Thomas Rosenfield

Thomas Rosenfield was born in New York City in 1954 and graduated from Friends Seminary in 1972. He received his university degree in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina in 1976.

Rosenfield started his career with the Dow Chemical Company in Midland, Michigan in the Olefin/Styrene Polymers Technical Service Department. This department was responsible for resolving polymer related engineering problems. During his time at Dow, the projects Rosenfield worked on directly either saved or brought new business of approximately 30 million dollars.

In late 1977, Rosenfield was recruited by Solarex Corporation, Rockville, Maryland. Solarex, an innovative start-up, became the forerunner in photovoltaic (solar electric) technology; it is now owned by BP Solar (British Petroleum). Projects he worked on included autonomously powered buildings from New York City to Washington, D.C. to Albuquerque, New Mexico as well as stand-alone desalination plants and other independently powered systems. He coordinated several major research contracts for Solarex, the most important being a 10 million dollar grant from the United States Department of Energy to develop Semi-crystalline silicon. Semi-crystalline silicon, still the most widely used base material for silicon solar cells, is an economic alternative to highly purified single-crystalline silicon.

In 1982 the Chairman of Solarex, Dr. Joseph Lindmayer, asked Rosenfield to move to Switzerland to become Managing Director the European headquarters, Solarex Trading S.A. His responsibilities included the development of the European market for Solarex as well as technical liaison between Solarex and its affiliated licensees in England, Holland, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Spain.

During his career in the field of solar electricity, Rosenfield wrote and presented many articles and technical papers and held numerous seminars at universities in Europe and the United States.

In 1990, Rosenfield left the field of solar electricity and founded Infotrak S.A., based in Lausanne, Switzerland. The company became a leader in electro-dynamic signage equipment for outdoor and sports advertising. After he determined that profit margins were much higher selling advertising on the signs rather than selling the signs themselves, Rosenfield decided to modify Infotrak’s business model. By the year 2000, he and his motivated staff had built Infotrak into the third largest outdoor advertising company in Switzerland. In 2005, Infotrak S.A. was acquired by a major multi-national advertising company. The sale of Infotrak successfully concluded an exit strategy that Rosenfield had planned more than a decade earlier.

Rosenfield is now president of I-COMM S.A., Lausanne, Switzerland. He has consulted major corporations in the field of water governance and water-based equity investment and the financing and construction of independent grid-connected photovoltaic installations.

Rosenfield has three daughters, Danielle, Jessica and Vanessa, were all born in Switzerland and are pursuing their studies at Swiss universities.