About Us

Have dealt directly with customers for many years while running my own engineering services company. Also learned to correctly budget time, personnel, and resources to meet customer needs, all without going over budget. Received MBA training at Northwestern University. Received formal business training for:

• Supervisory Training
• Building Effective Work Relationships
• Managing Time and Performance
• Dealing With the Media
• Project Management
• Interpersonal Effectiveness
• Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Northwestern University www.northwestern.edu

Master of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering. Attended Kellog School of Management for MBA studies. GPA was 3.7 out of 4. Needed broad job opportunities, so I turned down an opportunity for a PhD.

Illinois Institute of Technology www.iit.edu

Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. Minor in biology.

“DAT protection on industry’s mind”, Electronic Engineering Times, issue 505, front page!

“New Antiduping Device Rises From Copycode Grave” Billboard, Volume 100, #35, page 77.

“New Weapon for the Home Taping War” Mix Magazine, October 1989, page 194.

“New Copycode Being Studied” Pro Sound News, Volume 10, #9.

Some of my designs have been patented. On several occasions I have gone to the main Patent Office in Washington DC to perform patent searches, and to review the current state of the art in several fields. I have become familiar and comfortable with the language used to make Patent Claims. Have been an expert witness regarding patents for 20 years, and some opinions have determined the course of $30,000,000+ settlements. Experience includes:

• Compare patents of client and strategic partners.
• Research competitor patents for vulnerability.
• Render expert opinions in court regarding patent litigation.
• Have created means + function claim charts in preparation for litigation.
• Have created electronic hardware and software to prove or disprove infringement.
• Am experienced with long, hostile, and intense depositions.

Patent Number	Year Issued	Description
4,639,877	1987	Phrase-Programmable Digital Speech System
4,675,840	1987	Speech Processor System with Auxiliary Memory Access

Magnetic Ticket 2008

• Write C++ code to control the process of encoding and verifying magnetic ticket data.
• Controller uses a Coldfire MPC5282 running Netburner uCOS to interact with the server using UDP transfers.

US Biometrics 2007-2008

• Perform FCC emissions testing and analysis to pass FCC emissions testing.

Faultline Outdoors 2007-2008

• Wrote PIC code and assisted with hardware design of a solar powered remote deer feeder.
• Huge capacitors are used instead of batteries to make this product maintenence free.

Freescale ( IMTD ) 2005-2008

• Wrote validation software in C for the MPC5222 / MPC5121.
• Designed a PCI bus arbiter using VHDL, Verilog, and ABEL on ModelSim.
• Used CodeWarrior to validate new MPC5200 silicon on IceCube, Tortilla, and Enchilada platforms. Diagnosed CQI customer returns.
• Wrote hibernation software and an application note for the Power PC 603e G2_LE (Little Endian) core and all MPC5200 internal peripherals to power off, then later restore all registers and continue processing within 5mS.
• Wrote 6000 lines of Verilog code for a Xilinx Spartan 3e to capture video frames and to route digital audio to and from many sources
• Designed most of the Bluestone motherboard, being the first PCB for the telematics 5121e SoC processor, using a Xilinx Spartan 3E FPGA. Includes a 12 x 14 port router, where each port is 5 bits. Board has AC97, CAN, DDR, DVI, Ethernet, IRDA, I2C, I2S, SPDIF, DDR, SDHC, SPI, PATA, PCI, UART, J1850.
• Created signal integrity models for the substrate, wirebonds, and padring of the telematics 5121e SoC.
• Rearranged the ball map of an SoC processor to maximize DDR speed and signal integrity. Modeled all busses to achieve 500 MHz operation. Modeled and tuned DDR2 for optimum signal integrity and speed.
• Wrote validation software in C for the telematics 5121e SoC.
• Provided signal integrity training to other engineers.

US Biometrics 2005

• Designed hardware and wrote software in C and assembler to acquire fingerprint biometrics.
• System uses a Rabbit Semiconductor module and sends fingerprint data over an Ethernet LAN to a server for validation.
• Designed hardware and wrote software in C to respond to server requests to open a secure door for homeland security applications.
• Added VoIP and Weigand signalling capabilities.

Hypermax Engineering 2004

• Wrote software in C to analyze and modify automotive CAN bus communications. Reverse engineered requirements using a protocol analyzer which I wrote in C to validate the system. Will add 100 horsepower to diesel engines.
• Reverse engineered the BDM ports on a Ford EEC-V, then downloaded the code, altered it, and re-flashed both MPC555 devices.
• Delivered in-house training for these systems.

Amptec Research

• Added a GPIB transceiver to a Motorola Coldfire 5272 system. Consulted regarding video and other subsystems.
• Provided approaches to improve signal integrity.

