Page 70 - ISES SWC50

John Yerkes (1934-2014)
Country: United States
Year joined industry: 1967
Company first worked for: Spectrolab
Technology area: PV
Still active in the industry: No

John William (Bill) Yerkes after an early career at Chrysler and Boeing joined Spectrolab in 1967, one of the first U.S.
producer of solar cells and panels for space applications. Yerkes served as president-CEO and oversaw development
of the solar array that Apollo 11 left behind on the moon. When Spectrolab was purchased the new owners let Yerkes
go and he founded Solar Technology International(STI) in 1975. They worked on reducing the cost of manufacturing
and developed a simplified method for screen printing the silver metal contacts used to interconnect the cells and
extract electric current from them. STI was eventually bought by oil giant Atlantic Richfield and became, ARCO
Solar. During Yerkes’ tenure running the ARCO PV unit, it became the world’s largest solar company, with modules
shipped to and deployed in every major region of the globe. Yerkes left ARCO in 1985, and founded Yerkes Electric
Solar that worked on cadmium telluride solar cells. He then returned to Boeing and he led the establishment of
Boeing’s High Technology Center in Bellevue, WA, which developed gallium-arsenide solar cells . He went onto to
work as power systems manager for Teledesic, a startup that produced 1,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites for internet
telecommunications. In 2005, he cofounded Solaicx in California and Oregon, where he developed a proprietary
high-efficiency, low-cost silicon-crystal-growth technique for solar cells.” MEMC the parent company of SunEdison,
bought Solaicx in 2010.

Amnon Yogev

Country: Israel
Year joined industry: in the 1964
Company first worked for: National Physical Laboratory (in 1967 he
moved to Weizmann Institute)
Technology area: Solar Thermal
Still active in the industry: No

In 1967 - 2003 Amnon Yogev served as a senior researcher and professor member of the Weizmann Institute. Yogev
engaged in research in Solar pumped laser with three-stage solar concentration: The Weizmann Institute’s solar
tower, a three-dimensional non-simulating center and a two-dimensional non-simulating center. He later initiated
the construction of the solar tower at the institute, and headed a group that studied solar-powered lasers. The
research led by Yogev had research partners on a sabbatical from Rotem Industries. Over the years, there has been
an exchange of researchers from the Yogev Group with the Roland Winston Group at the University of Chicago.
Research achievements included peak power Laser-solar sunbeams in the visible field. In the 1990’s, Yogev was a
member of the Association Committee of the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. In
1995, Yogev initiated and established the Consolar Consortium for Concentrated Solar Energy as part of a bilateral
agreement between Israel and the United States and the incorporation program of the Office of the Chief Scientist
of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Yogev headed the association from its establishment in 1995 until the end
of its activity in 2000, and was a research partner for projects that were conducted in it. Consul Consort had
members from academia, Israeli industry and American industry. The consul had a number of joint projects, with
the Weizmann Institute being a partner in all the projects and erecting the solar tower for this purpose. The projects
included, among others: a field of heliostats, an original transparent pyrex receiver to heat compressed air to high
temperature (about 1000 degrees Celsius) a turbogenerator using the hot air to drive a generator Consolar included
the Weizmann Institute, Boeing, Rotem and Ormat. US Patent 3,842,593 (1973) Closed Rankine Cycle Power Unit.

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