Albert A Esser

Albert A Esser, Ph.D., is founder and president of Econdius, LLC a firm providing sustainable energy technology solutions and technology management services to a variety of clients.

In December 2009 Dr. Esser has been appointed to be the founding President of the National Institute for Renewable Energy in Austin, TX (www.theNIRE.org).

Dr. Esser currently serves as chairman of the Sustainable Technologies Committee at Innovate Texas Foundation. Innovate Texas Foundation, the International Center for Collaborative Innovation, acts as a catalyst for transactions and collaborations among the state’s academic institutions, businesses, investors and government enabling them to engage with the global economy more efficiently and effectively.

Dr. Esser is a Founder and Member Emeritus of the GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC), a team of industry leaders advising the U.S. Department of Energy and shaping the guiding principles, or architecture, of a highly intelligent and interactive electric system to enable cogent interaction and interoperability between technologies, systems and participants.

Until 2009 Dr. Esser was Vice President – Power and Infrastructure Solutions, Dell Inc., and was responsible for Dell’s Infrastructure Product line; in addition he was responsible for the global Power and Cooling Initiative enhancing Dell’s enterprise class IT solutions providing insight gained from customers to the Server, Storage, Data Center Solutions and Services product leaders to maximize the value of the Dell solutions.

Previously Dr. Esser was Vice President Engineering, Eaton Corporation where he was in charge of Eaton’s Innovation Center and served on the Eaton Technology Council and was responsible for Eaton’s central research. He also served at Eaton as Vice President Technology, Fluid Power Group, Eaton, developing advanced technologies and solutions and promoting the group’s global synergies.

Before joining Eaton, Dr. Esser was the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President, Emerson Network Power, Emerson Electric, overseeing global R&D and product development of Emerson Network Power in engineering centers over six continents. He served as Technology Business Leader, Network Power Group, on the Emerson Technology Council. Earlier in his career, Dr. Esser was Corporate Director Technology at Emerson Electric. In this assignment he was administering Emerson’s Strategic Investment Program aimed at highly visible technology based growth opportunities and coordination of Emerson-wide strategic technology programs.

Dr. Esser held the position Senior Vice President – Corporate Research at Hilti, Liechtenstein, where he was responsible for Work Science, Advanced Material Science and Analyses, Advanced Electronics and Systems, New Business Idea finding including business case studies, Engineering Services and others he had global responsibility for.

Before joining Emerson and Hilti, Dr. Esser held several positions with increasing responsibilities at General Electric, beginning as Project Manager in GE’s Corporate R&D Center. He held responsibility for GE’s Research in the field of Electric Motors, Drives, Power Electronics, and Advanced Controls for these fields. Projects included Hybrid Bus (for NYC), Locomotive Traction Drive, High Speed Starter/Generator, High power inverters and others. Dr. Esser also worked for GE Medical Systems where was MRI Global Manager. He was among GE’s first Certified Master Blackbelts and was part of the initial 6 Sigma effort in GE Medical Systems.

Dr. Esser started his career with Daimler-Benz as a Staff Scientist and member of the Corporate Technology Exchange Program. He was responsible for innovative power conversion for rail applications.

Dr. Esser received his Diplom-Ing. (MS) and Dr.-Ing (PhD) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Aachen, Germany in 1988 and 1992 respectively. He published a book on wireless transmission of electric power and signals for robots, more than 10 papers, received an Outstanding Prize Paper Award jointly from the IEEE/Industrial Application Society and the IEE Japan (1993), received a post Doc scholarship from the German Research Foundation (DfG), holds 12 US patents and received numerous company awards including GE’s Dushman award, GE’s highest ranking team award.