Dr. James Wolter is Professor Emeritus of Marketing at Grand Valley State University where he taught Graduate Courses in Marketing Management, Business Planning, New Product Development and Management of Technology. Jim completed his Doctorate specializing in Planned Innovation at Michigan State University under the supervision of Dr. Frank Bacon in 1986. He has consulted on sales and product development with large and small clients including General Electric, Xerox, IBM, McDonalds, Caterpillar, Hines Corporation, Herman Miller, and Steelcase.

Jim has worked in public service for Michigan's Commerce Department and DLEG/MEDC (Michigan Economic Development Corporation) and was the co-founder of the University's MAREC Center (Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center) where he directed renewable energy research for three years before returning to teaching full time in 2003.

Dr. Wolter retired from classroom teaching in August 2010 to found Energy Partners, LLC, an Energy Research and Product Development Lab at the University's MAREC Center. His recent work has focused on helping firms which are developing and marketing new renewable-energy products involving power generation, control, and energy storage. New clients include Energy Conversion Devices, General Motors, Ovonic Battery, COBASYS, Harding Energy, Uni-Solar, Applinetics, Lockheed Martin (FTTS), NextEnergy, Plug Power, Designed Nanotubes, Patriot Solar, and Briggs and Stratton Corporations. Jim has served on the Boards of three Energy and Information Companies as Vice Chairman for one and as Marketing Manager for another.

Dr. Wolter began his career as an advanced development physicist for General Electric and progressed through several GE-divisions from New-Product development in Power Conversion products to sales engineering, regional and national sales management. He was a Marketing Manager for two commercial equipment Companies before returning to graduate studies at MSU in 1981 and full time teaching at GVSU.

Jim has developed new courses and authored numerous Journal Articles on New Product Development, Relationship Marketing, Lean Systems, and Business Planning. He has participated-in or led development-teams working on "smart-power" systems and holds one patent on microprocessor control devices used for integrating renewable energy systems and has three "clean-tech" patents pending.. Dr. Wolter holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Physics from Indiana University and Ball State University, a Masters Degree in Administration and a MBA from Indiana University, as well as the Ph.D. in Marketing from Michigan State University. He lives in Spring Lake, Michigan