As the child of Mexican and Colombian immigrants, Adolfredo Alvarez – or “Fredo” to his friends – has always been driven to achieve.
“I was given opportunity and ability,” Fredo says. “I wanted to use that to work on something big that would help a lot of people.”
Today, as a Senior Scientist at Electra, Fredo works every day on scientific breakthroughs with the potential to decarbonize the global iron and steel sector, which is a huge consumer of coal and one of the world’s biggest CO2 emitters. And this work is supported by a unique company culture that is built to deliver fast and effective climate solutions to market.
“Electra has balanced the speed of a startup with the seriousness of academic research,” Fredo says. “All too often, a startup will find something that seems to work, but their technical people don’t fully understand how it works. Then, when they are trying to scale up and actually deliver a product to market, they run into some fatal flaw that they didn’t see coming because they didn’t truly understand their technology.”
“At that point, the startup is either done or has to pivot and start over. So speed for the sake of speed can actually slow progress down, or stop it completely.”
On the other hand, while pure research has strong appeal, it often moves too slowly or gets diverted from real-world needs. “Academia does research for the sake of research; trying to understand every single aspect of a problem whether or not it has any commercial relevance,” Fredo says. “It’s a noble task, but after experiencing it firsthand as an undergraduate researcher, I knew it wasn’t for me.”
“At Electra, we strive to work in the optimized space between the two extremes,” he says. “We start with fundamental research to develop a solid understanding of the science in our technology. But we also take care to avoid falling into irrelevant rabbit holes. The end result is the ability to scale-up with confidence, knowing that we can anticipate and plan around most problems, and bring our solutions to market as fast as possible.”
The determination to work on “something big” took the Chicago native from his adopted hometown of Littleton, Colorado, to Palo Alto, California, after high school. Fredo attended Stanford University and graduated in 2014 with bachelors and masters degrees in chemical engineering.
For most of his peers, jobs at renewable energy developers and biotech companies were waiting after graduation. But Fredo was holding out for something different.
After internships at university-based and federally supported labs, he wanted to work on the cutting edge of research, but only if he could see it put into action quickly.
His heart was set on working for a deep-tech startup, where his work could move out of the lab and into the real world in the shortest timeframe possible.
But the right job proved elusive. For two years, Fredo ran his own small business – trading collectibles —until the big break finally came. In 2017, he was recruited by a grid-scale battery startup just outside Boulder, Colorado. He later moved to another early-stage firm working on hydrogen electrolyzers.
Then, in early 2021, Fredo joined Electra, a firm co-founded by two of his former colleagues, Sandeep Nijhawan and Quoc Pham. Sandeep and Quoc’s commitment to mentoring and professional development was a major factor in Fredo’s decision to accept the role of Advanced R&D Manager.
“As long as I have worked with Quoc and Sandeep, I have always been encouraged to come up with hypotheses and test those hypotheses,” Fredo says. “I’ve always received the materials and guidance to learn everything about the process and everything else I needed to be successful.”
“Now that I’m on the mentor side I am proud to be able to help make sure this tradition continues stronger than ever,” he says. “We have an onboarding program where new hires are paired up with mentors to help them learn electrochemistry, hone their skills in experimental design, and build their confidence in spotting problems and identifying solutions.”
“For more experienced employees, we are still receiving career development as well. There are opportunities to lead teams with support and mentorship from our managers, and a strong track record of internal promotions directly tied to those leadership opportunities.”
Bending the trajectory of climate change isn’t Fredo’s only passion. From a young age, tackling racial discrimination has also been a deeply personal mission. At school, he says, too many people assumed “the Hispanic kid” wasn’t cut out for science, engineering or math.
“Growing up in Chicago and then here in Colorado, I saw how people treated minorities. I decided that I was going to show people these stereotypes are bullshit.”
Fredo also takes a “work hard, play hard” approach to life. When he’s not in the lab, you can find him in the climbing gym, scaling the cliffs along Clear Creek Canyon outside of Golden, or hiking his next 14er.
“I’m a fan of all kinds of games,” Fredo says. “Board games, card games, role playing games, video games, table games, etc.”
Fredo’s teaming up with two of his Electra colleagues to start a company game night. And in the fall of 2022, he won Electra’s first ever ping pong championship – something which he rarely, if ever, brings up, according to his closest colleagues in the lab.