3M

• Led the team for improving the existing electronics of a 60″ flat panel DLP DMD display.
• Collaborated with the entire division to develop the next generation product. Found a way to reduce product cost from $12,000 down to $2,000, with minimal NRE and higher reliability. Projected to boost income by over $100,000,000 annually.
• Redesigned the previous audio and video processing PCB for a 60″ flat panel DLP DMD projector to obtain clean signal integrity, low EMI, and high reliability. Designed a digital audio pre-amp and output section.
• Invented a new hardware method to reduce EMI in transmission line PCB traces. Patent applied for.
• Debugged and redesigned VHDL CPLD problems.
• Managed FCC emissions, signal integrity, power supply, and HDTV options for a second generation 60″ DLP DMD projector.

Radon Environmental Monitoring

• Updated a manufacturing process to a PC based system.
• Automating the radon analysis to use PC based image analysis for more accurate results

I Spy Systems

• Reduced cost and size of a 2.4 GHz Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum wireless internet surveillance camera. System provides VGA resolution of 640H x 480V pixels over a wireless T1 Ethernet connection to a local server. The Ethernet connection uses full duplex IEEE 802.11 with CSMA/CA or TDMA. Multiple 500mW wireless cameras on separate frequency hopping channel sequences may be over 1000 feet away from the local server. System has worldwide license-free operation, and accepts standard ‘C’ mount lenses. We were able to cut unit costs by $1000 each, while making the entire system fit within a standard weather-proof housing.
• Partially designed a surveillance camera with a built in web server. The camera works in daylight or infra red, and sends encrypted signals via a wireless LAN to a server. Battery saving methods were used to allow 30 minutes of operation when AC power is cut.
• Researched patents that apply to the wireless surveillance industry. Found a way to use cheaper wireless access points to replace a wireless Ethernet bridge. This saves $400 per system and speeds it up by a factor of ten.
• Located and configured software to use a WWV time receiver to keep servers on accurate time.

Chamberlain

• This company is one of the largest makers of electronic garage door openers. Wrote Z86C04 software, which scans a keypad and outputs certain codes to an RF transmitter.
• Wrote Sican 4 bit RISC microcontroller code for secure remote controller applications. Uses rolling codes for security.
• Learned to optimize 4-bit code size in a 2 layer stack environment.

Motorola SPS (Non-Volatile Memory Technology Center)

• Wrote device drivers and customer API for SOS flash memory. Also wrote the customer API manual.
• Invented new software approaches to speed up flash memory programming by up to 50%. (patent applied for)
• Cross platform code runs MPC555, MPC565, 68F372, 68F375 and 68HC12 processors.
• Learned to create software patches for problems with the analog properties of silicon.
• Analyze, test, and debugged problems with initial silicon wafers

FTI Consulting

• Provided expert opinions as an undisclosed expert witness to an OEM of industrial PC’s. This matter involved fitness for merchantability.

Motorola (Automotive)

• Used Orcad to design analog and digital hardware, and wrote a 68HC11 software for an optical blood glucose analyzer.

Pelouze

• Updated postal scale software for year 2000 operation. Postal rates finally got too big for 8 bit data. This involved software for COP and Intel.

Bay Area Rapid Transit

• Updated 80C537 based ticket reader software to operate with higher bit density tickets. Performs an automatic ticket speed selection. Includes error correction for tears, hole, and other paper defects.

Zenith Data Systems

• Provide expert witness services on various legal issues involving patent infringement. Wrote Windows 95 code using MicroSoft Visual C++ V4.2, wrote Borland C++ code, designed hardware with Orcad, then built and debugged hardware for high-speed parallel port data transfers.

Kettelson Law Offices

• Analyzed 24-bit interactive color PC games for improvements and possible patent infringement. Added some graphical animation to the source code and evaluated performance.

Sun River

• Used Orcad to design hardware, and wrote Z80 software to control up to 250 ozone generators, which are used to purify water. Built, debugged, and tested it.

Morey Corporation

• Took over project responsibility for a truck mounted spread-spectrum communications system. My revised design worked correctly and fit the form factor on the first pass. Used Orcad for the hardware design, and debugged the PCB.

Motorola (Communications)

• Working in the Engineering Computer Support Group, I upgraded Macintosh computers to System 7.5 OS. Cataloged, maintained, and upgraded 44 PC’s to meet internal security auditing standards.

Zenith Data Systems

• Provide expert witness services on various legal issues involving patent infringement. Wrote Windows 95 code using MicroSoft Visual C++ V4.0, made a 68HC11 data analyzer, using Orcad for the hardware design.

Health O Meter

• Used Orcad to design an electronic postal scale. This scale handles all major domestic and foreign parcel carriers. Software was written in ‘C’ for an 8051, and includes graphic displays. Designed a custom LCD hardware driver, and strain gauge driven A/D for weight measurements.

