Our Mission

Dr. James Raring is President, Chief Executive Officer, and a Co-Founder of KYOCERA SLD Laser.  As President and CEO, he leads the organization in the commercialization of LaserLight products based on KSLD’s breakthrough gallium nitride laser diode technology and manufacturing platform. Prior to KSLD, Dr. Raring was VP of Laser Engineering and a founding employee at Soraa Inc. where he helped launch the company and grow it to product and commercialization.  Previous to Soraa, Dr. Raring served as a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories in the Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) group developing high-functionality optoelectronic devices for telecom applications. While earning his Ph.D. in Materials Science and serving as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Dr. Raring developed an advanced photonic integration platform based on indium phosphide to demonstrate the world’s first single-chip 40 Gb/s optical transceiver. Dr. Raring has over 300 patents and applications and has authored or co-authored over 100 technical papers and conference presentations.

Takaki Otsubo has been with Kyocera for over 30 years in the fields of QA, Engineering, Marketing, Business Development, M & A, etc. He has over 7 years of experience as a Marketing Manager at Kyocera Germany. He has also performed multiple M & A as a Project Leader. He has been SVP and CSO of Kyocera SLD Laser since June 2021 and is also responsible for the GaN Device division of Kyocera Japan.

Moro Wada has been with Kyocera for over 20 years in the field of finance and accounting departments.He has also performed M&A projects of Kyocera Group over 20 cases from these departments. He joined KSLD as Deputy CFO in July 2021 and has been CFO since July 2022.

Cole Cunnien brings 30 years’ experience in automotive lighting product development to his role as SVP of Engineering at KSLD. Leads cross-functional creative teams to innovate and develop unique solutions incorporating the latest technologies.  Has led the lifecycle development of multiple products with lighting technology.  Promotes solid and sound engineering development process to ensure successful product launches on time and to budget. Builds and fosters relationships with people at all levels, with extended cross-functional experience in Sales, Business Planning, Purchasing, Finance and Manufacturing.  

Raised in Kentucky, Cole moved to the metro Detroit area just after college to join the Automotive industry.

Nick Pfister has over 20 years of semiconductor device development and manufacturing experience.  He has worked on a wide variety of device technologies at companies including Corning, Lockheed Martin, Soraa, and Agilent.  Nick has a diverse background including new device development, bringing up new facilities, driving yield and capacity improvement projects, leading manufacturing operations, and supporting new business capture.  He has a Masters degree in Materials Science from Stanford and a B.S in Materials Engineering from Cal Poly.

Masafumi Yamauchi brings over 23 years of Automotive industry experience to the KSLD business. Having worked in corporations such as Philips Japan, Philips North America and Philips Germany and Lumileds Germany he has over 10 years of Sales managing experience in Japan, over 4 years of Product managing in North America (Michigan) and has successfully been the leader as the Quality Director for a German factory as well as for Global Factory Quality Improvement for over 8 years. We are extremely thrilled to have him on our team and his vast background and experience makes him a true asset to KSLD.

Jo Merx is responsible for Program Management at KYOCERA SLD Laser. He has over 25 years of experience working in R&D in an innovative automotive environment including product and process development of HID light sources and integrated electronics. He has more than 20 years of experience as a project manager, having successfully managed several product introductions in the demanding automotive industry from product ideation until market launch. He spent 20 years of his career at Philips Automotive Germany in several different functions. Before he joined KYOCERA SLD Laser 7 years ago, he was responsible for global Philips HID platforms. 

Jo was born and raised in the Netherlands and has a master’s degree in Physics from Technical University of Aachen/Germany, where he was part of the boxing team.

Eric Goutain is leading the team responsible for developing all product solutions since the beginning of KSLD. Previously he oversaw test, packaging and GaN laser-based products development for Soraa, Inc.Eric brings 30 years of experience designing, developing solid state laser products. Materials Engineer, PhD in microelectronics, starting his career at the corporate research lab of Thomson-CSF near Paris on GaAs and InP lasers, he moved quickly to develop solutions for telecommunication. During the years, Eric spread his product designs to many other applications such as instrumentation, medical, industrial and when joining Soraa Inc., with visible GaN lasers, lighting and automotive.Of French Origin, Eric is the father of 4 children with a wonderful partner. Eric has lived and worked in multiple countries and states, enjoying exploring and immersing in different cultures.