Chris Kay is the COO and a co-founder of WaHa. He is a serial entrepreneur with multiple successful exits and experience in a wide range of industries from software, consulting, enterprise data centers, ice storage systems, medical devices, and microbiome analysis and probiotics. He has a passion for identifying, building, and releasing technologies that deliver transformational value that make a difference in the lives of the people that use them, their communities, and the planet. He was recruited to WaHa by Frank Ramirez, CEO, to lead product and business development as well as all the operational processes. Frank and Chris co-founded 2 previous companies: Ice Energy Inc., a CleanTech energy storage company sold to a private equity company, and Endūr Inc., a developer of 24/7 mission critical computing infrastructure sold to Calpine Energy. At Ice Energy, Chris was the VP of R&D responsible for developing the company’s initial product, the Ice Bear 50, that won the 2004 ASHRAE Innovation Award for Energy Management and was a co-inventor on 4 patents. At Endūr, he was the VP of Campus Development, leading the development of the company’s business plan that secured a $26M series B investment. He then repositioned the company’s value proposition to focus on delivering on-site power solutions. He purchased Integware in 2004 and grew it by 20x in 6 years. Integware was selected as one of the initial Colorado Companies to Watch. During this time, he was selected as the subject of chapters 1 and 4 of the book: Courage, the Backbone of Leadership, by Gus Lee and Diane Elliott-Lee (https://tinyurl.com/yy4mt77v).
He sold off the software business to Dassault Systèmes and merged the consulting business with Kalypso. He joined Kalypso after the merger and led the life sciences practice where he doubled revenues for the practice. He’s worked with multiple medical device, biotech, and pharmaceutical companies to raise money, develop business plans, improve operations, and do M&A. He spent the first 17 years of his career working for Hewlett Packard in roles ranging from software engineer, R&D manager, CIO, and chief architect at HP Consulting. He graduated from The University of Texas at Arlington with a BBA in Systems Analysis on a partial jazz and classical (bass) scholarship. Married for 38 years with 2 grown children, he lives with his wife and 2 small dogs in Colorado and enjoys hiking, biking, and playing bass (whenever he can) at church, in a blues band, and with the community orchestra. He volunteers and his wife is the director of My Happy Place Fort Collins that do room makeovers for people with chronic or terminal illness.