Leadership Team

Robert Leon, Founder, Chief Technology Officer
and Chairman of the Board

Robert Leon is an award-winning inventor, entrepreneur and recognized leader in safety-product development. In his distinguished career, he has served as principal engineer for the machinery-diagnostics group at the Franklin Research Center, and received one of R&D Magazine's coveted R&D 100 Awards, dubbed "The Oscars of Invention "by The Chicago Tribune."

Mr. Leon co-founded and served as Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of Liberty Technologies, a company he helped grow from a venture-backed startup to a world leader in systems for testing safety-related valves in nuclear power plants with annual revenue of $39 million. He was awarded 27 patents assigned to Liberty Technologies, which he helped take public in 1993 (LIBT: NASDAQ).

Today, Mr. Leon serves on ASTM International's Committee on Performance of Buildings/Subcommittee on High-rise Building External Evacuation Devices, which has developed the safety standards for controlled-descent devices. In this role, he is helping to shape the emerging mass-evacuation industry in. To date, he has been awarded two patents assigned to Life-Pack Technologies.

Mr. Leon holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Drexel University.

Steven Jacobs, Chief Executive Officer

Steven Jacobs is a successful consultant, leader and communicator. He has been heavily involved in clinical supply chain operations for pharmaceuticals, biotech products and medical devices, and is a recognized expert in clinical supplies logistics, teamwork, leadership and management.

Leadership, the ability to drive outcomes, and bringing teams together are skills Mr. Jacobs developed as head of US clinical supply operations for Johnson & Johnson. He has served as the president and Global Chief Operating Officer of a multinational contract organization that served companies like Novartis, Eisai, Lilly and others in the pharmaceutical and biotech sector.

He was also a logistics and aviation officer, in the U.S. Army, where he rose to the rank of Major and was a maintenance test pilot and pilot in command for both rotary wing and fixed wing Army aircraft.

Mr. Jacobs holds a Bachelor's degree in pharmacy from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia and an MBA from the University of Phoenix.

Lemuel Tarshis, Senior Vice President

An experienced management consultant, Dr. Lemuel Tarshis has held senior-executive positions at a number of Fortune 500 companies. As a general manager with General Electric, he helped introduce the smoke alarm to the mass market. He has also served as vice president and general manager of General Instrument Corp. (now Motorola Broadband Communications); vice president and general manager at Times Fiber Communications; and executive vice president, director and COO for Timex.

Since 1991, Dr. Tarshis has worked as a management consultant for such companies as Lucent Technologies, AT&T, Bell Atlantic, GTECH and General Instrument. He is the director of Technology Transfer for the Alliance for Technology Management at Stevens Institute of Technology, where he also is a research professor. He serves as a member of the WorldGate Communications Board of Directors, having worked with the company from start-up through its rapid growth period. He is also co-founder of Aequus Technologies, a start-up developing assistive technologies and services to persons with sensory and cognitive disabilities.

His functional experience includes general management, innovation, new-product development, project management, strategic management, and R & D management. He is co-researcher/co-creator of the internationally cited Innovation Model for achieving high rates of product innovation and commercialization.

Dr. Tarshis received his Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Robert Cromack, Vice President, Manufacturing

With a career in quality and manufacturing operations that spans 38 years, Robert Cromack’s vast experience includes senior leadership positions throughout North America and Asia for General Instrument Corporation and Motorola.

Recently, he started a small consulting company where he uses his international business experience to help Asian vendors break into the US marketplace, and help bring US companies together with Asian suppliers.

Mr. Cromack holds a bachelor’s degree in business from The University of Texas at El Paso.