USPTC Team
Piotr Moncarz, Ph.D., P.E., SCPM started his professional education at TGD in Poznań. Today he is a Consulting Professor at Stanford University, a Corporate VP at Exponent, a Silicon Valley science and technology public corporation, a member of the Board of the Polish National Center for Research and Development, member of Polish Academy of Scienceand of Russian Academy of Technological Science, Fellow of American Society of Civil Engineers, co-founder and chairman of US-Polish Trade Council, member of the Advisory Board of Forum Obywatelskiego Rozwoju, FOR, vice president of Polish energy consulting firm EPiD in Warsaw, a board member of San Francisco Global Trade Council. He is active in international business from power plant development projects, energy technologies and economics, to high-tech ventures. He is a frequent speaker in venues pertaining to stimulation to international cooperation with and investment into Polish high-tech sector.
Mr. Jerzy Orkiszewski was born and raised in Poland which he left just before defense of his Ph.D. thesis at the Warsaw Technical University. He holds an M.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Warsaw Technical University, Department of Fine Mechanics (currently Department of Mechatronics) and École Nationale Supérieure de l’Electronique et de ses Application in Cergy, France. Since 1989 he resides in California with his wife, a practicing medical doctor from Warsaw, and their daughter who after completing her medical education in Poznan, Poland practices medicine in the USA. In Silicon Valley he has been working for variety of product development biomedical device companies: Cutera, Inc., Ellex Medical, Lumenis, Inc. and Medical Group of Coherent, Inc., where he has been providing the technology and business leadership serving in various engineering, management and executive positions. Jerzy used to be on Polish national modern pentathlon team and plays classical guitar. He is also a pilot with commercial and instrument ratings. Jerzy is a contributing editor of “Przeglad Lotniczy – Aviation Review” aviation magazine in Poland. He provides to USPTC a strong link to the US biomedical technology sector.
Mariusz Tomaka is active as organizer, co-founder, and CEO level manager of innovative electronic and software related companies located in Poland with focus on local and international markets. For years he has been involved in building business structures which allow groups of ambitious engineers to gather around challenging projects.
He specializes in building and running innovative companies – startups – focused on international markets and leading teams of engineers and managers to achieve challenging technology and business objectives. Prior to DisplayLink he worked as an Area Manager – Poland at Neubloc, board adviser – share holder at ABF sp. z o.o. and CEO at Neubloc Sp. z o.o. “Poland is the best Gateway to Europe for US companies, US is a global market Gateway for Polish businesses” – Mariusz’s motto.
Stan Lewandowski is a partner practicing in the Silicon Valley office of K&L Gates LLP, a premier global law firm. Mr. Lewandowski focuses his practice on advising technology companies on structuring, equity and debt financings, joint ventures, licensing and intellectual property protection, mergers and acquisitions and other strategic transactional issues. Mr. Lewandowski is often engaged by start-up and more mature companies from Europe and other parts of the globe to assist with their migration to Silicon Valley. Mr. Lewandowski received his law degrees from UC Hastings College of the Law and the Nicolaus Copernicus University and diplomas from the University of Cambridge, British Centre for English and European Legal Studies, and the Jean Monnet Centre for European Studies. Mr. Lewandowski is a founder, former chairman and chief executive officer, of the Polish-American Chamber of Commerce.
Caroline Brownstone is President and CEO of International Management and Marketing Associates (IMMA Ltd.), headquartered in San Mateo, California. Ms. Brownstone’s extensive experience in international business and economic development is directed to international corporations, government organizations, small and medium-size enterprises (SME) in the United States, European Union, Central and Eastern Europe, Balkan and Baltic States, the former Soviet Union and Eurasia.
In 1986, Ms. Brownstone provided the leadership and management expertise in Central/Eastern Europe with the successful development of Comparative Study Program conducted onsite in Poland, the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the former German Democratic Republic in cooperation with the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
In 1996, Ms. Brownstone served as an official delegate with the Delegation of the Republic of Poland at the Group of Seven (G-7) Conference of the Fourth West-East Conference of Ministers of Trade, Industry and Economics.
