Our CORE Team
JOSEPH PETERS, PMP
Founder / Principal Consultant
Joseph built his nearly 2 decade career around a simple belief — that no technical challenge is unsolvable with the right team and mindset.
An engineer, innovator, and product developer with more than 15 years of experience, Joseph has led projects that span biotechnology, textiles, advanced manufacturing, and energy systems — designing automation platforms, scaling breakthrough technologies, and developing products that bridge creativity with function.
Before founding Innovating The Dream, Joseph served as Chief Technology Officer at Simplifyber, where he helped pioneer plant-based textile manufacturing through advanced materials and process design. Prior to that, he was Principal Engineer at Biomason, leading biomanufacturing system development during the company’s early growth, and a key technical lead at PowerSecure, where he worked on large-scale power and energy infrastructure systems. Educated in mechanical and aerospace engineering, Joseph has developed and launched more than a dozen successful consumer products, has multiple awarded and pending patents and a proven career of delivering.
ALEX WHEELEY
Founder / Chief of Staff
Alex Wheeley is the connective force that turns vision into forward motion. With more than a decade of experience leading and scaling successfully, she brings an extraordinary ability to create structure, clarity, and momentum within fast-moving, high demand environments.
A strategist, with a human-centered mindset, Alex believes that progress only lasts when it’s built around people. Her leadership blends precision with empathy; fostering collaboration, elevating teams, and ensuring every decision reflects both purpose and impact. Passionate about advocacy, equity, and creating systems where people can thrive, she approaches every challenge with both strategic discipline and genuine care. Her leadership transforms complexity into coordination and vision into velocity, anchoring the company’s culture in empathy, integrity, and forward momentum.
JOSH ANDREWS, MBA
Operations and Strategy
Josh is a hands-on leader with a proven record of scaling industrial, chemical, and biochemical technologies from concept to commercial reality. With deep expertise in process design, technology transfer, and global program management, Josh bridges the gap between R&D innovation and large-scale manufacturing, aligning teams, data, and strategy to accelerate commercialization.
His experience spans the full lifecycle of development; from early-stage prototyping and technoeconomic modeling to multimillion-dollar capital execution. Known for developing disciplined, data-driven operations, Josh builds frameworks that drive clarity, reduce uncertainty, and move complex programs forward with precision and speed.
Holding an MBA and dual degrees in Quantitative Economics and Chemistry, he combines analytical insight with engineering expertise to deliver scalable systems and sustainable growth. At Innovating The Dream, Josh leads with balance — uniting strategic discipline, technical depth, and the creativity to turn technology into measurable impact.
BELEN VILLALONGA ALVAREZ, P.E., MBA, PMP
Belen is a process engineer and biotechnologist dedicated to transforming scientific innovation into scalable, real-world systems. With a foundation in biotechnology and chemical engineering, she brings extensive experience in process development, materials science, and sustainable manufacturing — blending technical rigor with creative problem-solving and a global perspective.
As a licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.) Belen combines engineering precision with operational discipline. Her MBA and PMP complements this expertise, equipping her to navigate the intersection of technical innovation, business strategy, and execution.
Her background includes leading and supporting process design, scale-up, and optimization initiatives across international research, startup, and industrial environments, giving her a unique ability to translate discovery into commercial success.
At Innovating The Dream, Belen helps bridge science and engineering — designing and refining systems that perform at scale. She approaches every challenge with analytical clarity, collaborative spirit, and a commitment to progress that defines the firm’s culture of innovation.
Thomas Stewart
Thomas is an accomplished technical leader driving complex projects from concept through completion across chemical, energy, and industrial manufacturing sectors. Known for his methodical approach and hands-on leadership style, Thomas bridges engineering precision, automation expertise, and operational excellence, ensuring that every system, process, and team operates at peak performance.
His career spans large-scale facility builds, process optimization, and multidisciplinary engineering programs, where he has guided cross-functional teams through design, automation, installation, commissioning, and continuous improvement. With a background rooted in process and controls engineering, he’s recognized for his ability to translate complex technical challenges into efficient, scalable, and measurable solutions.
At Innovating The Dream, Thomas leads with steadiness, insight, and integrity, aligning people, process, and technology to deliver seamless project execution and sustainable results.
Trent Nichols
Trent is a hands-on problem solver who bridges mechanical engineering, industrial automation, and data-driven decision making to build control systems that work for the company, not against it. His experience spans advanced manufacturing, nuclear fuel production, and agricultural materials processing—environments where precision, reliability, and safety are non-negotiable.
He brings deep, ground-up mechanical understanding into the world of PLCs, HMIs, SCADA, and data architectures, designing systems at the intersection of all four. Trent’s background includes multi-stage automated production lines, thoughtfully architected SCADA and historian layers, and operator-friendly HMIs that give teams clear visibility instead of clutter.
Aligned with Innovating The Dream’s philosophy, Trent focuses on automation that supports how a business actually operates. He builds systems that are easy to run, easy to trust, and easy to improve, so control platforms become an asset to the people using them, and a durable advantage for the company long after commissioning day