Motorola (Cellular)

• Wrote Digital Electronic Cordless Telephone R&D system code used by RF engineers to develop and test their system.

Zenith Controls

• Modified software on an Emergency Power Transfer Switch to provide weekly timing operations.

Alnor Instrument

• Provided an engineering design review of their Manometer.

Early Warning

• Used Orcad to design a complete home security system, using RF and telephone modem links. Detects smoke, CO, burglar, water, motion, AC power loss.

Landis & Gyr Powers

• Wrote C code to interface foreign lighting control products to Landis & Gyr Powers Local Area Network. Wrote 68HC11 assembler code for special applications of HVAC controls. Uses Proportional Integral Derivative loops to provide laboratory clean room pressurization, and compensates for fume hood exhaust.
• Wrote Microsoft Visual C++ code to interface with other manufacturers lighting systems.

Hypermax Engineering

• Used Orcad to design an engine controller, which works in conjunction with the existing controller to boost diesel engine power by more than 100 HP. Debugged the system on a Ford diesel truck.

VictorMaxx

• This company makes Virtual Reality headgear. I provided cost reduction, audio and video enhancements, EMI suppression, power supply design, and technical evaluation. Upgraded the display and video timing to handle 180,000 color pixels per eye. Uses 24 bit color. Used Orcad for the hardware designs.

Chamberlain

• This company is one of the largest manufactures of electronic garage door openers. Wrote Z86C04 software, which scans a keypad and outputs certain codes to an RF transmitter.

Airguide

• Used Orcad to design an 80C552 speedboat speedometer. Holds boat-specific calibration data in EEPROM. Wrote Quick Basic code for table calibration procedure.

Panasonic

• Interfaced Panasonic barcode readers to the IBM Point Of Sale LAN. A complex series of inter locking codes had to be de-crypted to achieve success. The interface uses an 80C32. Did both the software and hardware.

Rand McNally

• Designed R & D equipment for a new method of magnetic stripe data encoding. This new method copy-protects each card individually.

Infrared Research Laboratories

• Designed hardware to interface IR remote controls to a PC for code analysis. Wrote C software to analyze and graph collected data in color on a PC. Required BIOS modifications for greater accuracy.

Trippe Manufacturing

• This company makes the popular Trippe Lite series of uninterruptable power supplies. Wrote Z86C08 software, which senses line and battery voltage, and controls the inverter.

Morey Corporation

• Cost reduced an existing airline armrest telephone handset, and added game controller functions in hardware and software for a PC using a 24 bit color LCD. Projected savings are over $600,000 per year. Used Orcad.

In-Flight Phone

• Designed a 68HC11 based inventory control system, which allows Flight Attendants to accept credit cards as payment for In-Flight purchases. A radio link updates the mainframe computer about the inventory, and credit card transactions are processed immediately. Developed an airplane wireless phone using a debit key / credit card. Made an unattended key dispenser.

Awtrax

• Designed a remote controlled Venetian Blind system. Minimal cost design uses only standard components. No custom or programmable parts were used.

Morey Corporation

• Used Orcad to design a protection buffer to isolate manufactured components from the testing platform. Otherwise, defective units would destroy the testing platform. The units under test are digital telephone handsets, and VGA LCD modules.

RIAA

• Designed a secret inaudible audio band signaling system to identify copyrighted audio works. This is now called audio watermarking. Data rides 40dB to 90dB below maximum audio program levels, yet is recovered with a 20dB S/N. For use with Digital Audio Tape (DAT), and all other digital media. Was interviewed for the front page of EE Times. Has covert RF communication applications as well.

Motorola (Automotive)

• Organized and updated an Electronic Engine Control tester for HDR and ZETA models, and worked on engine knock sensor software. Designed a gate array for an 8097 based diesel engine controller. This 1200 cell, 76 pin gate array contains: a double buffered UART (like the 6850), programmable baud rate generator, programmable 8 level interrupt controller, programmable 8097 wait state generator, chip select logic allowing dynamic remapping, selectable 1 or 10 mS EEPROM timer EEPROM, 11.6736 MHz oscillator, and 16 I/O lines. Control lines were built in to allow external devices to control the Read, Write, and Memory Access lines. This allow real time simulation, debug, and trace functions to facilitate engine software development.
• Designed and debugged an automatic gate array tester. The tester checks all above functions and uses a 100 MHz reference oscillator to measure critical chip timings.

Baxter Travenol

• Designed analog and digital hardware plus software for a mass and fluid flow measurement and dispensing system. It autoranges a 16 bit A/D to assure maximum accuracy.

