Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

Close to two dozen current and former members of the Knoxville region’s accelerator programs gathered at Protomet in Loudon on Monday to hear from three successful local entrepreneurs about developing and marketing their products.

Moderated by Bill Malkes, Chief Executive Officer at NellOne Therapeutics and a true servant leader, the panel included:

1. Jeff Bohanan, President and Co-Founder of Protomet Corporation, a company that has a strong presence in the marine industry;
2. Vig Sherrill, who is Founder or Co-Founder of at least seven companies in the region – from ASIC International to GRIDSMART Technologies Inc. and finally General Graphene; and
3. Corey Tyree, Chief Executive Officer of Trillium Renewable Chemicals, Inc., a company he launched in 2021 soon after leaving his position at Southern Research in Birmingham.

Clearly Bohanan and Sherrill have been entrepreneurs longer than Tyree.

Protomet started in early in 1998 in space that existed in the then Technology 2020 Incubator. Soon thereafter, Bohanan said the company landed a contract with Mercedes-Benz. Then, about 10 years after the company was launched, it got into boating.

Today, Protomet has three facilities – the original building where it launched in Oak Ridge as well as the massive facility in Loudon and another in Rockwood.

Sherrill credited Malkes, with whom he co-founded GRIDSMART, originally known as Aldis, into the company that it is today.

“Bill took the company from less than $1 million (in annual revenue) to $30 million,” he said. The company was acquired in January 2019 by Cubic Corporation.

In June 2024, Trillium announced the selection of the INEOS Nitriles’ Green Lake facility in Port Lavaca, TX as the location where the company planned to establish the world’s first demonstration plant for converting plant-based glycerol into acrylonitrile. The demonstration plant is named “Project Falcon.”

All three touched on the importance of culture, with Sherrill saying, “Driving culture is really, really hard,” then quickly adding that it is “important to keep the culture to keep your employees.

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