IMMA Ltd’s previous highly successful USAID projects fostered an invitation in 2000 for Ms. Brownstone to participate in its Europe and Eurasia (E&E) Bank Supervision Conference in Warsaw, Poland, keynoting “Implementing International Standards”. Ms. Brownstone participated with bank supervision authorities in reducing systemic risk while providing a forum for senior bank supervision, deposit insurance, bank restructuring, practical solutions to critical issues facing international financial markets, and highlighting implementation of the Basel Core Principles for Effective Bank Supervision.
As a result of keynote speeches at an extensive roster of international business conferences and economic summits, Ms. Brownstone was invited to deliver a keynote address at the USAID Economic Empowerment of Women Regional Conference at Kiev, Ukraine in 2002. Ms. Brownstone served as a keynote speaker in Hungary on “Strategic Implications of International Organizational Development: A Socio-Economic Study of the Relationship Between Visits of Heads of State and Trade with the State of California” where she presented landmark findings in preeminent international negotiations.
Ms. Brownstone has served as a member of the World Affairs Council of Northern California, Board of Trustees; International Host Committee, Governor of California; the Academy of Management; and Strategic Management Society.
Academic post-graduate affiliations include Harvard Business School Executive Education, Women Leading Business: An Executive Forum, University of San Francisco, Graduate Fellow, State of California, and Stanford University, Stanford Program on Managing Innovation. Ms. Brownstone is listed in the “International Directory of Business and Management Scholars and Research,” Harvard Business School Press. Academic Associations include: Simmons College, Boston, University of San Francisco, International Organization Development; University of San Francisco, Adjunct Faculty.
In 2010, Ms. Brownstone was honored by the President of the Republic of Poland and received the presidential decree of citizenship of Poland.
In 2014, Ms. Brownstone accepted invitation from Harvard University, Harvard Kennedy School, to participate in the international competitive program “WOMEN AND POWER: Leadership in a New World” in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Amongst these impressive international leaders from over 40 countries, Ms. Brownstone proudly represented Poland.
Mr. Clay A. Bullwinkel is Founder and CEO, Silicon Valley Flow LLC, an advisory firm in IT venture management. For 35 years Clay has pioneered new businesses with measurable new value for customers, employees, and stock holders. His disciplines cover general management, finance, team recruiting and building, product development, product management, sales and marketing. He currently specializes in building companies through game changing rehabilitation and acceleration of product development, product management, and sales for companies in voice, text, and graphical communications. Solution coverage can be consumer, professional, enterprise, or all. He is a former executive of 3Com (network interfaces, protocols, infrastructure, and network management) and Hewlett Packard (vertical market solutions marketing). More recently he was CEO of Aiton Caldwell Inc., a VoIP telecommunications venture with its parent in Gdansk, Poland. In 2003 Clay co-founded the U.S. Poland Trade Council, and is a member of its Board of Directors. Since 1983, seven years before official conversion to capitalism, he has been working with Poland-based businesses, including with Univex of Krakow, for which he co-designed audio products which influenced Apple’s iPod. He has his B.A. and M.B.A. degrees from Stanford University. He speaks intermediate Polish and German. A 4th generation San Franciscan, Clay resides with his wife Denise in nearby Portola Valley. They have two professionally employed daughters. With family and friends he enjoys history and science fiction reading, gardening, hiking, fly fishing, and a variety of sports including participation in middle distance foot races.
Damian Cieslicki Ph.D., was born and raised in Poland. He holds an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Silesian University of Technology and Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from Santa Clara University, Santa Clara. Since 1987 he resides in California with his wife and two children. In Silicon Valley he has been working for a variety of companies: ABB Group, Auriga Corporation, Octel Communications, and OATI Inc. where he has been providing technology leadership serving in various engineering and management positions. He has over 25 years of experience in power system SCADA software application projects including management, proposal preparation, work statements negotiation. Provided dedicated intensive on-site and off-site support to customers for Energy Management Systems (EMS) including training, requirement identification, design and implementation of product enhancements and troubleshooting. Recently conducted cutting edge academic research for failure resistant cloud computing architectures with applications in large-scale power system analysis in real-time monitoring and control. Damian is also a founder and managing partner of E3 Green Energy LLC and lectures at Santa Clara University. Damian is presently serving as Vice President of Polish American Engineers Club of Silicon Valley. In free time he plays piano and classical guitar.
