Quaking Aspen, LLC

Quaking Aspen is led by Asheen Phansey, the principal on most projects. Quaking Aspen also has select partners with which it works.

President

Asheen has dedicated his career to the innovative materials, processes and business models required to achieve sustainable industrial growth.

He spent the early part of his career in R&D and management roles in the high technology sector. Responsibilities included:

• extensive undergraduate research in molecular dynamics simulations of silicon ensembles
• proteomics lab work and bioinformatics programming for molecular pharmacology pioneer Beyond Genomics (now BG Medicine)
  
• product development and process engineering for ETEX Corp., a nanocrystalline biomaterials company
• operations leadership at a sterile drug processing company that he helped start, now a subsidiary facility of LSNE, Inc.
  
• technology commercialization consulting for Aurora Flight Sciences, a maker of biomimetic robotic aircraft (UAV) for defense and aerospace.

Drawing on this background, Asheen has developed further expertise in sustainable innovation. He was certified in 2007 as a Biologist at the Design Table by the Biomimicry Institute and has traveled the country lecturing on Nature-inspired business models. These seminars and talks include guest lecturing for sustainable-business guru Hunter Lovins, co-author of Natural Capitalism, in her Principles of Sustainability class at the Presidio School of Management; and for renowned green builder Kevin Stack at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He has also guest-lectured at Thunderbird School of Global Management, IE (Madrid), and Cornell University. He has conducted seminars at several companies and spoken at numerous business and design conferences.

Asheen is on the faculty of Babson College, the top business school for the study of Entrepreneurship in the world, as an Adjunct Professor in the Entrepreneurship division. He teaches a unique MBA offering called Sustainable Entrepreneurship Inspired by Nature, the first MBA course in the country that will teach entrepreneurial innovation based on Nature’s principles, which was mentioned in the BusinessWeek article “MBA Programs Go Green“, and also received press in The Economist. He has also designed a second course, Introduction to Green Marketing, which he will teach in 2010. Asheen is also involved with various research initiatives in sustainable business within the Babson community.

Asheen is also a dedicated member of Net Impact, the premier international organization for socially- and environmentally-responsible business. He has served on the executive leadership team of the Net Impact Boston professional chapter since 2007, and continues to host and speak at Net Impact events across the US.

Asheen holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA, Technology Entrepreneurship from the F. W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College.