Velodyne LiDAR expands executive bench to scale production

Velodyne LiDAR has appointed Frank Blohm as Chief Operating Officer, Mircea Gradu, Ph.D., as Senior Vice President of Validation, and Pablo Gonzalez, Ph.D., as Vice President of Robotics and Automation Engineering. The addition of these three roles aims to help the company meet expected production volumes of a million sensors in 2018, while focusing on increasing safety and reliability of autonomous vehicles in an effort to propel consumer adoption. “We’re investing in highly skilled industry veterans and building an executive bench prepared to shape a company positioned for massive growth and long-standing market domination,” said David Hall, Chief Executive Offer of Velodyne LiDAR. “It’s promising to see that our team is able to attract top talent in this highly competitive autonomous vehicle market and we’re thrilled and lucky to have Frank, Mircea, and Pablo join our growing team.” Frank Blohm moves into the Chief Operating Officer role after serving as the General Manager at Velodyne for the past six months, where he will continue to manage the rapid expansion of production at the company. In his previous role at Velodyne, he created a chain infrastructure, overhauled production capabilities, and increased output by 500 percent. As Senior Vice President of Validation, Mircea Gradu brings over 25 years of experience in the automotive and commercial vehicle industry with deep technical knowledge in design, development, manufacturing, safety, and cybersecurity. In his role, Gradu will lead the organization to design, develop, and manufacture products compliant with the international quality standards and satisfying customer needs. His focus will be on building a strong validation organization. Gradu started his career at Daimler-Benz AG in Stuttgart, Germany, and most recently led engineering and quality at Hyundai Motor America. Pablo Gonzalez serves as the Vice President of Robotics and Automation Engineering at Velodyne, where he will lead the development of manufacturing equipment and automation to build current generation LiDAR sensor models. Prior to joining Velodyne, Gonzalez served as the Head of Automation, Equipment and MES Engineering at Tesla, where he led the solar flagship for Solar Roof installations and developed all equipment and automation lines in the California and New York factories.