Dr. Eng. Magdalena Diering is an Assistant Professor at the Poznań University of Technology (PUT), Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Management, Chair of Management and Production Engineering. She is an expert in statistical process control and measurement system analysis. Trainer in quality engineering (trainings in MSA, SPC, FMEA, APQP, DMAIC, Lean).
Her interests focuses also on project management and science commercialization. She has extensive experience in organizational, scientific and structural project management. At work she promotes culture of teamwork, design thinking and innovation among Polish scientists and entrepreneurs. She is a graduate of the Top 500 Innovators program at Stanford University (2012). She is the coordinator of the US-Poland Innovation Hub team.
Krzysztof Dyczkowski obtained his PhD in Computer Science in 2002. He is assistant professor at Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. His main research interests are imprecise information processing methods in decision making, computer vision and natural language modeling. In 2010 he received IBM Faculty Award. Member of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society and European Society for Fuzzy Logic and Technology (EUSFLAT). He has many years of experience in IT project management. Co-founder and longtime CEO of an IT company producing and implementing an ERP class system. PARP’s (Polish Agency for Enterprise Development) and NCBiR’s (The National Centre for Research and Development) expert. He is graduate of the Top 500 Innovators program at Stanford University (2012).
Lukas Grabiec is Assistant General Counsel at GoDaddy and was for 8+ years prior Corporate Counsel in various capacities at Microchip Technology Inc., Intel Corporation and Honeywell International. Lukas was recognized in the legal community as the “Up and Comer” Attorney of the Year for 2012 by the Association of Corporate Counsel and Arizona Business Magazine and also was selected to the prestigious School for Leaders (Szkoła Liderów) program in Warsaw, Poland sponsored by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Office of the President of Poland.
He is heavily involved in various organizations including being the Chairman of the State Bar of Arizona In-House Counsel Committee, current Director and founding member of the US-Poland Trade Council (USPTC) Office in Arizona, Mentor at the US-Poland Innovation Hub in Silicon Valley, and frequent lecturer across the U.S. and Europe including at the Stanford Center for Professional Development at Stanford University.
Lukas received his Juris Doctorate (JD) from Case Western Reserve University, his MBA from École de Hautes Études Commerciales (EDHEC) (France), a B.S. in Political Science from the University of Houston Honors College as well as a Certificate of Polish Studies from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. During law school he worked with the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone and wrote briefs helping prosecute War Criminals. This UN project which was organized by Case Western, American University and the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG) was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Lukas has been featured or interviewed by CNBC, TVP (Telewizja Polska) POLVISION – Kulisy Suksesu (tv program), Arizona Attorney Magazine, Gazeta.pl, Tygodnik Angora, FoxSports, Sport.pl, and Przeglad Sportowy.
Christopher Kerosky is the Honorary Consul for the Republic of Poland in San Francisco. Mr. Kerosky is the founder and principal of his own law firm, Kerosky & Associates, located in the Humboldt Bank Building in downtown San Francisco. He has been an attorney licensed to practice law in California for 20 years. He is former counsel for the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C. He is also a former President of the Polish American Congress and listed in the Who’s Who in Polish America. He has acted as counsel for the Polish American Congress, the John Paul II Foundation, the Polish Credit Union, the U.S.-Poland Trade Council and many other Polish and Polish American organizations including the U.S.-Poland Trade Council. Mr. Kerosky is fluent in Polish and English, and speaks conversationally in Russian, French and Spanish.
