Management Team

Dr. Misha Plam, Founder and CEO of BiOptix LLC (formerly AlphaSniffer LLC). Dr Plam has an extensive background in commercializing research and building high tech entrepreneurial companies. Misha previously founded and served as Chairman, President and CEO of Sievers Instruments, Inc., an analytical instrument company now owned by General Electric. Sievers received a number of SBIR awards and developed an instrument to measure water quality on the Russian Space Station MIR. A Sievers instrument is now used on the International Space Station and the product was successfully marketed to the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries. Misha was selected as Ernst & Young Entrepreneur-of-the-Year (Rocky Mountain Region) in 1997 and was also named Entrepreneur of Distinction at Esprit 97 in Boulder, Colorado. Misha is an Academician of the Russian Academy of Engineering, one of only 77 foreign members of this prestigious organization. He has been widely recognized for his contributions to the American-Russian Space Program and has promoted the US SBIR program in China and Russia. Misha is currently an Adjunct Professor in the University of Colorado's Mechanical Engineering Department and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado and the US-Russia Center for Entrepreneurship. He is a graduate of Moscow State University in Russia, where he received an advanced degree in Glaciology.

Richard Whitcomb, President and COO. Rick’s background is in operations, services, and finance. Prior to joining BiOptix, Rick Whitcomb was Senior Manager of the On Site Services business for Agilent Technologies’ Electronic Measurement Group. His background also includes several years of Corporate Development experience for Agilent and Hewlett-Packard Co., and he was formerly Operational CFO for the Communications Network Solutions business unit at Agilent. Rick brings substantial international experience, having spent five years living and working in Europe for Agilent and Hewlett-Packard Co. During his career, he has worked with scientists in Agilent Labs and HP Labs to move promising new technologies from the lab into commercialization, and ultimately into the hands of customers.

Dr. Phil McMahon, Chief Scientific Officer. Dr McMahon received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry with a minor in Physics from North Dakota State University. He worked at Abbott Laboratories in the early 1980's and later became Director of Research and Development at Idexx Laboratories. In the early 1990's, he joined Amgen, Inc., following which he became Director of Manufacturing and later Vice President of Operations at BioStar, Inc. in Boulder, Colorado.

Slava Petropavlovskikh, Director of Research and Development. Slava is a dual degree graduate in Applied Mathematics (M.S. - Military Academy) and Applied Physics (M.S. - Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow, Russia, Aerospace Department). He is an expert in applied physics, optical effects and signal manipulation and a former Science and Technology Manager at Ionics Sievers.