Our Team

Ralph H. Hershberger is President of Madera Associates LLC. Madera works with technology-oriented, start-up businesses to align their business development, financial management, and operations.

He has significant experience working with state and federal start-up funding programs. In addition to writing dozens of client funding proposals, he was for twelve years an SBIR/STTR proposal reviewer for the National Science Foundation (NSF). He has reviewed hundreds of submissions and was one of ten reviewers selected by NSF to develop their I-Corps program.

He has held senior management positions in three start-ups including VP-Sales & Marketing in an advanced materials firm, General Manager of a manufacturer of electronic components, and Financial Manager for a start-up veterinary clinic.

Prior to founding Madera, he was COO/CFO of The Nielsen Wurster Group (NWG) of Princeton NJ, an engineering consulting firm that provided dispute resolution, risk management, and management consulting services to the global construction industry.

Most recently he was the Mentor-in-Residence at the Arizona Center for Innovation (AzCI) at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. He is a past president of the Southern Arizona chapter of SCORE.

Mr. Hershberger holds a B.S. in Metallurgy & Materials Science from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.