Paul Tolley

Paul has over 30 years of experience in executive leadership, technology development and commercialization and turn around management. From small polymer optics startups to DOD Trusted Foundries his career path has revolved around team building to solve problems of the 21st Century economy.

Prior to founding Stretford End Solutions, Paul was the VP of Disruptive Technologies at SUNY Poly and COO of Solar MDF, has also had roles as CEO of  STC MEMS, CEO of the Infotonics Technology center, and the founder of Syntec Optics. In his time at Syntec he spearheaded their transformation from a small, general-purpose injection-molding firm to an industry leader in the manufacture of custom polymer optic products. Paul led manufacturing innovation in biometric identification, medical diagnostics, defense, and LED, as well as highly collaborative industry relationships. Under Paul’s leadership, Syntec Optics was the 2008 recipient of the prestigious Frost & Sullivan Growth Excellence Award in the North American polymer optics market. While at SUNY Poly, Paul’s unique combination of strategic vision, technical depth and executive leadership led to the creation of a new DoD Trusted Foundry for MEMS and he was a leader in initiating the AIM Phonics NNMI proposal.

In the early years of his career, Paul gained broad experience in engineering, program management and strategic planning at several Fortune 500 companies. Active in professional and community organizations, Paul has served on the Technical Advisory Committee for Homeland Security and AIM Photonics as well as a Board Member of AIM Photonics, the NY Photonics Cluster and SEMATECH.  Tolley was the inventor of US patent for HRDT technology.  He is a frequent panelist/presenter at industry conferencesand accepts counselor/advisor/mentor roles with CEOs who are managing rapid change in their own companies.