President and Chief Executive Officer, Altela, Inc., is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and led four high-tech start-up companies since leaving Sandia National Laboratories in 1994. He has also serves on several Boards of Directors for other high-techcompanies and non-profit organizations. Prior to co-founding Altela, his most recent for-profit efforts have been with companies in the ‘clean-tech’ space: the hydrogen economy (MesoFuel, Inc.) and photovoltaic solar cells (Advent Solar, Inc.). MesoFuel developed a new product for hydrogen fuel cells, and was sold to an international company less than two years after Godshall founded it in 2002.
He then became a Director and Chairman of the Board of Advent Solar, which completed two successful rounds of venture capital investment totaling $38 million during his tenure as Chairman. He co-founded Altela in 2004, a 40-employee water desalination company based in Albuquerque and Denver, whose initial market is the generation of clean water from the oil and gas industry’s primary waste product: ‘produced water’. Godshall has extensive experience in venture-backed start-up and development-stage companies, both as an investor and founder. He first negotiated seed-round financing with venture capital firms, and established the company’s accounting, payroll, budgeting, tax, project management, IP, and corporate legal systems before leading these companies in their development and growth phases. He also serves on numerous civic and non-profit Boards, including being named the 2011 Chairman of the University of New Mexico Anderson Business School’s Foundation Board.
Godshall has Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University, an MBA from the University of New Mexico, and a B.S. degree in Materials Engineering from Drexel University.
