The Team
Maxine Pierson, CEO, CFO, and CAO
Ms. Pierson received undergraduate degrees from Lawrence University and from Southern Christian University, and a graduate degree from Rochville University.
Ms. Pierson is the Vice President Native American Marketing Enterprise, Building Enterprise and Opportunity zones for the Native American Community. She created the first SBA EXIM Bank City State relationship. Ms. Pierson was the featured speaker to promote business opportunities for the SBA throughout South Florida- including Broward County and worked with Palm Beach State college and the SBA to create a new Business Center on the Boca Raton, FL Campus. Ms. Pierson was the Strategic Business Institute Director of Marketing and was nominated and awarded the Bilingual Fortune 500 “go to” PR Executive. She is the lead Computer Project Manager for the State of MN Human Services Department.
Ms. Pierson is also a Member of the Chamber of Commerce of The United States of America, Executive Vice President-Mergers & Acquisitions at GDT Tek, Inc., a Member of Center For Nonprofit Excellence, a Member of Palm Beach Round Table, Inc.
Ms. Pierson is a public speaker and has been the TV host of Palm Beach Live and is a published author.
Dr. Christopher D. Krause, Ph.D., Member, Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Krause received his undergraduate education at the University of Delaware, graduating with an Honors B.S. degree in Biochemistry. He performed undergraduate research in the kinetic characterization of lipid-hydrolyzing enzymes that work at oil:water interfaces, under the tutelage of the late Mahendra K. Jain. He attended graduate school at Rutgers and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, attaining a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology under the advisement of the late Dr. Sidney Pestka, one of the pioneers of interferon (IFN) research and of the biopharmaceutical industry. Dr. Krause’s work as a graduate student focused on the IFN-gamma receptor complex in live cells and how its structure and signaling can be characterized or modified.
He continued in Dr. Pestka’s laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow, developing a technology called confocal fluorescence spectroscopy (CFS) that allows biophysical analysis of protein complexes to be done in intact cells and in real time. Since leaving Dr. Pestka’s laboratory, his academic research activities have focused on the genetic and evolutionary biology of interferon proteins and genes in vertebrates, and on publishing methods that allow measuring CFA in cells under difficult situations.
Dr. Krause currently teaches biological sciences at Indian River State College, within a program ranked in the top ten biology training programs in the nation according to the Wall Street Journal in 2020. He also maintains a voluntary adjunct appointment at the Center for Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Florida Atlantic University.