Founders

Ron Schwarz

Ron Schwarz has been operating his own companies since 1984.In that year, he launched his first venture, a software development firm entitled Nuts & Bolts Software Company (NBS) that offered custom programming services to businesses in a variety of industries including insurance, banking, collections and apparel. In addition to custom programming applications, the company launched off-the-shelf software products into various vertical markets.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Ron worked in his family’s business, directory publisher Chemical Information Services, focusing on migrating the business from data collection on index cards to an electronic format. This paved the way for the transformation of the business from one directory offered only in a printed format to diskette, CD and finally on-line availability.

Ron Schwarz was appointed president of Chemical Information Services in 1995 and ran it for 10 years. Under his guidance, the company grew from one employee to 15 and one product to six informational directories, and while profit improved by 2500%. The company was sold in 2005 to Vendome Group LLC, owned by private equity fund Providence Equity. Ron continued to run the company for the new owners before leaving in October 2007.

Ron Schwarz has a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1977) and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin (1982). Between his student years at Wisconsin and Texas, he taught high school math in Central and South America. Ron grew up on Long Island, New York.

Milan Soukup, Ph.D

Milan joined the pharmaceutical research department of Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel, Switzerland in 1979 where he worked for 25 years. He supervised research chemists and guided a research group in the Process Research Department where he was involved in finding scientifically elegant syntheses and translating them into technically feasible manufacturing processes. He was assigned to the most difficult and complex syntheses; especially chiral compounds.

After he left Roche, he worked as an independent consultant and advised smaller, start-up companies that did not have scientific expertise in large-scale manufacturing. He also advised generic companies which were interested in finding new, unpatented and more efficient manufacturing routes which would allow them to compete more effectively. In addition to providing companies conceptual proposals for new and more efficient processes, he also gave them direct support managing their internal and external (outsourced) research/development facilities.

In 2008, Milan established his own, private R&D company called CarboDesign, LLC with its core focus in synthetic organic chemistry; specifically the development of new, cost-effective manufacturing routes for various pharmaceuticals.

Milan is the inventor of more than 20 manufacturing process patents. Milan studied at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich where he received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry under the supervision of Professor Albert Eschenmoser.

DPLA was founded by Ron Schwarz and Milan Soukup.