Our Story
We are engineers who care deeply about building things that help the world. As athletes, we understand the importance of a team, which is what we are building with you - our internal team, investors, customers and anyone in the industry (robotics or construction).
Gabe Rodriguez
Founder & CEO
My journey with robotics and entrepreneurship started during my studies at Cornell University. In between training sessions for the Mens' Heavyweight Crew, I was part of the early team building a robotic vacuum for hotels and founded and led a product design club. From these experiences grew a passion for building robots that improve the way we live and work.
During my professional career, I've gained a breadth of experience across a wide range of robotic solutions and operational maturity. From autonomous vehicles to warehouse mobile robots and food assembly modules, pre-production MVPs to 100s of deployed robots, I know what is possible and how to get it done.
When not heads down building robots, you can find me swimming, biking, and running around San Francisco. To date, I've completed multiple full Ironman triathlons and 70.3 distance triathlons, including the 2024 Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Taupo, New Zealand. I believe we become our best selves when striving to do things most people consider impossible, and bring that attitude to bear at Puppet.
Meridith Meyer, P. E.
Co-founder
I am a professional engineer (Structural), with a broad set of industry experience. If I had to boil it down - I'd say my speciality is anything bespoke as not one project has been the same. Outside of the technical engineering, I found through my studies at Cornell and formative time at Arup, that what I really enjoyed was being in the thick of multi-disciplinary coordination and building new workflows. Big projects are really hard and take collaboration and iteration with a lot of people - that skill is what I have honed over my career.
I built Heirloom's Plant Design Engineering team from 0 to 10 - and was the Senior Manager (Director) overseeing the design of over $2B in Direct Air Capture facilities. I was a core developer of Heirlooms Techno-Economic Analysis with the right assumptions based on what it takes to build in the real world. ​Previous to Heirloom, I was lead structural engineer at Rivian on the R&D Cell Facilities.
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Outside of work, I was a nationally placed member on the Cornell Equestrian team - and have filled my time post college with other athletic endeavors including the Boulder - Ironman 70.3. But mostly, I spend my weekends with my project manager, and dog - Chili exploring everything SF has to offer.
