Dr. Sonia was there for three years, but most of her paycheck was paid by a government grant, as have many prior UBC grad students and graduates that worked at MVTG. Larry could not afford the full the full salary when the grant funding for her work expired. The grants have a time limit, not renewable for prior people. So Larry has been cutting costs for years by bringing in fresh talent under the grant program year after year that paid about 80% of their salary.
Randy Gue from Lafarge is still at MVTG as is DR. Piorte (the MVTG presenter in China this week), the guy that designed and built most of the Spark and MVTG MRFC fuel cell powered scooter and fuel cells from scratch. Something people said would have taken Ford Motor 7 years to do, he did in 6 months. He has now been there 3 years.