Mr. Payne was the founder of Compassion-First Pet Hospitals, and served as President and CEO from 2014 until 2020. Compassion-First Pet Hospitals, now NVA Compassion-First, is a family of specialty and emergency veterinary hospitals located throughout the United States that is dedicated to changing the veterinary landscape and elevating patient outcomes. Mr. Payne currently serves as Vice Chairman of National Veterinary Associates, with which Compassion-First Pet Hospitals combined. Prior to founding Compassion-First, Mr. Payne served as a member of the Global Leadership Team for Mars Pet Care. He also served as President and CEO of Banfield Pet Hospitals and as President and General Manager of Bayer Healthcare’s North American Animal Health Division.

Mr. Payne currently serves as Chairman of the Board for American Humane and as Vice Chairman of the Board of Regents at Ross University School of Medicine and School of Veterinary Medicine. He served on the Board of Directors of Nexvet, a bioscience company located in Dublin, Ireland, through the company’s acquisition by Zoetis in 2018.

Amy Elizabeth Steffek, Ph.D., serves as the Company’s Director of Research & Development. She earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Michigan in 2007 and completed fellowships in Translational Medicine and Neuroendocrinology at the University of Michigan in 2010. Dr. Steffek has over 13 years of scientific research experience spanning neurology, cardiology, oncology, psychiatry, and endocrinology. As a consultant, she has helped companies develop pharmaceutical products, medical devices, medical IT products, and pre-clinical research services.

In her Senior Scientist role, Dr. Laura Belicka brings 9 years of research and development experience in the algae biotechnology industry. A marine scientist by training, Laura was formerly a research scientist at Algenol Biotech, where she led outdoor-scale algae cultivation optimization experiments that focused on nutrient uptake, gas management, contamination control, and culture stability. She also served cross-functional roles bridging biology and engineering in the realms of photobioreactor design and algae cultivation system deployment. Prior to Algenol, Laura’s academic research concentrated around the use of lipid biomarkers to track algal and other organic carbon sources through estuarine and oceanic environments. Laura received both her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Marine, Estuarine, and Environmental Sciences from the University of Maryland at College Park and holds a B.S. in Geosciences with a Marine Science minor from the Pennsylvania State University.