Materic, a custom manufacturer of advanced materials, announced today that Colin Harmer will succeed Ken Malone as Chief Executive Officer. The move is part of a broader strategy by Materic to pursue significant growth opportunities in manufacturing for the defense, energy, industrial, and medical sectors.
Materic was co-founded by Baltimore venture studio, Early Charm, in 2020 to accelerate synergistic development and sales opportunities for about a dozen advanced materials technologies in the studio’s portfolio. Since then, Materic has launched three products, developed a broad base of advanced materials development partnerships with Fortune 500 companies, and established two manufacturing sites, one with 28,000 square feet of production space and a second that is ISO 13485 certified for GMP production of medical devices.
Much of Materic’s growth to date has been overseen by Harmer, who joined the company in May 2021 as a sales specialist and was quickly elevated to the position of business manager, then to business director last year.
“I’m honored and humbled to be selected to lead Materic,” Harmer said. “I’m excited to continue growing this manufacturing company in Baltimore and for the opportunity to focus on key initiatives for Materic moving forward.”
Those initiatives include prioritizing advanced materials manufacturing for the energy, defense, chemical, and medical sectors, while maintaining collaborations with research institutions. Contributing to Materic’s momentum in these areas is a recent $10 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy to scale domestic manufacturing of nanofiber materials (electrospun gas diffusion layers) as critical components for hydrogen fuel cells.
“Colin has been instrumental in growing Materic’s business to this point,” said Malone, managing partner of Early Charm and outgoing CEO of Materic. “He is the right person for the job and is ready for this next challenge.”
Malone will continue managing certain collaborative projects with Materic. Harmer will join Materic’s board of directors, which includes Malone, Kelli Booth, co-managing partner of Early Charm, and Materic Co-founders Stephen Farias and Scott Gaboury.
