Bob Zailckas is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and a Founding Member of GROW-RI, LLC. He is a senior executive with domestic, federal, and International experience in the high technology arena. Bob has lived and worked all over the world, and his resume includes an exceptional track record of starting up new business activities and restructuring existing organizations for revitalized growth. His key competencies include business operations, sales and marketing, new business development, mergers & acquisitions, program management, and strategic planning. He is a proven leader with superior interpersonal and team building skills, and excellent business acumen.

Bob has thirty years of high-tech experience with companies that include The Analytic Sciences Corporation, Perot Systems, and EDS where he had operational responsibility for the delivery of $400M of IT services and hardware to the US Navy. Bob’s entrepreneurial experience includes ventures in bioscience, healthcare, voice authentication, aviation, security, printing, manufacturing, and first responder applications.

In addition, Bob was a principal and the president of Airport Innovations, a company that developed and patented a system for the generation and collection of landing fees, and the storage and distribution of operational and financial data over the Internet and other mediums. The company provided airports, municipalities and state organizations with greater visibility and management of financial information, overall airport security, and control of security and aircraft operations. Bob was additionally a founder and principal of OnScene, Inc., a company, which employed a unique sensor and revolutionary wireless technology in the delivery of critical incident management systems for use in the public safety arena.

Prior to founding Airport Innovations, Bob was CEO of AeroDimensions, an Engineering and Professional Services company that is owned by an FAA union, the Professional Airways Systems Specialists. He also served as vice-president at MERANT Corporation where he was responsible for its $28M worldwide Product Consulting.

Bob holds a bachelor's degree in Finance from Boston College and an MBA with a concentration in Finance from Western Michigan University.

He is also an Adjunct Lecturer at Dean College and was an Adjunct for the Boston College Graduate Management Programs.

Anthony Ball is the Chief Science Officer (CSO) and a Founding Member of GROW-RI. He is a serial entrepreneur (four companies to date) specializing in start-up R&D businesses where his activities have included establishment of BSL2 laboratories, biosafety and chemical hygiene compliance, quality systems, authorship of research protocols and SOPs, validation of methodology, business development, management of multidisciplinary research teams, intellectual property development, and overall company operations and new research activities.

Anthony has 15 years of microbiological research and regulatory affairs experience, has authored, or co-authored 15 scholarly publications in the area of natural product chemistry, antimicrobial small molecule drug discovery, and biofilms and these works have been cited nearly 1,000 times by independent researchers; two of these publications were featured on the journal cover. He was a voting member at the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) Infusion Pumps committee and co-author on “Medical Devices Safety Assurance Case Report Guidance TIR38:2014”. He is inventor on 3 patent applications in the area of phototherapy and ultraviolet germicidal irradiation, a contributing author to the textbook “Antimicrobial Drug Discovery; Emerging Strategies” and served as a juried reviewer in the area of microbiology for the periodical “Photochemistry and Photobiology”.

He served as mentor to the American Society of Microbiology Speakers Bureau (current Careers in Microbiology) from 2013 to 2017 where he advised recent college graduates and post-doctoral students to find employment in the field of microbiology, an invited judge to the 20th Annual Student Research & Community Award event at UMass Lowell (2015), and a Industry Representatives for the Executive Committee Panel Discussion with Industry and Academia to the Mass Life Sciences Center (MLSC) hosted by UMass Lowell (2015).

Anthony has assisted several companies find research funding through competitive grant authorship totally over 2 million dollars at ICET Inc. and Gliese 623B LLC, capital investment exceeding 8 million dollars for UV Light Care Inc and GAMA Therapeutics, and increased the revenue of Toxikon corporation’s microbiology department by millions of dollars through the development of special research programs. He has created over 20 million dollars in valuation for the organizations he has helped establish.

Anthony is the recipient of the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center (MTTC) Award (2006), MLSC student research award (2015), and Army XTechSearch award (2019), is a registered microbiologist, Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices: NRCM # License 5108 and member of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM)—2005-Present and The Optical Society (OSA) 2016-Present.