Dr. Marek Konopnicki is a graduate of Warsaw Technical University (EE) and obtained his Ph.D. (Physics/Optics) from the University in Rochester. He has 30+ years experience in leadership and execution of development of complex electro-optical systems for imaging, remote sensing, and directed energy applications for ground, airborne and space platforms. His other research interests include physics, photonics, laser, and quantum optics. He has also been interested in potential applications of emerging technologies in practical systems. Most of Dr. Konopnicki’s professional career was spent with the Advanced Technology Center of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Palo Alto, CA. Prior to joining Lockheed Martin, Dr. Konopnicki worked for the US Air Force Research Laboratory on developing high energy lasers and systems for directed energy applications. Dr. Konopnicki has always been actively involved in fostering productive industry-university relations and served on corporate advisory boards of the Physics and Applied Optics Department of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, The Institute of Optics of the University of Rochester, College of Optical Engineering of the University of Arizona, and of the College of Engineering of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Dr. Konopnicki held teaching appointments at the University of Rochester, St. John Fisher’s College, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of California Berkeley, and San Jose State University in the areas of physics, lasers, modern optics, and electro- optical sensors and systems.
Ela Kozera acts as Director of Programs at US-Polish Trade Council. She has gained the managerial and organizational skills while working for various Polish and U.S. emerging growth companies. Her interests in human nature make her a personable and energetic individual who cultivates positive relationships with persons from diverse cultures and backgrounds. She has been searching constantly for beauty and simplicity in words, design and every other aspect of human expression. Her creative side and attention to detail have been expressed during her consulting, teaching, training and volunteering projects. In her professional and personal engagements, she always looks at things from all perspectives. She holds M.A. and B.A. degrees in German Studies of History and Culture from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland. She also completed her studies focused on International Business and Administration at UC Berkeley. Recently, she received her EMBA degree with honors from the University of San Francisco.
Mariusz Sawinski is a leader in making connections in international trade and investment for Poland. As partner for International Public Affairs, Mr. Sawinski has played pivotal roles in working with the public and private sectors in Poland and its neighbor countries ant the highest levels. His successes include organizing business connections between Polish companies, Government Ministries and Institutions and a German Consulting company working for European Space Agency (ESA) and Executives of GALILEO Project Management, 2004 and initiating talks with US telecommunication companies that are leading to improved telecommunication infrastructure structure in rural Poland. Mr. Sawinski is a graduate of the University of Lublin, and completed post-graduate studies in Communication and Public Relations at the Warsaw School of Economics.
Francis Skrobiszewski has 30 years of experience in law, investment management, strategy development and public affairs, working in the United States, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In 1989, Mr. Skrobiszewski was called to The White House by then-President Bush to discuss privately strategies for the redevelopment of the Polish economy and later to meet Lech Walesa. In 1990, he prepared a forward-looking US Labor Department strategic approach for the then-existing countries of the Soviet Bloc. He subsequently served as Senior Vice President of the Hungarian-American Enterprise Fund and Managing Director of the Hungarian Innovative Technologies Fund — the first direct equity fund in Central Europe focused on local seed/early-stage companies developing new technologies with global market potential. Previously, Mr. Skrobiszewski was Vice President of the Polish-American Enterprise Fund, Director of Portfolio Management for NIF VII in Poland’s Mass Privatization Program, and an attorney at Bank of America, among other positions. On returning to the USA, he worked for Booz Allen Hamilton in developing a business initiative to help strategic investors access markets in developing countries, and currently is serving on the Investment Committee of Krajowy Fundusz Kapitałowy (Polish National Capital Fund)www.kfk.org.pl a ~$250 million fund-of-funds financing Polish venture capital firms and advising on the development of private equity and venture capital funds to promote private enterprise in emerging markets. He also serves on the Board of the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Skrobiszewski has studied at US and European universities and holds a Juris Doctorate, a Masters in Systems Management and a Bachelors in Economics.
Rafal Stroinski holds a Ph.D. in law from Warsaw University Law School, an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School, a master’s honors degree from Warsaw University Law School and a master’s degree in Iberian Studies from Warsaw University. During 2005-2006 Mr. Stroinski stayed at Stanford Law School as a Fulbright and Polish Science Foundation Visiting Scholar. He is admitted in New York State as Attorney and Counselor at Law and an Advocate in the Warsaw Advocates’ Bar.
