Meet Our Founders
Kevin Owens
President & CEO of NYSTEC
Kevin Owens serves as NYSTEC’s President and CEO. His consulting experience spans over 20 years, with a focus on transformational initiatives that have assisted organizations in positioning themselves for future success.
Kevin’s forte is overseeing large-scale system implementations, where he has excelled in managing all phases of the technology project life cycle. As he served in various leadership roles in NYSTEC, Kevin also served clients such as the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) and the NYS Department of Labor (DOL).
For many years, Kevin led NYSTEC-sponsored community involvement and charity events. A strong supporter of professional development, Kevin has served as a mentor to many people on NYSTEC’s management and leadership teams.
Kevin holds a BBA from Siena College and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) as recognized by the Project Management Institute.
Robert Pasinella
CEO of Rensselaer County Industrial Development Agency
Robert L. Pasinella, Jr. is the Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of Rensselaer County's Industrial Development Agency. He is responsible for promoting economic expansion and ensuring the long-term economic vitality of the more than 159,000+ person county.
Pasinella is also a co-founder of State of Mind, a medical cannabis company specializing in matching DNA profiles with types of cannabinoid benefits.He also co-founded Social Learning and Payments (SLAP), a software platform that enables people to easily trigger and reward desired actions among target audiences. SLAP's strategic partner is Incomm, a market leader in payment technologies. He co-founded a Center of Excellence in gaming software, partnering with Velan Ventures. He also co-founded an integrated circuit design not-for-profit accelerator, NYDesign.
Pasinella is also the chairman of the Rensselaer County Empire Zone Administrative Board and the Rensselaer County Water & Sewer Authority. In addition, he participates on a number of other local boards, including the New York State Economic Development Council. Currently, he is a member of the executive committee board for the Center for Economic Growth. In the past he was a member of the East Greenbush YMCA Construction Committee. In 2004, he was named among The Business Review’s “40 Under Forty” business leaders.
Prior to joining Rensselaer County, he was a consultant for Urbach, Kahn & Werlin and also served as a systems analyst for Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield. He holds a Bachelor of Science in management information systems and a master’s in business administration in finance and entrepreneurship from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
LaMar Hill
Co-Executive Director
For the past two decades, Mr. Hill has been a leader of New York’s Tech Valley and Mohawk Valley regional economic development teams, specializing in global business development in advanced electronics. These initiatives led to the decision by GlobalFoundries (formerly AMD) to build a $12+B manufacturing campus at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta, New York and CREE to build a high volume SiC device manufacturing fab at the Marcy Nanocenter site near Utica, NY.
The initiatives Mr. Hill has been involved in have created more than 15,000 direct jobs and can be expected to create an additional 20,000-25,000 jobs over the next ten years. Accelerating technology commercialization has been the focus of Mr. Hill’s activities for the past thirty years.
These activities have included joint development activities with universities, multi-million dollar R&D programs in defense/aerospace, tech transfer and acquisition, and development of successful R&D funding strategies with programs such as SBIR, STTR, ATP and TRP. In addition, LaMar has been a trusted business strategist, including securing debt and equity financing packages, corporate management of software and technology development organizations and the acquisition of several product lines.
Mr. Hill received a BS degree in Chemistry from Kalamazoo College and an MS degree in Chemistry from UCLA.
In 2004, Mr. Hill was selected by Small Times Magazine (primary global nanotechnology business publication) as one of the Global Nanotech Advocates of the Year.