About

Work experience:

VeriTekk Consulting 2012 – Present

Pleasanton, CA

President.  Storage technology trend development. HDD technology, process and test roadmaps.  HDD technology expert witness. Technology valuation for M&A dliligence.

Xyratex 2009 – 2012

Fremont, CA

Sr. Vice President and CTO, Storage Infrastructure.  Technology development and growth strategies for capital equipment related to hard drive manufacturing.  Technology roadmap process tying trends and market opportunities to long term product portfolio roadmap. Growth strategies deployed include organic development leveraging internal teams, sponsored university research and acquisition of companies to fill out gaps in the strategy. Evaluated four companies and acquired two as part of the growth strategy. Played a leadership role in industry consortia such as IDEMA ASTC and INSIC EHDR.  Represented the capital equipment technology position to customers and the investment community.

FormFactor Inc. 2007- 2008

Livermore, CA

Vice President of Research and Development.  Manage development MEMS spring technology for probe card contactor, probe card electrical interconnect and electronic architecture and new probe card product platforms.  Developing a technology roadmap process that ties to the long term product portfolio roadmap.

Vice President of Product Development. Manage the development of probe cards for semiconductor wafer testing.  Design product platforms to meet product roadmap requirements.  Platforms integrate MEMS spring contactors, complex electrical interconnect systems and active electronics into the probe card design.  Manage the development of assembly and test methods and equipment for manufacturing and testing probe cards.  Develop improvenents for existing probe card platforms to extend the application to new test environments and to improve performance.

Western Digital, Magnetic Heads Operation 2004-2007

Fremont, California / Bangkok, Thailand

Vice President of Research and Development.  Manage the recording head R&D process including magnetic head design and wafer process (through 2005), design and process DOE,  magnetic test, air bearing design, tribology and competitive analysis (in Fremont).  Manage a development team in Thailand for slider process, HGA process and Head Stack process as well as a pilot build and magnetic test line dedicated to fast turnaround of wafer experiments.  Develop the recording head technology roadmap driving design, process, test, metrology and equipment development to meet the corporate goals.  Manage the R&D capital process.  Introduced Lean Manufacturing to the wafer process area and trained the engineering staff in DOE techniques consistent with Design for Six Sigma.

Seagate Technology, Recording Head Operation 2002-2004

Bloomington, Minnesota

Executive Director of Mechanical Gen Team.  Manage the development of the head mechanical technology for products in the one-year to three year before introduction time frame.  Products include heads for personal storage, mobile and consumer electronics applications.  Team develops or directs air bearing design, suspension design, tribology development/test, slider process and head/gimbal assembly process for these products.  Team takes design from feasibility phase to launch hand-off.

Seagate Technology, Recording Head Operation 1998-2002

Bloomington, Minnesota

Executive Director of Slider Technology.  Manage the process technology for Seagate slider manufacturing including row slice, lapping, DLC deposition, air bearing milling, dicing, flatness control and metrology with a staff of 70 engineers and technicians.  Transfer process and product to Penang Malasia manufacturing and maintain process-engineering responsibility for 30 series product.  Put in place a five-year technology development plan focusing on process readiness before product need.  Initiated focus on process development and flow for lean manufacturing.  Design for Six Sigma Training coordinator (500 professionals trained) and Six Sigma Champion for Slider Manufacturing.

Seagate Technology, Recording Head Operation 1995-1998

Bloomington, Minnesota

Sr. Director of New Product Design and Mechanical Integration.  Launched eleven MR head products, numerous proximity recording products as well as flying inductive products.  Responsible for full design cycle through transfer to volume manufacturing of recording heads for all Seagate internal disc drive products and OEM products.  Directed the mechanical development of proximity recording, MEMS and suspenson based secondary stage actuators,  laser texture, media glide and thermal asperity handling technologies.  Directed the development of 30 series slider technology and flex-on-suspension.  Responsible for all suspension design, air-bearing design, chemical integration, head design maturity testing and interface reliability test/modeling, 5-year mechanical technology roadmap.

Seagate Technology, Recording Head Operation 1994-1995

Bloomington, Minnesota

Director of Mechanical Integration, Chemical Integration and Recording Head Design Maturity testing.  Responsible for high performance product head/disc mechanical integration including glide, fly height, tribology testing, component and drive qualification.  Company wide responsibility for MR thermal asperity handling, laser texture development, reliability test/modeling, Recording Head Design Maturity Testing, chemical integration, proximity recording concept development and contact force modeling.

Seagate Technology, Recording Head Operation 1992-1994

Bloomington, Minnesota

Manager of Mechanical Integration.  Responsible for high performance product head/disc mechanical integration including glide, fly height, tribology testing, component and drive qualification.  Company wide responsibility for reliability modeling, glide and flying height standards, component head and disc qualification.

Seagate Technology, Recording Head Operation 1989-1992

Bloomington, Minnesota

Mechanical Integration Staff Engineer.  Developed high performance product head/disc mechanical system including spacing margin modeling, glide, fly height, tribology testing, component and drive qualification.  Company wide responsibility for flying height standards.

Control Data Imprimis Division 1987-1989

Bloomington, Minnesota

Mechanical Integration Staff Engineer.  Advanced Component Technology team leader.  Developed technology required for future low flying application.  Designed and built RVA test and multi-channel laser interferometer system for monitoring dynamic flying height characteristics.  Designed and built state of the art tribology test system.  Developed long range plan for head/disc interface requirements to meet areal density projections.

Hewlett-Packard Disk Memory Division 1982-1987

Boise, Idaho

Head/Disc Interface Engineer.  Air bearing and suspension modeling and verification measurements.  Head and disc qualification for MR head development.  Head and disc sourcing, tribology testing, head/disc qualification on four successful inductive programs including HP’s first 8”, first 3.5” and first 5.25” drives.  Designed and built multi-channel laser interferometer based test systems for disc flatness, head flatness, dynamic flying height and RVA.