Co-founder & CEO of EnKoat, an advanced materials company

Matt Aguayo holding a HOBO data logger

Matthew Aguayo is co-founder and CEO of EnKoat, an advanced materials company focused on innovative solutions to improve energy efficiency and decarbonize the built environment.

Where were you born, where do you live now, and where were you educated?

I was born, raised, and still live in Arizona. I graduated from Arizona State University with my Ph.D. in Structures & Materials Engineering.

What is your area of expertise?

My area of expertise is developing and designing innovative materials for the built environment.

What is your primary motivation for doing the work that you do?

I want to decarbonize the built environment for a sustainable future through innovative material design.

What would you say is your greatest accomplishment?

My personal greatest accomplishment was finishing my college degrees while raising my first child. My work-wise greatest accomplishment is being named in Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Energy.

What do you strive to achieve in the future?

Personally, I strive to maintain a healthy and positive work-life balance so that I can not only see my children grow up, but also be a disruptor within the built environment. It would be such an accomplishment to have our products on hundreds of thousands, if not, millions of buildings. It’s going to take time, but I believe we can achieve anything. 

Have you ever thought about the name HOBO and what it might mean?

I’ve never really given much thought to the name HOBO. After using HOBO monitoring products, the name HOBO to me means quality temperature monitoring products I can trust to give me consistent, and accurate results, every time.

What HOBO monitoring products do you use on a regular basis?

I use the MX2300 series temperature/RH loggers because they’re super easy to deploy and use.

What is your specific monitoring application?

Our specific monitoring application is for building performance, specifically for R&D. To engineer these materials with enhanced thermal performance capabilities requires us to have consistent and reliable temperature logging equipment.

Can you describe a specific project of yours where HOBO data loggers played a key role?

We use HOBO data loggers to measure the internal temperature profiles of different prototypes we work on. Because we test these prototypes within a sealed environmental chamber, it is necessary to deploy equipment that can be used wirelessly.

What HOBO features do you consider most important?

Being able to download data via Bluetooth is extremely important. Dealing with multiple temperature data points can get cumbersome; it’s nice to just download data straight to my phone.

Do you think accurate data can help you build a better tomorrow?

Our interpretation of trends and other insights from data sets are only as good as the accuracy of the data being collected. To build a better tomorrow requires confidence in the analysis, which in turn relies on the accuracy of the data.

If you could spend the day on the job with one person (living or deceased), who would it be?

I’d have to say Bill Gates. It’s one thing to hang out with one of the world’s most influential people, but it’s another to have a deep and meaningful conversation about sustainability and reducing GHG emissions. I’d love to show him how we’re decarbonizing the built environment by creating next-generation building products.

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