Mentors
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; President, NJ Business Incubation Network
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 Quality Assurance & Technical Specialist
Shofiul Islam
Senior Program Coordinator and Client Services Specialist
Judy Freedman
Special Projects Director; Marketing and Communications Specialist
Dot Hall
Certified Food Scientist and R&D Specialist
Tom Helsel
Executive Research Chef and Culinary Specialist
George Sansiveri
Plant and Process Engineering Specialist
Janis Hertz Grover
Sales and Distribution Specialist
Esther Luongo Psarakis
Sales and Distribution Specialist