Food Accelerator Program

RutgersX has assembled a talented team of mentors to support our cohort of food industry entrepreneurs. Our staff brings a wealth of experiences in a wide array of functional areas including: business strategy, marketing, sales, distribution, communications, consumer research, sensory analysis, culinary innovation, technology assessment, product and process development, and quality assurance and food safety.  Together, our diverse team has over 300 years of experience in the food industry and we put our talent to work for client companies in our RutgersX Accelerator Program and our Rutgers Food Innovation Center incubation program.    

Our RutgersX mentoring team is listed below, and biographies of our team members can be found by clicking over each of their names.  

Lou Cooperhouse
Founder, RutgersX; Director, Rutgers Food Innovation Center;

Diane Holtaway
Associate Director, Business Development

Julie Elmer
Associate Director, Food Technology

Donna F Schaffner
Associate Director, Food Safety, Quality Assurance & Training

Robert C. Reitnauer Sr.
Senior Manager, Facilities, Production Planning, and Compliance

Shofiul Islam
Senior Manager, Client Services

Judy Freedman
Special Projects Director; Marketing and Communications Specialist

Dot Hall
Certified Food Scientist and R&D Specialist

George Sansiveri
Plant and Process Engineering Specialist