Management
K-Tech’s Founders and Officers
K-Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1987 by Thomas E. Baroody and W. Wes Berry, whose combined decades of experience in the minerals, chemicals, and biofuels industries established the foundation for the Company’s technical direction and capabilities. Their pioneering work in Continuous Ion Exchange (CIX), Continuous Ion Chromatography (CIC), and Continuous Impregnated Substrate technologies positioned K-Tech as a leader in the field of advanced elemental separations.
With the passing of both founders, the Company honors their legacy by continuing to build upon the technologies and principles they established. Today’s management team remains deeply committed to advancing these process platforms to address evolving global needs in resource recovery, process efficiency, and environmental performance.
K-Tech’s current efforts are focused on the development and commercialization of technologies for:
- Rare earth element recovery
- Uranium (U₃O₈) extraction
- Minor Element Reduction (MER) in phosphate operations
- Protein and biologically derived material separations
- Fluoride chemical recovery
- Cadmium and heavy metal removal
- Other advanced separation applications across industrial process streams
Guided by a strong technical foundation and an experienced leadership team, K-Technologies continues to expand the application of its core technologies to unlock new sources of critical materials and deliver practical, high-value solutions to its clients worldwide.
Theodore P. (“Tip”) Fowler
is an accomplished executive with global experience in mining, fertilizer, chemicals, and transportation. He has led major organizations through transformation and growth, including restructuring Freeport McMoRan Sulphur Company for a successful sale as the company’s president and driving Fertiberia SL’s turnaround in Spain as the company’s General Director. Tip played a key role in forming the IMC-Agrico joint venture while overseeing operations for Mosaic predecessor companies and later served as President of Florida’s largest intrastate motor carrier. As the first CEO of JDCPhosphate (now NovaPhos), he secured substantial funding to commercialize breakthrough phosphate fertilizer technology, earning international recognition and sharing multiple patents. He was awarded the Pierre Becker Memorial Award from the International Fertilizer Association in London for his contributions to that technology. He has advised on capital formation for sustainable energy and agricultural ventures and currently serves as CEO of K-Technologies, Inc. Tip holds an Electrical Engineering degree from Tulane University, an MBA from Loyola University New Orleans, and completed The Executive Program at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.
Jamie Knez
Vice President and Senior Process Engineer for K-Technologies, Inc. specializing in the phosphate and fertilizer industries and registered Professional Engineer.
Jamie’s process engineering experience includes development of process design packages during all project phases for new or revamped phosphoric acid, beneficiation and fertilizer granulation plants. She has also performed feasibility studies to determine the capital and operating costs for multiple types of phosphate and fertilizer facilities in many locations throughout the world. She has frequently served as lead process engineer and project manager with coordination in large multi-office and international projects.
Jamie has deep experience developing, performing, and supervising pilot plant and lab testing for the production of phosphoric acid and granular fertilizer products such as MAP, DAP, NPK, SSP, TSP and new fertilizer products. She has tested many phosphate rock samples from all over the world and brings this context to K-Tech’s work with its clients.
Jamie has deep experience in ion exchange and ion chromatography technologies for recovery of rare earth elements (REE), MER reduction from phosphoric acid, and fluorine and silica recovery from phosphate plants. Jamie excels in process modeling and energy optimization for new processes and technologies.
Specialties: Phosphoric acid production, granulation and production of fertilizer products (DAP, MAP, MCP, DCP, SSP, TSP, AS, etc.), phosphate pilot plant testing and analysis, extraction and purification of valuable rare earth elements (REE’s) from phosphoric acid, continuous ion exchange (CIX) technology, continuous ion chromatography (CIC) technology, process design for new phosphate and fertilizer technologies, energy studies and optimization, and project feasibility studies including cost estimates.
Mark Duffy
Mark is a serial entrepreneur and finance executive with a strong track record of scaling and exiting technology companies. He co-founded ExpressPoint, growing it to $60M in revenue and 400 employees, and Onex Communications, which was acquired by TranSwitch for $90M. He later served as CFO of JumpTap (acquired by Millennial Media for $224M) and nToggle (acquired by Rubicon Project).
Mark began his career at EY and PwC, and later served as CFO of Advanced Technology Ventures. He currently leads Position2Launch, providing CFO and FP&A services to global clients, and is a co-founder and Board Member of the Music and Youth Initiative. He holds a BA and MBA from Boston College.