For his final college project, he developed an Artificial Neural Network for facial recognition.

Professional: BS in Mechatronics Engineering, University of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Fun Fact: Pablo plays chess for fun. He enjoys it so much, that – along with a group of friends – founded the United Chess Club.

Apurva Ramdham, Software Engineer

Technology is part of my identity as a roboticist as well as personally because I incorporate it in my daily life. I like to ponder over problems and solve them using cutting edge technologies to make this world a better place. I have ‘Rubik’s complex’ which doesn’t let me settle until I solve the problem. I bring experience with diverse background in robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and mechanical engineering.

Professional: MS in Robotics from Columbia University, In the city of New York.

Fun Fact: I can resist anything except temptation.

Chris Conkey, Technical Sales

Chris brings more than 15 years of experience in Technical Sales and Healthcare IT Business Development. As Director of Sales for Savioke Robotics, he chartered the complex healthcare sales cycle. Previous experience includes Nucleus Heath, where Chris was Director of Account Management overseeing an inside sales team. He’s also led the adoption and integration of several CRM systems.

Professional: BS Textile Markets, University of Rhode Island.

Fun Fact: Still learning how much work Jack Russell Terriers are (number three to date).

Marlene Trujillo, Applications Engineering Intern

Marlene brings years of automotive repair and restoration experience to the team, as well as over 15 years of experience as a customer service professional. She is experienced and skilled in welding, woodworking, and construction. Marlene has been involved launching numerous start-up ventures: including a food truck, landscaping company and S.T.E.M. educational enrichment program.

Professional: CNM, Certificate of Automotive Technology. CNM Ignite Community Business Accelerator Program. CNM Ingenuity Deep Dive Coding IOT Bootcamp.

Fun Fact: Marlene played the trumpet in Mariachi bands from high school and professionally.

Naga Sai Prithvi Raj Mamidala, Software Engineer Intern

My brush with engineering first began as a young kid, when I built an electronic braille system using micro solenoids. My love for it continues to grow every day. Previous experience includes Aspen Avionics, Albuquerque. I am curious by nature – while working with the UNM Optical Science Department, I taught myself to code front-end languages.

Turning my ideas into code, engaging with hardware, and building products motivates me. I love a good challenge – what’s better than robotics in this day and age?

Professional: Master of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of New Mexico

Fun Fact: When I am not working, you can find me cheering for Sebastian Vettel – a F1 race car driver – and playing cricket.

Aaron St. Clair, Software Engineer

Aaron is an experienced software engineer and roboticist and has previously worked in industry and academia roles developing software for robotic and interactive systems. These include educational robots, robot learning from demonstration, collaborative and socially-assistive robots, and software for computer-aided design and manufacturing.

Professional:
BS in Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology
MS and PhD in Computer Science, University of Southern California

Fun Fact:
Aaron is an Albuquerque native whose hobbies include photography, woodworking, and outdoor activities with his dog.

Board Members & Advisors

Phil Lowit, Advisor

Philip Lowit is a business leader, entrepreneur and investor with over three decades of experience building technology companies committed to advancing innovation. He is co-founder and Chairman of Tsymmetry, an IT solutions provider delivering mission critical support for U.S. National Security and Public Safety.

Mr. Lowit is committed to philanthropy and social impact, and has mentored young entrepreneurs and start ups. Throughout the last 12 years, he has been an active member and Board Member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) – a group that empowers the next generation of business executives. Mr. Lowit holds an MBA from Fordham University, has a strong interest in collector cars and especially enjoys off-roading with his wife and three daughters.

Professional:
BS in Business and Accounting from Rider University and an MBA from Fordham.

Charles E Mendez Jr., Board Member

Charles has a diverse background in real estate, banking, education, race promotion, business start-ups and regulated-waste management. He serves as Chairman of the Board and President of C. E. Mendez Foundation and founded the Too Good For Drugs and Violence prevention education programs in 1975. He is Board Member and CEO of Enthentica in New Mexico, a hardware embedded cyber bio-metric security solutions company. Prior business affiliations include MCF Systems, TECO Energy, Merchant Bank of Tampa, and Sebring Motor Sports International.

Professional:
Holds a degree in Finance from University of South Florida.

Fun Fact: Charles is an award-winning race car driver.

Bill Shank, Advisor

Bill began his career at the age of 14 as a Fuller brush man doing door to door sales.

Professional:
In 1971, he started Shank Painting with $1,000, which he grew and eventually sold in 2007 to the employees’ through their ESOP. He has owned and grown multiple businesses, real estate projects and renewable energy installations.

Walter J. Scheirer, Advisor

Walter J. Scheirer, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, with affiliations in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Dept. of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Center for Brain Science, and the director of research & development at Securics, Inc., an early stage company producing innovative computer vision-based solutions. Dr. Scheirer has extensive experience in the areas of computer vision, machine learning and robotics. His overarching research interest is the fundamental problem of recognition, including the representations and algorithms supporting solutions to it.

Professional: He received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado.

Dr. Steve Walsh, Board Member

Dr. Walsh has been a professor at the University of New Mexico since 1998. Professor Walsh has published in a number of Management and Engineering journals, such as Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Technovation, Creativity and Innovation Management, Journal of IEEE Transaction on Engineering Management, Journal of Small Business Management, among other publications.

He is a serial entrepreneur and teaches a number of entrepreneurship courses, including Technology Forecasting and Assessment, Projects in Technology Management, Technology Commercialization and the Global Environment, among others.

Professional: PHD in Strategic Management from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Fun Fact: I once took people on White Water guided canoe trips on rivers like the “Dead river” ( appropriately named) when I worked in New Hampshire.

Chris Ziomek, CEO & Board Member

Matthew Ennis, CSO & Board Member