Leadership Team
SkyWater is led by an accomplished team of semiconductor professionals experienced in technology development and volume manufacturing foundry services. This team is managing a Technology Foundry strategy around key capabilities, expertise, flexibility and quality for customers that value a forward thinking foundry partner.
Thomas Sonderman, President
Mr. Sonderman is the President for SkyWater with comprehensive responsibility for all business functions and operations. He is focused on defining new product markets and target customers while simultaneously driving operational efficiencies and building upon the company’s culture and brand. He has effectively driven a comprehensive business transformation from an IDM to a pure play foundry, diversifying SkyWater’s customer base, while significantly expanding the sales pipeline. He has leveraged SkyWater’s Trusted Foundry capability to grow and expand the company’s government business and has built a world class leadership team that inspires 500 employees to deliver world class operational performance.
Mr. Sonderman has extensive industry experience in all aspects of fab operations and has delivered market leadership and maximum shareholder value to high-technology industry leaders Rudolph Technologies, GLOBALFOUNDRIES and AMD. Notably, he played a critical role serving as part of an executive team at AMD that spun-off manufacturing operations to form GLOBALFOUNDRIES.
Mr. Sonderman is a widely recognized subject matter expert, author of 47 patents and highly sought-after industry speaker. He currently serves on the Executive Board for the American Society of Semiconductor Manufacturing and SEMI’s SMART Manufacturing Council. Mr. Sonderman received a BS in Chemical Engineering from the Missouri University of Science Technology and an MS in Electrical Engineering from National Technological University.
Steve Wold, Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Wold was appointed Chief Financial Officer in January 2018. With more than 25 years of leadership experience in senior corporate finance roles, he most recently served as a key member of the leadership team of Arctic Cat Inc. (formerly NASDAQ:ACAT), where he was instrumental in completing the sale of the company to Textron Inc. in 2017. Previously, he served with Orbital ATK (NYSE:OA), for 18 years where he was focused on transforming processes, change management, and driving operational efficiencies as the company grew from approximately $1B to over $5B in revenue. Mr. Wold began his career as a CPA with Deloitte Audit and Assurance focusing on providing services to both publicly traded and privately held manufacturing entities. He holds a Bachelor of Accountancy from the University of North Dakota and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Minnesota Society of CPAs.
Tom Legere, Senior Vice President of Operations
Mr. Legere was appointed Senior Vice President of Operations in November 2018, focusing on evolving and enhancing SkyWater’s operations and driving foundry efficiency to support its customer partnerships and the company’s long-term growth objectives. He brings over 30 years of expertise in operational excellence across a diverse array of industries and technology segments. He has held senior operational roles at various companies, most notably Aurora Semiconductor, Sonavation, eSolar, SVTC, Cypress Semiconductor and Atmel. Mr. Legere brings an ideal combination of leadership and operational talent to SkyWater with extensive industry experience in aerospace and defense, life sciences, security, MEMS, renewable energy and semiconductors. He has led both mature and start-up companies with extensive implementation experience in Design for Manufacturability (DFM), lean and six sigma principles, supply chain management and customer engagement. Mr. Legere holds a BA in Management from St. Mary’s College of California and an MBA in Technology Management from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.
Gregg Damminga, Vice President of Research & Development
Mr. Damminga was promoted to Vice President of Research & Development in June 2017 to oversee the specialty process development and integration, design enablement, technology transfer, and site yield for SkyWater. Drawing from more than 30 years of experience in the semiconductor chip industry, his expertise and contributions have been instrumental in the formation and expansion of SkyWater as an independent foundry. Mr. Damminga has previously held positions with Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, TSMC, and Cypress in individual contributor and management positions in process engineering and development, equipment maintenance, manufacturing, planning and production control, purchasing, and human resources, managing organizations as large as 500+ people. Mr. Damminga holds MS and BS degrees with highest distinction in Materials Science from Northwestern University.
Rick Harding, Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Mr. Harding joined SkyWater in June 2018 and is responsible for building and driving the company’s overall sales and marketing efforts as it continues its technology transformation and serves a broader base of customers worldwide. He brings over 20 years of technical sales experience to SkyWater, holding senior roles in sales, account development, technical design, operations and business development. Prior to joining SkyWater, Mr. Harding played key leadership roles in building and driving profitability for a series of private companies across a range of technology segments. He also spent 16 years at Cypress Semiconductor focused on technical sales and support of high tech semiconductor products and is on the board of directors at Red Team Alliance, a security education company. Mr. Harding holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering Technology from DeVry University.