Bill Grieco is CEO of The RAPID Institute, a public-private partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) created to promote process intensification and modular process technologies. Prior to joining RAPID in July 2018, he was Vice President of Energy and Environment at Southern Research, a nonprofit research institute based in Alabama, where he transformed the business from one serving only the fossil energy sector to a boutique innovation testing, development, and consulting organization focused on reducing the environmental footprint of energy generation and chemicals production. Before joining Southern Research, Grieco built and led a Front End of Innovation team and led R&D for the $3 billion Building Materials Group at Owens Corning. Earlier in his career, he served as Managing Director and CTO of Gardenia Ventures, an innovation commercialization and consulting firm that he co-founded. His other executive level innovation roles focused on process development across multiple industries. These include the biofuels startup PetroAlgae, where he and his team built the first-of-a-kind intensive biomass production process to grow and convert aquatic plants to purified proteins and energy feedstocks. For the biopharmaceutical firm Alkermes, he spearheaded development and commercialization of the VIVITROL® and RISPERDAL® CONSTA product lines. Grieco began his career in process technology research and development at Rohm and Haas Company, now part of Dow and DuPont.
Grieco serves on the external advisory board for Florida Solar Energy Center. He earned a PhD and Master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a Bachelor’s degree from Georgia Institute of Technology — all in chemical engineering.