John Will Ongman founded Cardinal Crest Solutions after more than a three-decade legal career as a lawyer and partner, practice group head, or Washington-office managing partner in international and national (Sidley Austin; Pepper Hamilton), regional (Barnes & Thornburg), and boutique (Axinn Veltrop) law firms. Prior to his time at law firms, he clerked for Walter Cummings, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and former Solicitor General of the United States. When at law firms, Ongman solved regulatory, antitrust, intellectual property and corporate problems. To do this, he drew on his education in engineering (Purdue, General Motors Scholar (best student in Engineering College)), physics (Illinois – Urbana, Ph.D. program) and law (Northwestern, editor of law review and Austin Scholar (top merit scholarship)).

At Cardinal Crest, Ongman engages in activities where law, science and technology meet. He is an active investor in start-up companies and provides strategic advice at the law/science/technology interface for established companies and federal and state governmental entities, drawing on his deep experience as a multidisciplinary problem solver. The path is to dig into the scientific, technological, and legal aspects of major problems to solve them in a creative, multidisciplinary way. When law, science and technology meet, solutions can be found that are not available from any singular intellectual analytical stovepipe. Cardinal Crest’s approach to problem solving thus can lead to transformational solutions.

Before entering the practice of law, Ongman was a research associate in cardiac electrophysiology, focusing on cardiac drug discovery, at Northwestern Medical School. There he developed minicomputer-based algorithms to analyze electrical activity as a way to investigate the effects of various pharmaceutical agents on cardiac action potentials. Prior to that, he was the General Electric Fellow in the physics department at the University of Illinois researching various topics in solid-state physics. Also, in its Nuclear Physics Laboratory, he was a research assistant studying ion acoustic instability in the positive column of a helium plasma. At Illinois, Ongman likewise was a computer programmer in the Computer-Based Education Research Laboratory (“CERL”) developing the PLATO computer system – a precursor of the current e-mail and database solutions.

Ongman has continued his interest in science by serving as an adjunct professor in interdisciplinary programs in the Graduate and Medical Schools at Georgetown University. There he has taught intellectual property and venture capital investment subjects involving biotechnology and physics. He also has served as an advisor to Georgetown’s Graduate School, Department of Physics, and Provost. In addition, he is a member of the adjunct faculty of IQM Research Institute, a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. www.iqmri.org He is also Managing Director of Lingua Franca Group, a private equity venture firm focused on STEM education and tech startups. www.linguafrancagroup.com