Uncas (Ben) Favret III
Founder & President
Ben, VESTEX® founder and president, brings more than three decades of innovation and expertise to the industry and has extensive experience in sales and marketing management, product launches and start-up business leadership. He began his career at Pfizer and emerged as a top salesperson who played a key role in multiple successful drug launches. He followed that with success at biotech start-up Centocor and on to The Liposome Company, where he was instrumental in the launch of the cancer drug, Abelcet®.
Ben later joined Matrix Oncology, which was acquired by Priority Healthcare and merged into Express Scripts. He also served as co-founder and vice president of OneOncology, Inc., a provider of electronic negotiation technology for the oncology drug industry.
Recognizing a new opportunity to deliver advanced performance textile technologies to the healthcare sector, Ben developed VESTEX® to enhance the safety of health care workers and their patients. Expanding into other industry niches, VESTEX® is now FDA Class 2 510(k) cleared and promises to become an industry and consumer choice for protective, anti-microbial, liquid-repellent textile solutions.
Ben holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree from the University of Alabama, has served on the Boards of Directors for the National Kidney Foundation, YMCA of Central Florida and USA Water Ski. He also served on the U. S. Olympic Committee Athlete Advisory Council. A world-ranked slalom water skier, Ben is the author of two top-selling books on water skiing.
James P. Karides, CPA
Vice President
James P. Karides, Certified Public Accountant, brings thirty-five years of tax and financial consulting to the VESTEX® team. Working extensively with high net worth individuals and closely held growth companies, Jim’s areas of expertise include assisting with tax planning, financing considerations and alternatives, and negotiating and structuring acquisitions.
In 2007, Jim joined noted entrepreneur and founder Richard L. Sharp to form V-Ten Capital. As a partner, he currently serves as V-Ten’s President and Chief Financial Officer in addition to serving in an advisory capacity for the VESTEX® team. His day-to-day responsibilities include management of multiple investment portfolios and providing oversight and expertise in the areas of capital financing, structure, tax planning and financial reporting.
Jim is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and is currently the Treasurer of the Rick Sharp Alzheimer’s Foundation. He is an alumnus of the Richmond Venture Capital Club and Leadership Hampton Roads. He also currently serves on several corporate and charitable foundation boards.
Mr. Karides is a graduate of the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and currently resides in Virginia Beach, VA with his wife, Guzin, and their three sons.
Dawn Clarke
Chief Technology Officer
Dawn is an experienced technical individual who has navigated the field of technical textiles for over 35 years for both commercial and military applications. She has worked in many aspects of the supply chain including the laboratory, the manufacturing floor to develop operational parameters for specific application targets, as well as working with the user side as a technical marketing liaison to bring new textile technology to market.
Dawn has vast experience helping to identify a solution to a need for both military and commercial applications using technical textiles and managing the development process from the infancy stages through full commercialized adoption.
Dawn has worked at various textile companies across the North East, steadily rising through the ranks of a predominantly male dominated industry. Her tenacious and uncompromised work ethics gained her the respect few women have accomplished in this industry. Her philosophy in the work environment is, ‘It doesn’t matter if you feel like you are chewing on dynamite, don’t let the task at hand blow you up.’
Dawn holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Textile Chemistry from South Eastern Massachusetts University (SMU). She has attended numerous graduate level courses at University of RI for Environmental Chemistry. Dawn and her husband currently reside in Massachusetts. Along with their three children, Dawn and her husband have hosted many international children to help learn English and be exposed to the American culture. The bonds formed many not be through genetics, but are just as strong. The Clarkes are now the American parents to many children and grandchildren across the globe.
Advisory Board
Alan Reed
Alan Reed, MD MBA FACS is a professor in the Department of Surgery, as well as the director of the UI Organ Transplant Center and the Division of Transplant and Hepatobiliary Surgery at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. He is also an adjunct professor of accounting at the Henry B. Tippie School of Management at The University of Iowa.
Dr. Reed started his academic career at The University of Iowa in 2007, and prior to that he held academic positions at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York (1991-1994), as well as the University Of Florida College Of Medicine in Gainesville, Florida (1994-2007).
He received his B.S. in biology summa cum laude from Hobart College in Geneva, New York, in 1980, his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1984, and his MBA from the Henry B. Tippie School of Management at the University of Iowa in 2012. He did his residency in general surgery at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center (1984-1989) and his fellowship in multi-organ abdominal transplantation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1989-1991).
He has authored numerous articles and book chapters and served multiple professional organizations including as a counselor to the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (2017-20, United Network for Organ Sharing, and as the vice-chair of the Iowa Donor Network Board of Directors (2009-2019).