Pajarito Powder Hosts United States Senator Martin Heinrich

Senator Martin Heinrich & CTO Dr Barr Zulevi

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Pajarito Powder Hosts United States Senator Martin Heinrich

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – On Wednesday, August 9, 2017, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) visited with the team at Pajarito Powder, LLC, a New Mexico-based fuel cell catalyst startup producing advanced Engineered Catalyst Supports for the automotive industry. Expanding rapidly, the startup employs 17 people in Albuquerque (including one in Japan) and is selling and exporting material internationally, “…working with almost every major automotive company with a fuel cell program,” as stated by CEO Thomas J. Stephenson.

The Senator highlighted the importance of startups like Pajarito Powder to the economy, which has licensed homegrown technologies developed at institutions such as Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the University of New Mexico, utilized U.S. Department of Energy programs such as the Advanced Research Projects-Energy (ARPA-E), Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the support of the Fuel Cell Technology Office (FCTO) towards the creation of manufacturing jobs. “Supporting partnerships between startups and our national labs and universities to develop new technologies is a job-creating formula that will spur innovation,” said Senator Heinrich. “Pajarito Powder represents the forward-thinking vision for scientific and entrepreneurial programs that leverage the bright and entrepreneurial minds that we have in New Mexico.”

Senator Heinrich met Pajarito Powder Board Member Dr. J. Byron McCormick, originator of fuel cell technology, who led the team at LANL that developed the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cell technology that is now broadly commercialized in forklifts across the country, and is being developed for automotive, truck and locomotive application across the world. “Our goal at [LANL] was to create science that would keep America safe, both economic and national security terms,” said Dr. McCormick.

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