Profile
Name: Marc Grossman
Education:
Hobbies: Experimental and Ultralight Aviation, Hang Gliding, Motorcycles, Embedded Systems Development, Robotics.
Communicational Skills: Native-fluent in both spoken and written French and English.
Education:
- BS Caltech Mechanical Engineering
- BS Haverford College Physics
Hobbies: Experimental and Ultralight Aviation, Hang Gliding, Motorcycles, Embedded Systems Development, Robotics.
Communicational Skills: Native-fluent in both spoken and written French and English.
Bio
I was born and raised in a small town in northern California. I grew up in front of the television until, when at age 8 my Mom had a friend help her carry the TV outside where she shot it. Looking back, the shooting of that TV may have been the best thing that ever happened to me. With no TV, I was forced to entertain myself, and that lead to lots of hobbies.
At age 10, my family moved to Lyon, France where I attended French public school for three years. I attended flea markets regularly and picked up scientific equipment at bargain prices. My first purchase was a bunch of chemistry glassware with which I distilled alcohol, made acetylene and conducted other fun experiments. I quickly discovered that the pharmacies in France sold all kinds of great chemicals (whose names I will not list for fear of showing up on a BATF watch-list) and I started making rocket engines.
I returned to the United States for my freshman and sophomore years of high school before heading back to France again for a year of high school abroad. After graduating from high school I decided to take a year off. During this time I worked various construction jobs, got my pilot’s license and traveled. I ran with the bulls in Pamplona, and I visited nearly half of my friends at their colleges. By the time my sabbatical year was up I was eager to be in college, and I enrolled at Haverford, a small liberal arts college outside Philadelphia, PA.
At Haverford, I studied physics and played varsity lacrosse. As physics became more and more theoretical, I began to realize I was more practical than theoretical, and I started searching for a way to leave physics for a more applicable field. The problem was that Haverford had nothing more practical so I took machine shop classes at Swarthmore and electrical engineering classes at UPenn. These classes piqued my interest in engineering. I completed my Haverford physics degree in three years, and transferred to Caltech through what is known as the 3/2 program.
I was accepted at Caltech at the end of my third year at Haverford and I started that fall at Caltech. In my two years at Caltech I completed my mechanical engineering degree and graduated with a bit of an uncommon degrees: two BS’s from separate universities and no masters.
Upon graduation I started working for eSolar -a concentrated solar-thermal power startup based in Pasadena, CA. At eSolar I wrote the requirements for, designed, and manufactured an autonomous heliostat washing system. You ask why? I’ll point you to the pictures of our demo plant in Lancaster, CA where we have 25,000 square meters of heliostats that constantly need washing. Full size eSolar power plants have in excess of 300,000 heliostats for the direct steam plants and over 600,000 for the molten salt plants.
After a successful prototype, I created production drawings, wiring diagrams, execution code, and a BOM for manufacturing. The robot fleet that is the product of this work is now in operation at our plant and has cleaned over 500,000 square meters of heliostats to date. That's an area equivalent to 100 football fields worth of cleaned mirrors! Beyond the work that went directly into the production of the cleaning vehicle fleet I also wrote the provisional patent and worked with patent attorneys to file both US and international patents on the design.
I've since left employment with eSolar to start my own business. While at eSolar I detected the need for a solar field services company. I founded Greenbotics with the goal of providing the highest value added solar field services company for utility scale power plants worldwide. Greenbotics was acquired by SunPower in 2013.
In 2018 a few friends and I founded Advanced Farm Technologies to automate the harvest of strawberries. You can find pics and videos on our website at: www.advanced.farm
At age 10, my family moved to Lyon, France where I attended French public school for three years. I attended flea markets regularly and picked up scientific equipment at bargain prices. My first purchase was a bunch of chemistry glassware with which I distilled alcohol, made acetylene and conducted other fun experiments. I quickly discovered that the pharmacies in France sold all kinds of great chemicals (whose names I will not list for fear of showing up on a BATF watch-list) and I started making rocket engines.
I returned to the United States for my freshman and sophomore years of high school before heading back to France again for a year of high school abroad. After graduating from high school I decided to take a year off. During this time I worked various construction jobs, got my pilot’s license and traveled. I ran with the bulls in Pamplona, and I visited nearly half of my friends at their colleges. By the time my sabbatical year was up I was eager to be in college, and I enrolled at Haverford, a small liberal arts college outside Philadelphia, PA.
At Haverford, I studied physics and played varsity lacrosse. As physics became more and more theoretical, I began to realize I was more practical than theoretical, and I started searching for a way to leave physics for a more applicable field. The problem was that Haverford had nothing more practical so I took machine shop classes at Swarthmore and electrical engineering classes at UPenn. These classes piqued my interest in engineering. I completed my Haverford physics degree in three years, and transferred to Caltech through what is known as the 3/2 program.
I was accepted at Caltech at the end of my third year at Haverford and I started that fall at Caltech. In my two years at Caltech I completed my mechanical engineering degree and graduated with a bit of an uncommon degrees: two BS’s from separate universities and no masters.
Upon graduation I started working for eSolar -a concentrated solar-thermal power startup based in Pasadena, CA. At eSolar I wrote the requirements for, designed, and manufactured an autonomous heliostat washing system. You ask why? I’ll point you to the pictures of our demo plant in Lancaster, CA where we have 25,000 square meters of heliostats that constantly need washing. Full size eSolar power plants have in excess of 300,000 heliostats for the direct steam plants and over 600,000 for the molten salt plants.
After a successful prototype, I created production drawings, wiring diagrams, execution code, and a BOM for manufacturing. The robot fleet that is the product of this work is now in operation at our plant and has cleaned over 500,000 square meters of heliostats to date. That's an area equivalent to 100 football fields worth of cleaned mirrors! Beyond the work that went directly into the production of the cleaning vehicle fleet I also wrote the provisional patent and worked with patent attorneys to file both US and international patents on the design.
I've since left employment with eSolar to start my own business. While at eSolar I detected the need for a solar field services company. I founded Greenbotics with the goal of providing the highest value added solar field services company for utility scale power plants worldwide. Greenbotics was acquired by SunPower in 2013.
In 2018 a few friends and I founded Advanced Farm Technologies to automate the harvest of strawberries. You can find pics and videos on our website at: www.advanced.farm
