Experience

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  University of Pennsylvania

  • Professor of Practice

    • 1999 - Present

    At the University of Pennsylvania, Tom Cassel created the Engineering Entrepreneurship Program in 1999 and serves as the Program's Director. The goal of the Program is to provide engineers and scientists the knowledge and skills to shape high-tech ideas into market-driven products, and then to create and lead high-tech ventures to capture the value of these products. The Program also offers an undergraduate Minor and a graduate Certificate in Engineering Entrepreneurship. Within the Program, he teaches two courses every semester: EAS5450 Engineering Entrepreneurship I, covering the fundamentals of high-tech entrepreneurship, and EAS5460 Engineering Entrepreneurship II, covering high-tech business planning. The Engineering Entrepreneurship Program now includes four faculty members and an administrative coordinator. More than 400 students enroll in the Program's courses each academic year.

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  Reading Energy Holdings Inc.

  • Philadelphia, PA (home office)

  • Co-Founder and CEO

    • 1978 - 1999
    • Philadelphia, PA (home office)

    Tom Cassel was one of three co-founders of Technecon Consulting Group in 1978, a firm that provided engineering and economic analyses of energy-related investment opportunities to government agencies, small and large corporations, and private investors. The firm was acquired by Reading Company (one-time owners of the Reading Railroad) in 1985. Renamed Reading Energy Group, the group was an early player in the then-nascent independent electric power industry. As President of this startup division and Vice President of the parent, Reading Company, he led all aspects of the new growing enterprise. In 1988, with support from a major European bank, he negotiated a leveraged management buyout of the Energy Group from Reading Company. For the next 11 years, as CEO and majority shareholder he led Reading Energy Holdings Inc. as it developed, owned and/or operated large-scale, independent electric power plants in California, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Each plant represented a significant advancement in the state of the art of waste-fueled power plant environmental design. As the company grew to a highly motivated team of 65 co-workers, they acquired two companies, started six more, and formed strategic alliances with a number of major technology corporations. He oversaw the successful sale of the company's power plant assets in the late 1990's.

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  Bechtel Corporation

  • San Francisco Bay Area

  • Engineering Specialist

    • 1974 - 1977
    • San Francisco Bay Area

    Performed and directed client-funded and in-house engineering and economic evaluations of advanced electric power and alternative energy technologies. Received several corporate awards for professional publications.

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  Peace Corps

  • Lesotho (southern Africa)

  • Mechanical Engineer - Volunteer

    • 1969 - 1972
    • Lesotho (southern Africa)

    Implemented a cooperative program to install rural water supply and irrigation systems under UNICEF sponsorship.