Board of Directors

Mr. Brdar has over 30 years of experience in the power systems and energy industries and has held a variety of leadership positions during his career. In addition to his role at Ideal Power, Dan served as President and CEO of FuelCell Energy Inc., a Nasdaq-listed company with a market cap of over $250 million. During his tenure, the company's revenues increased 235%, to $100 million, manufacturing production increased by over 200% and over $100 million was raised from institutional and strategic investors. Prior to joining Ideal Power, Mr. Brdar served as the Chief Operating Officer of Petra Solar, a privately held, venture funded solar and smart grid company, where he held full P&L responsibility and led a cross-functional management team across several international markets. He also served as Gas Turbine Product Manager, for GE's Power Systems Division, a world leader in power generation systems and products. Additionally, Dan has extensive research and development experience at the U.S. Department of Energy through various roles at the National Energy Technology Laboratory. He has a BS in Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.

Mr. Turmelle served as President of Hayward Tyler, a manufacturer of performance critical pumps and motors, until January 2024. Hayward Tyler has a heritage stretching back 200 years.  Started in the UK, Hayward Tyler now has operations in China, India and the US as well as in the UK.  Mr. Turmelle joined Hayward Tyler in 2015.  Prior to Hayward Tyler, Mr. Turmelle has an extensive history of success in P&L management, business development, public and private financing, M&A and strategic planning.  Mike has served at various times as CEO, CFO, COO and/or on the Board of Directors for several companies.

Mr. Freeman has over 30 years of semiconductor industry experience, sixteen of which focused on sales and marketing of semiconductors to the automotive industry. He spent most of his career at NXP Semiconductors (“NXP”), a Dutch multinational manufacturer serving the automotive industry. In 1990, he joined VLSI Technology, an American company that designed and manufactured custom and semi-custom integrated circuits, which was bought by Philips Semiconductors, a division of Philips Electronics. Philips Semiconductors was subsequently spun-out from Philips to become NXP. At NXP, he served in various leadership positions in Japan, Germany, China and Silicon Valley. He launched and served on the Board of Directors for Datang-NXP Semiconductors, the first Chinese automotive semiconductor company, and ended his tenure at NXP as Senior Vice President Global Automotive Sales & Marketing. While at NXP, Mr. Freeman built significant automotive semiconductor market share by developing long-term relationships with OEMs and locking in design wins at Tier-1 automotive customers. He currently provides strategic and advisory services, with recent clients including Savari (acquired by Harman) and DeepScale.ai (acquired by Tesla), and serves on the Board of Sand Hill Angels, a group of Silicon Valley angel investors. Mr. Freeman has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from San Diego State University and an MBA in Business from Pepperdine Graziadio Business School.

Mr. Knight has 20 years of experience in the photovoltaic (PV), silicon carbide, electric vehicle (EV) and power electronics markets in both leadership positions and as a strategic consultant. He currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Hardinge Inc, a leading international provider of advanced-cutting solutions for metals and other materials with a full spectrum of highly reliable CNC turning, milling, grinding and honing machines. Prior to Hardinge, Mr. Knight served as President and Chief Executive Officer of GT Advanced Technologies, a producer of silicon carbide and sapphire crystal materials for expanding markets such as EVs and power electronics. His leadership positions include: Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Exawatt, which provides strategic consulting for the solar PV, EV, power electronics, high-purity quartz and lithium-ion battery markets; President of PV Tech Group, a provider of a range of operations and strategic planning services to the PV industry; and Chief Technology Officer for Equity Solar, a provider of silicon surface chemistries intended to increase PV cell efficiency. Mr. Knight began his PV career as Manufacturing Director, Solar Cell Fabrication, at Schott Solar, a manufacturer of components for solar power systems. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Hardinge Inc., a multi-national machine tool builder. Mr. Knight served five years in the U.S. Navy as Chemistry / Radiological Controls Officer and holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Cornell University and a formal nuclear engineering education from the Naval Nuclear Power School.

Mr. Lesster comes to Ideal Power with a career-long background of both technical and management experience in power electronics and power conversion systems. Prior to 1985 Mr. Lesster worked first in the power conversion group at the Westinghouse R&D Center, and subsequently at the Westinghouse ESSD Oceanic Division. As an Advisory Engineer he was instrumental in developing power electronics for power conversion, active sonar and propulsion systems for deep submergence vehicle and surface ship applications. In 1985 he became manager of Electrical Engineering and in 1992 as part of an ESSD thrust into commercial activity he was appointed to assemble and lead the technical team that worked in conjunction with Chrysler to develop and take to initial production advanced power trains for the Chrysler EPIC minivan. Following the Northrop Grumman acquisition of ESSD he returned to the Oceanic Division as Engineering Director of the 300 strong engineering department and then as Chief Scientist. In 1999 he joined SatCon Applied Technology as Engineering Director and later as General Manager. He resigned from his management position in 2002 to lead the design and development of a novel 2MW flywheel/doubly fed induction machine and diesel based uninterruptible AC power source. With the transfer of that and similar power electronics-based technology to RTC Systems in 2003 Mr. Lesster joined RTC in an advisory role and was active in hardware development of vehicle and shipboard pulse power, and power management applications as well as both wave energy and tide power energy conversion projects until his retirement in 2014. Mr. Lesster has BA and MA degrees in Engineering from Oxford University. In 1971 he received the Westinghouse B.G. Lamme Award for a year's study scholarship. He used this to study at Imperial College of Science and Technology in London where his thesis for the D.I.C was on control techniques for reluctance machines. Mr. Lesster holds 6 patents and several pending in the field of power conversion.