Announcing Dr. David Walker, PrintFoam CTO!
We are thrilled today to publicly announce PrintFoam’s Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder: David Walker, PhD!
[PrintFoam Leadership: CEO & Founder, Matthew Pearlson, and CTO & Co-Founder, Dr. David Walker]
In the year since David joined team PrintFoam, his contributions have exponentially scaled our technical capabilities. Material formulations and application development have benefited greatly from David’s deep expertise in developing new industrial markets, meshing beautifully with our Founder Matthew Pearlson’s vision.
“Joining PrintFoam has been an incredible journey,” David said. "It's refreshing to join and work with a team whose values and vision are aligned with your own. As PrintFoam is my second start-up venture, I know how important it is to have the culture of a founding team be aligned - it takes priority over everything else, because success in everything else flows from it. Team development, tech development, business development…it all starts with strong, well aligned founders."
But what drew David to join PrintFoam in 2022, besides finding a kindred spirit? From his perspective, it was clearly down to the innovative and breakthrough technology.
"Having run a fast paced AM start-up, and being an active member of the RadTech and photopolymer community, I've seen a lot of great technologies over the years…but so rarely are any of them new and truly surprising. When Matthew showed me some of his early prototypes, it immediately clicked for me. I had hard questions, and there were good answers at the ready. Here was a founder who had innovative solutions and had elegantly sidestepped some of the great challenges in the field with a fresh approach."
David continued, "One of the greatest gifts you can impart upon another scientist is to show them something so new and innovative that it forces them to change their mind and enables them to see the world from a new perspective. Matthew's on a very short list of people who have ever truly surprised me in the field of AM. Now, I've joined the team to flesh out the details of this incredible tech."
The genesis of PrintFoam lies in supremely impactful advanced manufacturing – with less harm. A more sustainable additive manufacturing method using less material and less energy, and with bio-sourced materials, can move the needle in end-use applications seeking to make large-scale products across a variety of industries.
David joined PrintFoam in 2022, firmly in the acceleration phase of company growth.
“Adding Dr. Walker to the team has allowed PrintFoam to realize its technical potential. He is an exceptionally gifted experimentalist,” said Matthew Pearlson. “He makes magic in the lab, and time and again developed and proven ideas with his creativity and moxie. David’s strength excels far beyond the lab bench and chemical hood. As an experienced founder, David understands what it takes to bring ideas to reality, and has provided sound counsel and advice. He is also one of the most principled and ethical scientists and entrepreneurs I have ever met. I am very fortunate to have met Dr. Walker, and feel even luckier to have him on the team as a true co-founder.”
A Meeting of the Minds
After having initially crossed paths at RAPID + TCT 2017, which led to some of the first-ever coverage of the then so-called Foam Printing Project, Matthew and I (Sarah) reconnected at AMUG 2022. It was at this point in the PrintFoam journey that the company was ready for its next steps forward, and Matthew was full steam ahead in conversations.
Networking lunches at AMUG famously are designed to inspire new conversations. Fishbowls of table numbers create a random seating arrangement. With some chaotic-good maneuvering, Matthew and I sat together – and the more he talked, the more I realized there was someone he should really know. So I sent a text. Our next chaotic-good maneuver saw us entirely circumventing the fishbowl (sorry, organizers) as I invited Dr. David Walker to join us at lunch.
Sometimes you get to sit back and watch magic happen. Sometimes that happens over some excellent lunchtime dessert, when kindred souls first meet and discover complementary areas of expertise and drive.
We celebrated new friendships and networking that evening at the Roaring ‘20s shindig, sharing a quick snap with industry friend Robin Huizing.
Full Steam Ahead
Since that initial meeting, David has fully joined PrintFoam to lead development and evolve our technology’s capabilities as we head toward commercialization and scale 3D printed foam.
Endless hours in the lab have led to new application areas, material formulations to meet specific requirements, improvements in terms of print capacity and reliability, print speeds multitudes faster than ever before, and much more.
As more of these activities move out of stealth and we’re able to share, it’s with huge pride that we can do so with a public-facing executive leadership team. Together, David and Matthew are making new things happen.
Carbon capture. Foam casting. Acoustic tile development. RFID antenna possibilities. And, yes, footwear and more ‘traditional’ foam applications.
PrintFoam on the Go! …More!
Will you be in Chicago this week for RAPID + TCT 2023? So will we!
Meet with Matthew and David throughout the week – put time on Matthew’s calendar, find both on LinkedIn, or a friendly “Hey, PrintFoam!” when you see them on the exhibit hall floor will all do just fine!
I’ll be around all week as well (find me at Women in 3D Printing booth 2051!) and can help you find them.
Don’t miss David speaking on Wednesday morning at 11.30 in a panel entitled Return of the Desktop Printers - How Desktop Machines are Making Progress Entering Industrial Manufacturing, with the incredible Christina P. Perla, CEO of Makelab, and Spencer Loveless, CEO/Owner of Dustless Technologies and Founder/CEO of Merit3D.
[David, Sarah, and Matthew at the end of AMUG 2023, celebrating a year of collaboration!]
