Draft:Peter Majeranowski

Peter Majeranowski, born August 23, 1976, is an American entrepreneur.
Majeranowski is the co-founder and President of Circ (formerly Tyton BioSciences), an enhanced recycling technology that transforms textile waste into new clothing and promotes the fashion industry’s circular economy.

Majeranowski served in the United States Navy as a Surface Warfare Officer, where he spent a year as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy at the Pentagon (2002-03), followed by a rotation in Iraq in 2003, after which he worked as an independent consultant in that country.

His clients included Philips Electronics, SembCorp Engineers and Constructors, Science Applications International Corporation, Fluor Corporation, Portek, Yates Construction, Keppel Corporation, Savant Infocomm and HMBS.

Majeranowski has described his consultancy in Iraq as “fascinating”, because it allowed him to see how business can be a force of good to help and rebuild a society.

“I got to see all kinds of businesses and entrepreneurs. Some families had been trading in that region since the Ottoman Empire. It was fascinating for me. The bug bit and I got hooked.”

After Iraq, Majeranowski joined Windmill International, where he helped execute private investments in early-stage companies and projects throughout southeast Europe and the United States. He spent time in Romania, soon after it joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and before it became a member of the European Union. Romania was in a rapid growth phase, which offered him an opportunity to learn about business. A turning point in Majeranowski’s career came after dinner with the developer of the world’s first effective live polio vaccine, Hilary Koprowski – a renowned Polish virologist and immunologist in the United States. Koprowski authored or co-authored over 875 scientific papers and co-edited several scientific journals. Having developed a non-smoking tobacco plant that could be used for biofuel, Koprowski had just been granted a patent, but needed help to commercialize it.

Sold on the challenge to build something good for the planet, Majeranowski reached out to former classmates from his business school, who were experienced in working in biotech, and only one person answered his email: Iulian Bobe, who had a PhD in chemical engineering. Together with Koprowski, they founded Tyton Biosciences (now, Circ).

Early life

Majeranowski is an only child in a “very tight” family. He has mild dyslexia.

Majeranowski’s father was a war veteran, who escaped Poland during World War 2 to join the Polish Army in France, before occupation. Majeranowski Sr then joined the British Army. Majeranowski’s mother was an organic chemist who worked as a cancer researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center before managing compliance and regulatory affairs at a contract research operation supporting FDA approval of dermatological pharmaceuticals.

A first-generation American, born of Polish immigrants, Majeranowski attended Mountain Lakes High School in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. After school, he studied applied economics at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, on a US Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps scholarship.

After graduating from university, he attended Surface Warfare Officer School in Newport, Rhode Island in 1998. While at Windmill International Limited, he read towards his Master of Business Administration (MBA), which he received with honors from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in 2009.

Patents

Process and system for producing pulp, energy, and bioderivatives from plant-based and recycled materials. (6 jurisdictions)

An industrial system for processing various plant materials to produce marketable materials, which can include constituents for biofuel production (sugars and/or oil), biochar, raw materials for various industries (such as pulp for manufacturing paper or cellulose for use in industry).

Green process to hydrolyze carbohydrates from tobacco biomass using subcritical water (2) Processes for recovering sugars and nicotine from a tobacco biomass

Transgenic tobacco plants for enhanced bioethanol production (1)

Genetically modified tobacco plants, resistant to glyphosate or phosphinothricin herbicides, are fermented to produce ethanol.

Nicotine resistant microorganisms provide an enhanced production of ethanol from the fermentation of tobacco biomass (2)
Green process to hydrolyze carbohydrates from tobacco biomass using subcritical water

Processes for recovering sugars and nicotine from a tobacco biomass

Publications

Knowledge web plays big in transformation

Plastic Earth, a documentary on the plastic crisis is met head-on with tackling the solutions to deal with the over production of single-use plastics.