Anthony received a Bs.S in Biology from Northeastern University (2005), was a bacteriology Ph.D. student and completed his general qualifying exams, research and teaching rotations, and graduate coursework at Northeastern University (2007), and is currently enrolled at Worcester State University’s Biotechnology Ms.S program.

Brian Rajotte is VP of Engineering at GROW-RI and President of OEE Datawatch, LLC, a licensing partner. He operates the UAK3100 manufacturing site located in York, Pennsylvania. OEE Datawatch is a full-service Industrial Automation and Controls Company with a Patent Pending UAK1000 Universal Automation Kiosk Factory Line Controller with Data Acquisition.

Brian brings over 30 Years of automation control design experience to GROW-RI and over 10 years of managing controls divisions in large automation companies. Brian has re-structured automation and implemented Lean Manufacturing, saving companies over $ 20 Million.

At Ross Systems and Controls, Brian was the Lead Engineer and designed their pharmaceutical mixer control software. Brian also designed and programmed mixer controls for Charles Ross and Son and designed a Printed Circuit Board controller for Ross Mixing laboratory mixers. At Westfalia Technologies, Brian managed the automation department and started the Control Panel assembly division saving millions in outside panel design and fabrication. Brian also upgraded the software department to all of the latest PLC programming techniques to give Westfallia Technologies a superior edge in selling High Rise Storage and Retrieval buildings (ASRS). Brian also designed the electronics and the software for the Smart-Pik paperless picking system for warehousing and implemented 4 large multi-million dollar installs around the world.

At Berk-Tek, a Nexans company with over 300 Million in sales and a growth rate of 45%. Brian was responsible for all plant operation and robotics implementation in the Ethernet division in Pennsylvania. Brian implemented plantwide Lean manufacturing and Industrial Internet of Things data Retrieval and Statistical Process control increasing quality and production by 30+%.

Brian has designed and implemented Industrial Controls for many large companies including; Boston Globe, Pfizer, Meck, Charles Ross and Son, Assurant, Fuji, Serenissima in Argentina, Oxford Frozen Foods in Nova Scotia Canada, Maybelline, Cosmair, to mention a few.

Brian is currently focusing on new patented product processes to aid in the automation of the next generation of data ready factories with worldwide inter-connectivity. Brian is extremely focused on data and lean manufacturing as he designs new automation systems to move the automation Industry into the next generation.

Bill Burke co-founded GROW-RI in April 2020 and served as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) from April 2020 to August 2021 before retiring. Bill has over 25 years of CFO experience in the software, logistics, transportation, telecommunications, medical device, and capital markets industries.

During his successful career, Bill raised over $100 million of working capital for both private and public companies, built multiple finance functions from the ground up, led international expansion, merger & acquisition projects, and took several companies public.

Bill was the first Vice President of Finance and Administration, CFO, and Treasurer at Boston Technology (BT). During his eight year tenure at BT, the company grew from 22 employees and $1 million in revenue to over 450 employees and over $105 million in revenue. He supported dramatic international growth, with over 60% of revenue derived from global customers. He raised $17 million in a Merrill Lynch public offering, and Boston Technology had a very successful exit with the sale of the company for over $840 million.

He has also been an investment banker. As Director of Telecommunications Banking at Tucker Anthony, Bill managed private placements, public offerings, merger and acquisitions, and financial advisory engagements. He was a member, and the Chair of the Membership Committee, of the Board of Directors on the Massachusetts Telecommunications Council. Bill is a past member of the Board of Directors of Aldiscon, Ltd., an Irish telecommunications software company, located in Dublin, Ireland. During his tenure on the Board, Aldiscon was acquired by Logica, a publicly traded company, for over 57 million Irish Pounds.

He has served on Advisory Boards in the high technology and the financial services sectors. Bill has lectured on the subject “Going Public and the IPO Process” at local universities and professional societies. He is a former Adjunct Faculty member and taught Entrepreneurship for the Graduate MBA program at the University of New Hampshire. As a US Army Signal Corps Officer in Vietnam, he was awarded the Army Commendation and Bronze Star Medals.

Bill received an MBA from Suffolk University, a BS in Accounting from Bentley University and is a graduate of the MBA Update 2000 Program at the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College. He is also a graduate of the GE Financial Development Program and the Crosby Quality College Program.