Foundation Board
Eric Pope
Board President
Eric Pope serves as vice president of operations at US Synthetic (USS), a leading provider of diamond solutions for the energy industry. Mr. Pope joined US Synthetic in 1990 as a machine operator, with a focus on processing diamond products. He has worked as a production manager, process engineer, and R&D engineer during his time at US Synthetic. In 2001, Mr. Pope worked as an onsite USS customer engineer at Halliburton. He later became the product manger over the USS diamond rock bit and percussion product lines, in 2004.
Throughout his career, Mr. Pope has been a driving force behind US Synthetic’s move from a typical batch and queue manufacturing system to a world-class, Lean manufacturing facility. As part of senior leadership team since 2006, Mr. Pope has been instrumental in implementing Lean training and techniques at every level of the organization. These efforts helped the company receive the world’s most prestigious award in 2011 for enterprise excellence, The Shingo Prize. Under Pope’s leadership, the company maintains a strong focus on empowering employees and encouraging continuous improvement. This focus helped the company implement more than 32,000 employee-sponsored improvements in 2011. As a result, product innovation has increased and USS customers have been better served with improved delivery times, decreased inventory, and superior quality and performance. Lean improvements have allowed US Synthetic to grow at 23 percent annually since beginning the journey in 2005.
Mr. Pope holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering and a Master of Business Administration from Brigham Young University.
Brian Parker
Board Member
Brian is Vice President and K-12 Leader of MHTN Architects, a Utah based multi-disciplinary architectural firm. MHTN specializes in the innovative design of University Student Unions and Student Life Centers, Higher Education, K-12 Schools, Health Care, Commercial, and Municipal projects. Genuinely passionate about designing ideal learning environments for K-12 students and educators, he is the only Accredited Learning Planner (ALEP) in the State of Utah. Brian’s commitment to the practice of designing extraordinary school facilities and creating great spaces for both learning and teaching has helped him to create some the best schools throughout the region. Recent schools include: Logan High School Reinvention, New Bridge STEM Elementary School (Ogden), and Mount Jordan Middle School (Sandy).
Brad Shafer
Board Member
Brad currently serves as the Government and Public Affairs Manager at Andeavor for the Rocky Mountain Region. In this role, he is responsible for outreach with stakeholders, including public policy makers and community leaders in a four state region consisting of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado. He has a vast experience in natural resource and energy issues/public policy honed by working with a wide array of stakeholders and interest groups while in the employ of former US Senator Bob Bennett for more than 13 years. Brad holds an MBA from the University of Utah and bachelor’s degrees from Brigham Young University. In addition to his family, Brad is passionate about baseball, waterskiing, and STEM education.
Angela Mastaloudis
Board Member
Dr. Angela Mastaloudis has more than 15 years in the dietary supplement industry where she has been involved in clinical and preclinical research as well as new product innovation.
Dr. Mastaloudis specializes in oxidative stress and antioxidant vitamins and plant phytochemicals. Her early academic research focused on topics relating to vitamins E and C and their effects on endurance exercise-induced oxidative stress. Her more recent work has focused on the effects of a variety of natural compounds on gene expression, induction of intrinsic antioxidant defenses, the microbiota, and intestinal cell health. She has also focused a great deal of her research efforts on the identification of calorie restriction mimetics and other anti-aging approaches.
Dr. Mastaloudis has published extensively in journals such as Redox Biology, Free Radical Biology and Medicine, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise and Aging Cell, among others. She has had eight patent submissions, 4 of which have been issued so far.
Dr. Mastaloudis’ interest in the role of lifestyle, particularly nutrition and physical activity, on the promotion of health span for all individuals led to her pursuit of research into the mechanisms of these areas at the biochemical level. She earned her master’s degree in Human Nutrition Science and her Doctorate in Nutrition Biochemistry and Exercise Physiology from Oregon State University where she was a Linus Pauling Institute Graduate Fellow.
In addition to being passionate about science, Angela is an avid outdoor enthusiast. You will find her skiing in winter, hiking, mountain biking, and swimming in the summer most often with her giant dogs along for the fun. Angela also enjoys volunteering with her dog Greta and Intermountain Therapy Animals to promote early reading competency and enjoyment through the READ program.
Josh Brown
Board Member
Utah Manufacturers Association
Josh Brown is the COO at the Utah Manufacturers Association. Josh has tremendous manufacturing experience covering a wide variety of industries. From patents in the medical device working in x-ray tubes, catheters, ozonation, and optical lens manufacturing. In food processing, including disinfectant patents, packaged foods, poultry and meats. While in mining/manufacturing Josh worked in the creation of high volume, large throughput processing equipment as well as entire value stream hard rock mining/manufacturing.
Josh has received Six Sigma Black Belt, Master Black Belt, and Design for Six Sigma Black Belt certifications. He has also studied and received certifications in Theory of Constraints, Reliability and Maintenance Professional CMRP, and Lean processing/manufacturing. Josh has created, instructed, and certified several hundred business improvement professionals in Six Sigma and Lean fundamentals.
Josh spent nearly 14 years in multiple states and Washington D.C. working with and lobbying for legislation to better manufacturing, the environment, and energy related legislation. He brings strong relationships with Utah leaders and is viewed as an honest, transparent, straight shooter in the policy arena.
He is married to the previous 2015 Chair of the Utah Manufacturers Association, Rebecca Marquette. Their son, Liam Brown, partnered with the UMA for the creation of his 501C3 non-profit STEMheads foundation which focuses on educating and providing scholarships to tomorrow’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematic leaders in the manufacturing arena.
Josh has a B.S. in Chemical and Fuels Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration.
Luiz F. Cerqueira
Board Member
LFC Consultancy LLC
Luiz F. Cerqueira, born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (and USA citizen), has a Chemical Engineering degree and over 45 years of combined experience in the pharmaceutical, bio-pharmaceutical, dietary supplements/food, personal care and household industries.
As an executive, Luiz has continuously conducted business and directed projects in the United States, Europe, Latin America (South, Central and North), Africa, Australia and Asia, a region he has traveled to, for business, over one-hundred and twenty times (including 96 trips to China where he has also directed the design and construction of 5 manufacturing plants). Additionally, he has 9 years of expatriate assignments in Puerto Rico and The Netherlands.
Luiz is the founder and president of LFC Consultancy LLC, an Utah-based consultancy company specialized in Global Operations/Supply Chain/Quality Assurance, and Executive Management of Manufacturing Plants Design/Construction Projects. He is also the COO of Perseus Science Group LLC, an USA company that is developing a unique assay for the detection and quantification of Traumatic Brain Injury (Concussion).
Some of the companies Luiz has worked for are: Johnson & Johnson, American Cyanamid, Schering-Plough, Centocor, NuSkin Enterprises and Shaklee Corporation.
Fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese and substantial knowledge of French.
