Leadership Team

Vin Loccisano, Co-Founder & CEO

Vin Loccisano is a co-founder and CEO of Halo Energy where he directs the company's engineering, product development, and manufacturing activities.  Prior to founding Halo Energy, Vin held a variety of executive and legal roles at Schlumberger, including the management of a $1.1 billion annual research budget and a global staff of 140 scientists and engineers.  Earlier, he was Schlumberger Oilfield UK’s Director, M&A Counsel and IP Counsel, closing $900M in acquisitions in three years, while also directing the company’s research and manufacturing operations in the UK, France, Norway and Russia.

An early employee at the Kleiner Perkins clean tech venture, Ogin Inc., Vin served as Ogin’s Chief IP Counsel, and contributed to the company's prototype research and development activities in the US and Denmark. He was also the founder of Simulation Design and Engineering Corp., a firm that specialized in rapid prototyping and project deployment in the anti-terrorist protection and threat assessment field in Africa, Russia, East Asia and the Middle East.

Vin holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University (’97), a Juris Doctorate from Suffolk University (’01) and a sponsored executive MBA from the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (’09).

Outside of work, Vin has logged thousands of hours flying planes and helicopters and he has built and raced almost every form of transportation in several different countries.  He has personally designed and built 11 high-performance composite boats, including a gas turbine-powered 37-foot carbon-fiber mono-hull capable of 90 mph. He has also built or restored over 48 cars, including a 1973 Porsche 911rs, a 2005 Porsche 911 GT2, and multiple Land Rover Defender 110s.

charlie karustis, chief development officer

Charlie Karustis is Halo Energy’s Head of Business Development and is responsible for the development of new markets and managing customer relationships. Prior to joining Halo, Charlie was Director of Business Development at Ogin, Inc. where he developed the project site that hosted Ogin’s first commercial, shrouded wind turbines. 

In 2002, Charlie opened Tetra Tech, Inc.’ s Portland, Oregon office and then founded and served as Vice President of their Wind Energy Program. For Third Planet Windpower, Charlie was responsible for developing a 500-megawatt (MW) pipeline of greenfield development projects in the western United States. As the Director of Technical Services for Iberdrola Renewables’ Midwest Region, Charlie managed all aspects of wind energy development engineering.

Dr. Michael Werle, Technical Advisor and Board Member

Dr. Michael Werle serves as a Technical Advisor to Halo Energy and is a member of the company's Board of Directors.  Previously, Dr. Werle was a founder and senior technical advisor of Ogin Inc., a leading clean tech company that developed advanced shrouded wind-turbine technology which was sold to Vestas Wind Systems A/S in 2017.

Prior to Ogin, Dr. Werle worked at United Technologies Corporation serving as its Director for International and External Programs in the Office of Science & Technology.  He is a former member of Connecticut’s Board of Governors for Higher Education as well as a past President of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.  Dr. Werle spent 10 years on the faculties of the University of Cincinnati and Virginia Polytechnic Institute as a Professor of Engineering and has also worked in two US Navy research laboratories. 

Dr. Werle has consulted with and advised numerous US and European companies and government agencies.  He has over 60 patents, advised and graduated 14 PhDs and has published over 50 papers in referred journals.  He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Daniel Gysling, Ph.D., Advisor

Dr. Gysling has broad industry experience in developing and commercializing innovations in power generation, oil and gas, and industrial sensing industries. Dr. Gysling is currently Founder and CEO of CorVera, LLC, a start-up company developing multiphase flow measurement technology for industrial applications. Dr. Gysling has also served as a Fellow of Aeromechanics at Pratt and Whitney, responsible for improving Pratt and Whitney’s efforts to optimize the aeromechanical properties of aircraft engines, and as Chief Scientist for Ogin, focusing on optimizing the aeroelastic properties of shrouded wind turbines to maximize performance and reliability while minimizing cost and loads, as well as several other technology leadership roles in a range of industries.

Dr. Gysling holds a PhD and MS in Aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a BS in Aerospace Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. Dr Gysling has earned more than 100 patents and was elected to the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering in 2014.

john kawola, advisor

John Kawola is the CEO of BMF Precision Inc, a digital manufacturing company with a focus on microfabrication in the fields of electronics, medical device and research.  He also serves as the Chairman of Labminds, an IoT company bringing automation solutions to the drug research lab.  John has held previous senior leadership roles at Ultimaker, Harvest Automation and Z Corporation.

John has a BS Mechanical Engineering from Cornell, an MS Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer and an MBA from Union College.