Team

Jason Cotrell, MBA, MSME

Founder & CEO

Jason Cotrell founded Sperra as RCAM Technologies in 2017, beginning a new chapter in a successful career in renewable energy that began in 1995 at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. At NREL’s National Wind Technology Center, Jason served in multiple engineering and management roles, ultimately leading the Innovation and Reliability Group for wind and water power technology, where his team developed advanced controls, simulation, reliability, and field testing for wind technologies.

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Also at NREL, he initiated and led a cooperative research and development opportunity for a public/private partnership to develop a new $38M wind turbine blade testing facility in Massachusetts capable of testing blades up to 90 meters long and contributed to the design of NREL’s 5-MW Drivetrain Test Facility. As a Design Engineer at NREL, Jason invented a two-bladed, teetered hub to fit on a 20 kW wind turbine, which was tested in the NASA Ames wind tunnel, producing data that is considered state of the art for unsteady aerodynamics. Through his leadership, NREL won $13 million in DOE funding for wind technology and water power research, including the DOE-funded Offshore Advanced Drivetrain project. He also served as an NREL technical liaison to the DOE.

A natural innovator, Jason became interested in 3D printing for wind turbines as the need for ever larger wind turbines continued to present challenges in transportation and production. He left NREL to pursue 3D printing for renewables, receiving a $1.25 million grant from the California Energy Commission to develop and test the technology to enable the construction of concrete turbine towers in place at a project site, greatly reducing transportation and manufacturing costs and emissions. Since that first grant, Sperra has won multiple grants from state, federal, and international governments to develop 3D concrete-printed renewable energy products and technologies. Under Jason’s leadership, Sperra has now reached commercialization stage for several products, including gravity anchors for offshore wind and floating solar deployments, 3D concrete-printed foundations for canal solar, and a fixed-bottom structure for nearshore solar deployments in coastal communities known as the Solar Reef.

Through his experience leading teams and collaborating across diverse technologies and stakeholder groups, Jason has built a reputation for reliability, creativity and trust. He endeavors to instill these values in the Sperra team by way of example.

Jason holds a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and an M.S. in Business Analytics and MBA from the University of Colorado.

Gabriel Falzone, PhD

Chief Operating Officer

Gabriel Falzone, PhD, leads day-to-day operations at Sperra. Gabriel has experience scaling up climate-tech innovations from laboratory to the field as the former VP of Technology at low-carbon concrete startup CarbonBuilt. Gabriel led the CarbonBuilt team through the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program and spearheaded the demonstration of the carbon utilization technology at an operating power plant, which won the team $7.5 million from the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE. Gabriel holds a PhD in Materials Engineering specializing in low-carbon concrete from UCLA.

Katherine Dykes, PhD

CEO, Sperra EurOPE

Katherine Dykes, PhD, is CEO of Sperra Europe, where she leads business development and partnerships while guiding the company’s technical strategy in systems design and renewable energy integration. She has over 15 years of experience advancing clean energy innovation through leadership roles at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Technical University of Denmark, and offshore wind analytics firm Aegir Insights. Katherine co-founded the DTU–TotalEnergies Excellence Center for Clean Energy and holds a PhD in Engineering Systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mason Bell

Senior product Manager

Mason Bell oversees product development of Sperra’s 3D concrete printed products, leveraging his expertise in civil engineering and 3D printing to advance innovative solutions for renewable energy. An FE-certified Civil Engineer, Mason holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado.

Taylor Marchment, PhD

Lead R&D Engineer

Taylor Marchment specializes in reinforcement design of 3D concrete printing. With more than 10 years of practical concrete construction experience, Taylor takes a pragmatic approach to problem solving and R&D in automated construction. Taylor earned a PhD in Civil Engineering from Swinburne University in Australia.

Evan Marquardt

senior Product manager

Evan Marquardt leads the development of Sperra’s Marine Pumped Hydropower (MPH) product, applying years of experience in computational fluid dynamics, design optimization methodologies, and project management. Evan holds an MBA from the University of Southern California, an MSc in Race Car Aerodynamics from the University of Southampton, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington.

Charlotte Marston

Technical Writer and Proposal Manager

Charlotte Marston has more than five years’ experience as a technical and grant writer in the environmental sciences sector. Charlotte graduated with honors from UC Santa Barbara with a B.S. in Biopsychology and is also a published author.

Rahul Raman, PhD, PE

Structural Engineer

Rahul Raman, PhD, PE, is a Structural Engineer at Sperra, specializing in the analysis and design of concrete and steel systems for offshore and renewable energy applications. Before joining Sperra, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, San Diego, and previously worked as a Senior Engineer at Thornton Tomasetti. Rahul holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University at Buffalo.

Eduardo Rangel

Mechanical Engineer

Eduardo Rangel is an experienced computer-aided design modeler and has worked at NREL, analyzing offshore wind logistics. Eduardo holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from California State University, Long Beach.

Jose Ramirez

R&D Engineer

Jose Ramirez is an R&D Engineer at Sperra, where he develops and tests mechanical systems for large-scale concrete additive manufacturing. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Jose brings hands-on expertise in CAD design, structural analysis, and prototyping. Jose holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Cal Poly Pomona.

Sonoko Watanabe, PhD