Robert David Vinje

Robert D. Vinje is the VP of Expansions for SunPower Corporation. He has been with the company since 2006, and was responsible for expansion of SunPower’s first factory, and was the managing director responsible for building, starting up and operating the second 500 MW factory in the Philippines, which makes the world’s most efficient volume manufactured solar cell at a median efficiency of 22.6 percent. He currently resides on the Board of Trustees of Investors for First Philippines Industrial Park, guiding strategic directions on how industrial parks and facilities should co-exist and fit in with their surroundings and environment. He also chairs the Malaysian Alternative and Renewable Industry (MARI) committee in Malaysia, a first of its kind with fellow committee members from First Solar and Q-Cells. MARI is an AMCHAM-based committee that collaborates between the Malaysian government and private sectors to promote the deployment of renewable energy in Malaysia to enhance Malaysia’s global competitiveness through innovative economies, based on knowledge, creativity and green technology. Before entering the PV industry, he was the fab operations director for a large front-end semiconductor fab with Cypress Semiconductor. He has an electronics degree, an electrical engineering degree, and an MS degree in management of technology from the University of Minnesota.