Molex

• Made custom equipment for lamp switch testing and sorting in Mexico. Wrote Windows routines for their Smart House home automation system

Neoteric Systems

• Designed an analog interface between a microcontroller and a satellite receiving station. Worked on an electronic compass and a WWV calibrated clock. Designed an 8031 based residential HVAC controller.

Abbott Laboratories

• Wrote a hospital database management system in Basic. This system monitors patient data and maintains various medical files.

Borg Warner

• Was sent to England to evaluate an 8748 based video educational product and cost it out for mass production.
• Designed and built the Ufonics voice synthesis system for Apple computers used in schools for computer aided education. Uses a TI 5220 synthesizer, 6500 microcomputer, and 64K bytes of auto-incrementing, dual port, dynamic RAM. Speech data is downloaded from disk to Ufonic RAM. Commands are passed from the Apple to control speech output. Wrote 2K of code for the 6500; and 8K of operating, diagnostic, and debugging code for the Apple. Adapted above design for use on the Apple IIc and the IBM PC jr. Reduced product cost by half using innovative techniques. Designed a music synthesizer for the IBM PC using a GI 8910 music chip. Wrote all 80×86 code needed to run it.

Motorola (Cellular)

• Defined software structure for a multitasking cellular radio telephone analyzer. Used 80k of 6301 assembly code, developed on a Unix system. Wrote calibration and operation software for hybrid watt meters, SAT phase angle, SINAD, distortion, VSWR, peak frequency deviation, RSSI, and about 30 other hardware metering functions. Wrote fast routines for calculating SIN, COS, TAN, arcSIN, arcCOS, arcTAN, LOG, antiLOG, extrapolate, interpolate, plus extended 32 bit multiply and divide. Also designed hardware and software for the European cellular telephone security authorization network. (SIS) Made a cellular radio board tester for international UK and NMT use.

Datavoice

• Designed a unique, low-cost sigma-delta digital audio voice recording, compression, and expansion system.

Illinois Tool Works

• Created an automatic joystick calibrator to aid manufacturing.

Data Specialties

• Corrected a bug in a 8035 based paper tape puncher/reader that uses 5K ROM. Bug was unsolved over 6 months before my assistance. Used a Tektronix logic analyzer and special TTL triggering circuitry to complete this project in only 6 days!

Motorola (Communications)

• Wrote 32K of 68HC11 code for a voice synthesized emergency radio communications system. It handles trunking repeaters, PL, DPL, and automatic code ID.

AB Dick

• Collected test parameters for the Magna SL word processing system in New Hampshire and Phoenix. Created self diagnostics for the data transfer hardware used to communicate between the 80 Megabyte hard disk and a cluster of Magna SL terminals. The hard disk diagnostics were written in C. The other 8085 diagnostics check RAM, ROM, SDLC transfers, DMA controller, and timers. Used an Intel MDS.

Datamate

• Sold, installed, and maintained custom Cobol report generator software on NCR mainframes.

Motorola (Test Engineering)

• Performed two automatic test equipment projects for the new R-2200 Communications Service Monitor (Papoose): The first ATE project performs over 100,000 separate tests on the cpu board. The system simulates a 6805 using 5K of 6800 code. Board components are tested starting at minimum circuit complexity in order to catch defects in their simplest mode.
• The second ATE project tests the 6805 processor itself. Every addressing mode of every instruction is tested by 3K of 6805 code. Error messages indicate which mode of which instructions have failed.

Federal Signal

• Consultant for production testing of a 6800 based cash register system.

General Engineering

• This company makes custom lighting systems, including the one used in the movie “Saturday Night Fever”. Designed hardware and all software for a 24,576 bulb, four color light system now in a Paris nightclub. This system uses 20 parallel microprocessors, a megabit of TI bubble memory, and a color graphics crt with a light pen. Patterns may be drawn on the crt with the light pen, stored in bubble memory, and displayed on the giant light screen. The system supports full editing of these patterns (in French), as well as text messages. Microprocessors used: 6802 (17), 9900 (2), and Z80 (1); system uses 76K ROM and 72K RAM. The work was very well documented with 54 pages of flow charts and complete, fully commented, source listings.
• Wrote Basic and 6502 code for a custom light display editor and formatter used for the above system. Wrote 6802 code for a stepper motor controlled X-Y axis spot light which draws light patterns.

Fyrnetics

• Designed four custom CMOS and PMOS integrated circuits for use in smoke detectors and home security equipment. Designed and setup IC testing and sorting instruments in Hong Kong for mass production. Designed and setup a system to align 370 MHz transmitters and regenerative receivers for production. Conducted field strength tests for these transmitters and receivers. Designed the logic used in the “Lifesaver” home security system marketed by Norelco.