Rafal has seventeen years of experience in the practice of law. As of 2011 he is one of the two co-founding Partners of JSLegal (www.jslegal.pl), a boutique law firm, where he heads the Mergers & Acquisitions, Private Equity, Emerging Companies & Venture Capital, Capital Markets and Corporate Governance practices.
Prior to establishing JSLegal, Rafal for several years was a Partner with CMS Cameron McKenna where he set up and managed the Capital Markets practice and was one of the leaders of the Private Equity practice.
Rafal Stroinski has been consistently listed in “Chambers Global – the World’s Leading Lawyers for Business” as one of the leading lawyers in the Corporate, M&A and Private Equity practice in Poland. Rafal Stroinski is also a lecturer at Warsaw University Law School. His research focuses on Law and Economics and Comparative Law and in particular on board member liability regulations. He is fluent in English and Portuguese and has a working knowledge of Spanish.
Tony Zukovsky brings in more than 25 yrs of experience in R&D, Project Management, and Test Engineering in the telecommunication industry coming from his work involvement at such high tech companies like Nortel, Bell Northern Research and Cisco Systems. He has always had great interest in public policies and in running not for profit Polish American Organizations like the Polish American Engineers Club, the Polish American Congress – Northern California Division and the Polonia Foundation. For his public involvement, he was recognized by the President Republic of Poland with the Cross of Merit. Tony holds BSEE degree from Technical University in Bialystok – Poland.
Hubert Zydorek serves as Director of the Bachelor of Science in Global Business as well as Director of Center for Global Business at the University of Texas at Dallas. In his role he partners with students, faculty, businesses and communities to promote global business initiatives in Dallas, Texas. Hubert has 16+ years of experience in international consulting, academic teaching and management of design, development and delivery of blended-learning solutions for international clients. Prior to joining UTD Hubert worked for Intellinex, an eLearning venture of Ernst & Young and Xerox Learning Solutions where he led global teams to create multilingual and customized learning programs. He has lived and worked in various countries across Europe and Asia. Hubert received his BA in International Relations and Business from Cleveland State University, his MBA from Cleveland State University, and MA in Finance and Investments from the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. He currently serves on advisory boards of academic institutions and international companies.
Marek Zywno is a technical manager, developer of precision instruments, nanometer positioning systems, with high end controls, metrology, mechanics, optics. He has developed architectures and led precision engineering of a number of precision engineering instruments for the use in semiconductor equipment. He has served in various roles in technical management of teams developing electron lithography tools, machines for electron beam wafer inspection, optical wafer and reticle inspection at nanometer level. He has spent most of his career at KLA Instruments and KLA-Tencor, where he is now developing precision mechanics for a new silicon wafer inspection machine. He also played technical and management roles at Etec Systems, Electroglas, and other high tech Silicon Valley companies. Author and co-author of numerous patents in precision engineering.
Marek is active in the Polish engineering and professional community, presently serving as President of Polish American Engineers Club of Silicon Valley. He has co-organized a number of thematic meetings, symposia and social events. He is also a sailor, serves as Rear Commodore of Yacht Klub Polski San Francisco.
He is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Auburn University, academic teacher, researcher in: transportation network planning, road safety improvement and implementation, bridge live load and fatigue analysis in the USA, Weigh-in-motion data processing and analysis, big data processing, SQL databases developer. He is a Bentley MicroStation user and application developer (MDL and VB.Net), and software developer: C++, Visual Studio, VBA, MATLAB. He prepared a few four-stage transport demand models in PTV VISUM, microsimulation in PTV VISSIM for cities and counties. He was involved in Florida, California, and Montana Department of Transportation research projects. Lots of professional projects for private companies and public sectors in the field of transport were prepared by him, mainly in the field of road safety improvement, road network planning, traffic prediction, and feasibility studies.
