Ryan Walsh

FOUNDER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Ryan has been an integral part of the creation of Valqari’s Smart Drone Delivery Mailbox and focuses his efforts on product development, intellectual property and strategic partnerships in an effort to ultimately reshape the future of the logistics industry. Prior to Valqari, Ryan served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan with the 75th Ranger Regiment. Upon completing his tours of duty, Ryan successfully led several business operations in industries including retail and service in a partnership with Co-Founder Alex Falesch for the past 10 years.

Alex Falesch

FOUNDER, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER

Alex has been an integral part of the creation of Valqari’s Smart Drone Delivery Mailbox and is the lead visionary behind the product’s design, providing exceptional technical elements while maintaining a high-quality esthetic. Prior to Valqari, Alex successfully led several business operations in industries including retail and service in a partnership with Co-Founder Ryan Walsh for the past 10 years.
Alex has a BFA from the Illinois Institute of Art Chicago.

Geoff Graves​

DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

Geoff Graves (Geoff Graves and Assocs, LLC) has wide range of hands-on experience in aviation, logistics, and international development, including being “boots in the rubble” in post-conflict and post-natural crises situations. He has worked for National and State governments, the UN, NGOs, and the private sector in roles from programme development, “a fixer of failing programs” to monitoring and evaluating.Those experiences enabled Geoff to offer informed insights and robust advice across the drone ecosystem. His focus is looking ahead to develop markets and partnerships.

Julie Munger

DIRECTOR OF CANADIAN OPERATIONS

Jennifer Tague

CHIEF OF ADMINISTRATION

Kendall Moran

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

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Phillip Powell

Project Manager

Charles Byers​

Chief Technology Officer

Charles Byers is a Senior Electrical Engineer / Engineering Fellow / System Architect with a track record of leadership in telecommunications, IoT, video, and common platform design / architecture at the chip, board, system, and network levels. Over his 30+ year career, he has served as lead architect on over 20 IoT, video, switching, access, and wireless products.He is also a leader in standards bodies like the OpenFog Consortium, Industrial Internet Consortium, IEEE, PICMG and SCOPE, where I have he has been involved in founding several key standards (including OpenFog, AdvancedTCA, AdvancedMC, MicroTCA), serving as CTO, and chairing several influential committees. He holds over 100 US patents.

Alpita Shah

ADVISOR

Alpita Shah, a partner at the Chicago-based law firm of Chico & Nunes, has a wide-reaching background in law, strategy and economic development at the local, federal and international levels. She has held senior executive positions within the government and has led teams on high-profile matters in various sectors, including aviation, security, finance and global health. Most recently, she served as Senior Counsel in the Aviation, Environmental, Regulatory and Contracts division of the law department at the City of Chicago. In that capacity, she advised the Mayor’s office and other senior officials on legislative, procurement and regulatory matters; she also negotiated critical agreements on behalf of the City, such as a 15-year use and lease agreement with airlines operating at for O’Hare International Airport and a fast-track contract for the Police Department to acquire tasers, body cameras and related cloud-based technology.Prior to her tenure at the City, Ms. Shah served as special advisor to the CEO of World Business Chicago, focusing on economic compacts between Chicago and its international sister cities (e.g. Mexico City and Shanghai), as well as business environment and neighborhood development strategies. Prior to this role, Ms. Shah was Counsel in the emerging markets practice group at the global law firm Mayer Brown, where she represented international financial institutions and, on a pro-bono basis, local community development organizations.Before returning to her hometown of Chicago in 2012, Ms. Shah spent a decade in Washington D.C. as a lawyer and policy advisor for Presidential-appointed officials in the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the World Bank. In these positions, she negotiated debt relief and other financing agreements between the U.S. and developing countries, as well as coordinated economic reconstruction efforts in war torn regions in the Middle East and Southeastern Europe. She earned a Meritorious Honor Award from the Department of State for her work in establishing the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.Ms. Shah holds a B.A. in Economics (summa cum laude), from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a J.D. from Yale Law School. She is also a certified yoga teacher and is completing a 2-year mindfulness mediation teacher certification program with the UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center.

Dr Lyle Berkowitz

ADVISOR

Lyle Berkowitz, M.D., FACP, FHIMSS is a primary care physician, a digital health innovator and a serial entrepreneur with a passion for creating real world solutions which improve the quality and efficiency of the healthcare system for both patients and physicians. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Back9 Healthcare Consulting, where he helps healthcare systems, companies and investors rethink problems and develop innovative solutions. He was most recently Chief Medical Officer for MDLIVE, one of the largest telehealth groups in the nation. Previously he was a practicing physician and health system executive focusing on innovation and digital health transformation at Northwestern Memorial Healthcare in Chicago. He has additionally helped start and manage multiple digital health companies in that time frame and currently sits on the boards of healthfinch and Oneview Healthcare.
You can find him at www.DrLyle.com and @DrLyleMD.

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Sonali Deshpande

SOFTWARE ENGINEER

Edward Hubbard

LEAD SOFTWARE ENGINEER

Matthew Blanco

EMBEDDED SOFTWARE ENGINEER

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Basmala Ahmad

CLOUD SOFTWARE ENGINEER

Sanjida Choudhury

ELECTRICAL ENGINEER

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Stefan Prokuski

MECHANICAL ENGINEER

David Laczak

MECHANICAL ENGINEER

Alexander Bulger

MECHANICAL ENGINEER

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Scott Lotz

UAV PILOT/TECHNICIAN

Sean McShane

Manufacturing Engineer