Bio
’72 physics, Ph.D. ’79 physics, Iowa State University
CEO, Power Film, Inc.
Ames, Iowa
Frank Jeffrey grew up in Mason City Iowa and came to Iowa State University in 1968 as a freshman in physics. After receiving his undergraduate degree in physics in 1972, he and his wife Cyndie, (English 72) spent 6 months hitchhiking before being swallowed by the working world. He worked at Texas Instruments as a failure analysis engineer before returning to Iowa State in 1974 to begin graduate studies in Physics. His dissertation was focused on a fairly new material; amorphous silicon. Having very little imagination, the majority of work for the rest of his career was in some way related to amorphous silicon.
Following a year of postdoc work at Ames Lab, Frank took a position at the Solar Energy Research Institute in Colorado. In 1980, the political environment for solar energy and other forms of renewable energy became quite negative so he moved to 3M in St Paul Minnesota where he initially worked on applying amorphous silicon to photocopier applications. He eventually moved back toward solar energy and started a program of amorphous silicon solar modules built on rolls of flexible polymer.
In 1988, when 3M decided that this technology was too far from their core business to justify commercialization, Frank and one of the other researchers, Derrick Grimmer, moved to Ames and founded Iowa Thin Film Technologies to pursue commercialization of the technology. ISU and 3M were both early partners in this effort. The company made a name change in 2007 to PowerFilm and, though small, has survived while almost all other US solar companies have not. During this time, Frank focused on process and product development with a side gig in management.
Frank and Cyndie live in Ames along with their Siberian Husky, Kalli. They have a daughter in Ames, a son in California and granddaughter in California.