People

Meet The Team

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Al Kapoor

Chairman

Al Kapoor has three decades of experience with cutting edge industry formation at either startups or established corporations. His newsletter Pioneering Minds serves over 100,000 industry leaders worldwide to reveal epicenters of disruption. He has a Master’s degree in Engineering and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Al was a member of YPO from 1999-2019 and has been a member of our National Honor Science Society Sigma Xi since 1991. Al is on the advisory council for the AIM Academy at MIT that fosters education in photonics integrated circuits. From 2005-2015, Al was an executive volunteer for TiE (largest entrepreneurship non-profit organization in 60 cities and 20 countries), serving as chair of innovation conferences 2006-2008, president in Boston from 2008-2012, and then global chairman in 2015. As chairman, he also worked with the White House for a year to establish a national and global entrepreneurship program.

Dr. Robert Parada

President & General Manager

Dr. Robert Parada joined Syntec in 2014 as VP of Operations. From 2015 till 2017, he led Syntec’s customer product development division which encompasses manufacturing engineering, program management, tooling design, optical and opto-mechanical design, and optical thin film coating. He launched and scaled Syntec’s coating lab for R&D. Before joining Syntec, Rob held numerous R&D leadership roles at Eastman Kodak Company, and was VP of Engineering at a high-technology panoramic imaging company. He received his BS degree in Imaging Science from RIT, his MS and PhD degrees in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona, and a second doctoral degree in optics from the Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale in France.

Douglas Axtell

Vice President of Operations

Douglas Axtell joined Syntec Optics in 2016 as Program Manager in Syntec’s polymer optics division which encompasses process engineering, quality engineering, optical and opto-mechanical assembly. Prior to joining Syntec’s team, Doug held various project, chemical and coating engineering positions in Kodak’s Research Laboratories and later at Reflexite Display Optics as Sr. Material Scientist in Product Development where he contributed IP in UV cure formulation and coating performing toll R&D work. He achieved his Six Sigma Black Belt certification while at Kodak and during his tenure at Kodak and Reflexite.  He was awarded 10 patents. He received a BS in Imaging Science and a MS in Product Development from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Steven Polvinen

Advisory Board Member

Steven Polvinen brings years of experience in customer relations, business analytics, and as a product development engineering. More than this, Steven has been active for more than a decade in product marketing, strategic planning, Lean Six Sigma and customer proposal management. Steven joined Syntec as a Business Analyst in 2013 and was the VP of Business Development before becoming President of the company in 2016 & 2017. He received his MBA in Marketing and Financial Analysis from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and his BS in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University.

Richard Arndt

Vice President & Director Business Development/Technology

Richard Arndt is particularly qualified to lead Syntec Optics new business development team due to his exceptional blend of practical and theoretical expertise in optical tooling, optics molding and the application needs of many industries. He has over 30 years of precision manufacturing, design for manufacturing, and sales experience, the last 12 with Syntec. Rick co-founded Rochester Tool and Mold, a successful mold manufacturing firm subsequently acquired by Syntec, and holds a patent as co-developer of Syntec’s HRDT technology.

Joe Mohr

Chief Opto-Mechanical Engineer

Joe Mohr started his career at Wordingham over 20 years ago engineering and building optical components. Joe’s diverse background in Manufacturing Engineering of mechanical components for optics, along with his experience with design for manufacturability and process improvements enable him to be an effective leader of Wordingham Technologies. He brings a continuous improvement philosophy to Wordingham with emphasis on customer satisfaction. Joe is responsible for the daily manufacturing at our facility and looks to implement process improvements and to expand our product offerings and facilities.