Director of Hardware Engineering

Leadership (Requirements)

• Ability to set a vision and engage own team to reach that vision
• Natural collaborator; leads through building relationships; demonstrated
facilitation skills across different functions; motivated by collective success
• Agile learner, tolerant of risk, and biased towards action
• Sets high standards of performance for self and others
• Assumes responsibility and accountability for successfully completing
assignments or tasks
Judgment and Decision Making
• Seeks appropriate input to decisions and recognizes the impact and
implications for other areas
• Decision making is timely, practical, clear, and open

Uses 5-Why's and Root Cause and Corrective Action to improve engineering processes.

Uses the Agile approach to leadership - open, collaborative, approachable.

Determines strategic outcomes, 1 year out or more, and walks those back to the team in the form of monthly outcomes.

Communication

• Skilled communicator at all levels; ability to translate complex technical
concepts to non-expert audiences
• A persuasive speaker and good listener
• Effective utilization of negotiation and influencing skills
• The ability to communicate in a concise and effective manner to senior
leadership
• Able to identify and effectively communicate with stakeholders throughout a
matrix organization.

Develops and communicates metrics of performance that are communicated across the entire organization - executive stakeholders, project managers, and team members.

Easily moves up and down the "tree of detail", the 50,000 foot view of resourcing and budgets down to bits and bytes as needed to resolve detailed technical issues.

Functional management of a team of Senior Technical Leaders

• Builds and nurtures a high performing and engaged team
• Fosters a work environment that rewards risk taking, rapid learning, and a bias
for action
• Prioritizes the team’s performance and career development; provides creative
growth opportunities for high potential associates in alignment with business
objectives; provides timely and regular performance feedback to all associates
• Identifies and develops technical training and development plans; mentors or
serves as a resource to share specialized knowledge with others; maintain
leadership and technical capabilities through continued education or training
• Determines resource needs for new product development and existing product
support and assigns personnel as appropriate
• Ensures that department personnel have clearly defined tasks and annual
goals which are aligned with broader hardware engineering and business
objectives
• Responsible for hiring, talent development, and pipeline management within
their team

Has lead teams of electrical, mechanical, PCB and software design engineers.   Leads managers of these groups and/or principal engineers in each of these disciplines.

Starts with the customer and walks the customer solution back to the employee using the "CODE" approach - Customers, Organization, Deliverables, Employees.

Develops employees in alignment with company values and direction 

Technical and Analytical Skills
• Expert knowledge in related technical fields
• Able to draw upon technical breadth to evaluate concepts outside area(s) of
personal expertise
• Excellent analytical skills and discipline; able to conduct thorough analysis of
concepts that have high uncertainty
• Excellent critical thinking skills; able to constructively challenge ideas and invite
critical feedback

Has developed a deep understanding and skills in areas of signal analysis, systems integration, hardware design and software design.

SKILLS and ABILITIES
• Minimum Bachelor’s Degree, preferably in optics, electrical engineering, or
physical sciences related fields. MS degree and Ph.D. a plus
• Minimum of 8 years of team management experience
• Experience with early stage technology development
• Experience with resource allocations within a complex matrix environment
• Strong product development experience
• Experience in project execution and administration

Has developed over 50 products in the areas of I/O, cpus and controllers.   MSEE in Electrical and Computer engineering with additional courses beyond the MSEE level in DSP and Networking.

So Cool !!

Hi guys,

As some of you know, I've been tinkering with the Raspberry Pi 3.    It's so cool.

First, I was just wondering just what $35 would buy with the base board.   Now, I've added the Pi Camera and the tinkering has turned into fun.

I started out by monitoring a push button switch to initiate taking a photo, and e-mailing the photo to myself via my Gmail account.    A couple of days later I integrated some motion monitoring code and turned the Pi into a front porch monitor.

The Python motion monitor code allows me to vary the pixel change threshold and number of pixels changed (sensitivity).   After a little testing, I determined that for a 640 x 480 photo, I need a pixel sensitivity of 5000 pixels.   

After I got all of this working, I used electrical tape to mount the Pi to our front porch windows (inside) and pointed the camera toward our front porch steps.   The code tested took a photo every 3 seconds, checked for motion and if motion was detected e-mailed me the photo.   

Since it was windy yesterday, I kept getting photos of Linda's spring front porch flag, it was behind the front column and kept blowing in and out of the frame and triggering my motion detector.  

While I was at a wedding yesterday, I got a legitimate motion detection photo - but no worries, it was just a couple walking by on the sidewalk, :-) .  

Up to this point, I've dusted off some Linux skills, and refreshed my Python programming.   I've also learned how to use Cron to boot code at power up.   Today, I tethered the Pi to my iPhone and demoed the app to my dad - detecting that he had entered the living room !  so cool!  I have few bugs to work out yet, and that's what makes this fun.

Desperate to Learn

Many moons ago when I was a sophomore in engineering school I decided to enter the intern program at our local engineering university, UAHuntsville.   There were only a few options to choose from, companies in Huntsville AL that had intern programs.  Our local power utility, Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA as we call it had an intern program and at that time the intern positions were only available at the Bellefonte Nuclear plant in Scottsboro AL.    At the time I lived at home in Rogersville, AL and Scottsboro was 90 miles away, that’s 90 miles one way!    After being accepted in the program I was informed that a TVA car pool that originated in Florence, AL came through Rogersville and that I could hitch a ride for a nominal fee.   For two terms, I woke up every workday at 4:00 AM to meet the carpool in Rogersville at 4:30 AM for a 2-hour commute to work.   I got off work everyday at 3:30 PM and arrived in Rogersville usually around 5:30 PM.    

Needless to say that schedule was brutal!!!  I was so focused on learning as much as I could about engineering and was so intrigued about power generation and distribution that the crazy schedule didn’t matter.   When there is a will, you find a way!!!!  I was desperate to learn.

BTW, riding the construction elevator that had a see through floor to the top of reactor #1  (a 300 foot climb) was never fun.   Fortunately I never had to the top of the 500 foot tall cooling towers!  :-) :-)

Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Scottsboro, AL