Who We Are

Meet the Team

Orlando Saez

CEO & Co-Founder

C-level executive in two successful startups with IPO exits. Solid software product, B2B sales and operations experience. Pioneered Wi-Fi at Boingo Wireless. Founder and inventor of Aker's IP. Tech, telecom and data analytics background. BS in Computer Engineering at UPR, MS Computer Science at IIT, MBA at Stuart School of Business.

Dave Zar

CTO

Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering, former faculty at Washington University and a recognized technology leader within the medical and life science industries.

Tom Uthell

Uthell Seed Sales

Tom is a lifelong farmer and has been on the cutting edge of management practices, equipment and technology for growers across the Midwest. Through his dealership with Beck’s Hybrids over the past 19 years, he has been helping farmers increase their ROI by finding innovative ways to improve their operation. Tom has been supporting Aker’s strategy and envisioning practical approaches to position Aker’s platform as a valuable tool for growers.

Stu Gisburne

Senior Software Engineer

Having led many projects in industries ranging from pharmaceutical to entertainment, Stu brings over 30 years of experience to Aker. His expertise includes software development, data center infrastructure, mobile application development and cloud services.

Michael Kleckner

Insights & Strategy Lead

Strategy and Insights Lead with a focus on marketing and client service. Michael's career has covered a wide spectrum of disciplines including marketing strategy, tactical execution, client service, leadership, and project management. He loves to utilize his people skills to listen to, learn from, and understand clients and consumers. Michael graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Missouri-Columbia Journalism School in 2009.

mkleckner@aker.ag

Sharon Berberich

Business Development Lead

Experienced Ag Business Development and Start-up C-Level Executive. Over 30 years experience in Big Ag and Ag Start-ups with a focus on executive leadership, business development, sales, marketing, licensing, venture capital investment, regulatory, intellectual property, product development, and field operations. Background includes Monsanto Company, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Dow AgroSciences. Distinguished Alumni of the College of Agriculture Food & Natural Resources at the University of Missouri - Columbia.

Kacper Laska

Systems Engineer

Engineer with a B.S, M.S in Mechanical Engineering with technical knowledge in hardware development, robotics, software development, and rapid manufacturing.

Sean Reynolds

Principal ML Engineer

Principal Machine Learning Engineer engineering a computer vision system for detecting issues with crops. Holds an MS in Computer Engineering with unique expertise in data science, complex computer vision algorithms and sensor fusion.