About Tara
Executive Management
Colm Lanigan, has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Tara Technologies Corporation from the time it was established as an independent company in 2006. Colm is also the founder of Tara Capital Inc, the controlling shareholder of Tara Technologies.
Prior to his appointment at Tara Technologies, Colm was a partner in a $2 billion investment fund that focused on manufacturing companies. Colm has also served with the International Monetary Fund as a strategic advisor to governments in Asia on issues of financial reform and economic development. In the course of his career, Colm has been involved in providing strategic and financial advice to companies and governments in transactions totaling more than $15 billion. Colm has degrees in Science and Law from the University of Toronto.
Mark Allen, has served as the Chief Financial Officer of Tara Technologies Corporation from the time it was established as an independent company in 2006. Prior to his appointment at Tara Technologies, Mark was Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of PerkinElmer Fluid Sciences, a $250 million global strategic business unit of PerkinElmer, Inc. for the aerospace, semiconductor, and automotive markets. Prior to 1998, Mark served in several senior financial positions on the Corporate Headquarters staff of PerkinElmer, with responsibilities ranging from acquisitions and divestitures, financial planning and analysis, corporate accounting, and internal audit. Prior to joining PerkinElmer in 1987, Mark was the controller of Latin American Operations and manager of financial reporting and internal audit for The Foxboro Company, now a division of Invensys Corporation.
Mark has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and accounting from Stonehill College and a master’s degree in finance from Bentley College Graduate School.
Raul Ceide, has served as the Chief Operating Officer of Tara Technologies Corporation from the time it was established as an independent company in 2006. Prior to his appointment as COO, Raul was the General Manager of the PerkinElmer Fluid Sciences, operations in Daytona Beach, Florida and San Carlos, California. PerkinElmer Fluid Sciences was a $250 million global strategic business unit of PerkinElmer, Inc. serving the aerospace, semiconductor, and automotive markets. Prior to 1998, Raul served as the Product Manager for the business unit of John Crane North America that provided precision components to the semiconductor capital equipment industry. Raul began his career as a design engineer with Pacific Scientific working on applications in the semiconductor, aerospace, and industrial markets. Raul holds a degree in design engineering technology from the University of Central Florida and has completed the Executive Development Program at J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
Marc Schweitzer, Ph.D. serves as Director of New Product Development where he is responsible for corporate new product development. He brings more than 15 years of product and technology development to Tara. Prior to joining Tara, Marc served for 12 years in the PVD Division of Applied Materials where he was responsible for the development of copper seed and barrier process chambers as senior engineering manager. Prior to joining Applied Materials, he served as research fellow in the Materials Department at Oxford University, UK. Dr. Schweitzer holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He obtained his masters in computational fluid mechanics and Ph.D. in surface science from the University of Liverpool, UK.
Bob Panza serves as Director of Sales and Marketing where he is responsible for corporate sales and marketing. He joins Tara after 14 years of production, development and sales experience within the Semiconductor and Industrial markets with an expertise in ceramic materials. Bob previously worked for Kyocera for 8 years, most recently as their National Sales Manager for Semiconductor sales & development operations. Prior to joining Kyocera, he was an engineering and production manager for International Ceramic Engineering, Inc. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, MA.
Bob Diiorio, is Director of Operations for the Chamber Systems and Surface Technologies and business unit of Tara Technologies. Bob joined the Company in 1992 as quality leader for Applied Materials products and was promoted in 1995 to Operations Manager for the Precision Component Business.
In 1997, he was promoted to Operation Manager of Assembly & Testing where he was responsible for new business development of process critical assemblies in ultra clean environments. In 1999, Bob was promoted to Director of Operations, his current position, where he provides leadership of Tara’s Chamber Systems and Surface Technologies business units, serving the world leaders in providing process critical assemblies for the semiconductor capital equipment market. Prior to joining the Company, Bob held senior operational positions a variety of support and supervisory positions at General Electric’s, Simulation and Control Systems Division in Daytona Beach, Florida.
At GE, Bob supported new product introduction on a wide range of Department of Defense programs and commercial simulation systems. Bob has an Associates Degree in Drafting and Design Technology and has over 25 years of manufacturing and operational experience.
Curtis Harreld, is the Director of Engineering for Tara Technologies. Curtis joined the Company in 1996 as Reliability and Development Manager. Along with product reliability, analysis, and testing responsibilities, Curtis and team developed automated welding techniques and equipment for bellows manufacturing. This equipment utilized state of the art machine vision, material handling , and the latest advancements is Laser and Plasma Arc Welding. In 2001, Curtis was promoted to Global Manufacturing Project Leader and was successful in the transition of Semiconductor Bellows Product manufacturing from the Daytona Beach facility to southeast Asia.
In 2002, Curtis was assigned as Product Manager for all Semiconductor Bellows, followed in 2004 with additional management responsibilities for all Aerospace products. Prior to joining the Company, Curtis held senior engineering, service, and operational responsibilities for Weldlogic, Inc., Newbury Park California. At Weldlogic, Curtis’ many responsibilities included design, testing, and service of complex precision automated welding equipment.
In 1992, he was promoted to Operations Manager with this company. Curtis has a Bachelor Of Science in Engineering Technology, and has over 21 years of manufacturing, research and development, test, and engineering experience.
Bobby See, has served as the Operations and Supply Chain Director for Tara Technologies Pte. Ltd., our Singapore operation since 2006. Bobby has over 10 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. Bobby was previously the Semiconductor Business Unit Director at Pemstar, an $800 million global company that provides electronics manufacturing services to original equipment manufacturers in the communications, computing, data storage, industrial, and medical equipment markets. Bobby also was employed by PerkinElmer Inc, with responsibility for the start-up and operations management of the semiconductor production facilities in Indonesia and Singapore. Prior to his tenure at PerkinElmer, Bobby worked for Seagate Technology in various productions management and marketing roles. Bobby graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
Stephen Dasso joined Tara Technologies Corporation as the Operations Manager of the San Carlos site in February of 2007. Prior to joining Tara Technologies Stephen spent 10 plus years with Applied Materials with roles ranging from program management of new technologies introduced for cost and innovation to process / manufacturing engineering support. Stephen has a bachelors and masters of Science in physics from Texas State University.