Eric brings more than 25 years of diverse experience in product development, business planning, new company formation and technology transfer spanning multiple industries, including food and life sciences, automotive and consumer goods technologies.
As business partner in strategic partnerships at JPG Resources, Eric prepares clients for financing and assists in their product launch planning and execution. Additionally, Eric serves as a Principal in RCV Frontline, a JPGR associated venture capital fund focused on early-stage food and beverage ventures. Eric also leads special projects for JPG Resources including:
- Helping Private Equity firms seek investment opportunities in food production facilities; and
- driving financing and growth efforts with JPG Resources’ sister organization Snackwerks, a contract manufacturing bakery located in Battle Creek Michigan.
In addition to his role at JPG Resources, he is a co-founder of Altes, a craft beer startup in Detroit and serves on the advisory board at both the James and Patricia Anderson Engineering Ventures Institute and the Cask and Kettle spirit’s company. Early in his career, Eric worked at Kellogg Company where he prototyped and launched multiple new brands. After leaving Kellogg he returned to university full time graduate school studies, and switched his focus from scientific research to business by joining FMC Corporation to coordinate merger and acquisition activities and develop business plans for new business ventures. After FMC, he returned to Michigan to work with Wayne State University and Delphi Corporation, where he focused on technology licensing and new startup venture creation. While at WSU he also created and ran a hands-on program helping WSU students to start their own ventures. After working with Delphi and WSU, he concurrently helped launch two startup ventures. Battle Creek Ingredients has helped major food companies to launch innovative new food products and AutoHarvest Foundation enables automotive industry innovators to collaborate using social media tools. After exiting these startups, he returned to the Technology Transfer space where he ran the office and redesigned operations, reset the strategy and outreach, drove the depth and quality of the disclosure process and significantly improved the licensing deal flow and startup company formations at Beaumont Health, a large regional hospital system and research institute. Eric served for multiple terms on the Board of Directors for Michbio, a Michigan life sciences industry association.
Eric holds a bachelor’s degree in food engineering from Michigan State University and has an MBA from University of Michigan Ross School of Business.