NREF - Key Persons
Bill Lovell, CEO, c-Link Systems, Inc. c-Link offers the Forager rover for search and rescue missions in mines and disaster zones, as well as custom robot arms. Bill has also created multiple STEM curricula for use in high school and college education.
Cameron Hughes is a software epistemologist for Ctest Laboratories and an Artificial Intelligence software developer for ASC (Advanced Software Construction). He is the co-author of "Build Your Own Teams of Robots" published by McGraw Hill and "Beginners Guide to Robot Programming" published by Pearson Education. He is also the co-author of several other books on software development and engineering. Cameron is a senior member of the ACM, IEEE and AAAI.
Carl Owen, CEO, DSPRobotics. DSPRobotics offers Flowmedia and Flowstone software. These are graphical programming packages that greatly facilitate programming tasks with a library of modules generated by the user community, and with programming capability.
, and former Research Associate with SECNAV's CRUSER (Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research) program. Today, David posts a bi-weekly USN (Unmanned Systems News) blog that is distributed by email and widely read. We highly recommend it. Interested parties can contact David to subscribe. Simply send a request to David at: davidplace47@gmail.com.
Dan Ward, Cofounder of VisualEdge, Inc., one of the largest VEX resellers and inventors of the Game-in-a-Box competition line; purveyors of curricula and table-top VEX robot competition systems.
Job Titles:
- COO & Editorial Director, Information Strategies, Inc., NREF Board of Directors Member
Donald P. Mazzella has more than 25 years experience in publishing and is an expert in small business operations, having reported on and led firms in that sector. Formerly a senior marketing executive with McGraw Hills Standard & Poors division, he subsequently was Editorial Director for a group of magazines operated by Thomson Publications. In recent years, Mr. Mazzella has successfully started and sold companies in the pre-press and small business arena while serving on the boards of public and private companies. Serving as a consultant to the magazine Income Opportunities, he won the National Press Club award for "best consumer publication" while expanding circulation and advertiser revenue. Mr. Mazzella holds an BA and MA in Journalism from NYU as well as an MBA from the same institution.
Gene Beley is a reporter, photo-journalist, videographer and entrepreneur. He started out with the Yellowstone News in Billings, MT, and later wrote for newspapers in Alameda, San Leandro and Ventura, CA. He has freelanced for Robot, Boat U.S. and The Virginia Quarterly Review, among other magazines, and launched a tabloid newspaper in 1989, Country News, that he later sold for six figures. A successful arcade gaming business he founded in Los Angeles in the ‘70s diversified into a company offering showcase robots for use at events, hotels and venues like the Playboy Mansion. Beley has appeared on NPR three times to talk about going to the historic Folsom Prison concert Jan. 13, 1968 with Johnny Cash and June Carter. He is currently enjoying working with his oldest son, Scott Beley, to see if they can develop a new, small business with the DJI Phantom II multirotor robot for helping realtors, farmers, and others-if they can first plow through the F.A.A. bureaucracy to get a license. Beley has a B.A., public relations, 1963, from San Jose State University, and a M.S., in journalism, U.C.L.A., 1967. Photo by John Muir
Job Titles:
- Technical Editor, Robot Magazine, Director of the Innovation Center, Regis Jesuit High School
Mike Marzetta. Mike is a Foundersof MINDS-i Education (www.mindsieducation.com), a high performance robotics system that empowers STEM educators and their students to create extreme autonomous inventions. Mike is also President of Altek, Inc (www.altek-inc.com), a contract manufacturing organization with core competencies in plastic injection molding, tooling, machining and assembly; serving hi-tech customers in the aerospace, medical, and industrial equipment sectors. Mike is a Founder and Chair of the Inland Northwest Aerospace Consortium (www.inwac.org).
Job Titles:
- AUVSI Founder and Freelance Writer for Magazines and Websites
Russell Schwausch, programmer and who has continued, as time permits, to develop the unique AI technology created by the late Jim Gouge. Schwausch has worked with programmer Patti Alred, daughter of Gouge.
Job Titles:
- Software Engineer at SUPPORT4ALL Technical Services, Inc
James H. Phelan MD, Conributor to Robot magazine. Continues to work as a member of the late Dr. James Gouge's Machine Neuroscience Beta Team.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of Information Strategies, Inc
JoAnn Laing, Chairman of Information Strategies, Inc., has more than 20 years of technology experience in hardware, software, networking, service, digital, security, among other areas plus serves on several technology think tanks and trains tier-one technology firms in customer-focused sales. Ms. Laing is a C-Suite executive and corporate officer skilled in driving billion dollar P&Ls, directing +10,000 people, and overseeing business in +70 countries. Named one of Folio's Top Women in Digital Media, she is also recognized as a leading technology woman in Silicon Alley as well as a Harvard Business School Alumnae Leader. She is a strategic leader who successfully grows organizations through utilizing leading-edge technology, enhancing business processes, developing top-performing teams to transform core businesses, as well as identifying and capturing new market opportunities to achieve record results. She shares her business knowledge through five business books. Ms. Laing received a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing and Transportation Distribution Management from Syracuse University and her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Job Titles:
- Lead Partner and Director of the Brooklyn
Joseph Kornfeld, Esq., Joe is the lead partner and director of the Brooklyn, NY-based Kornfeld law firm. Joe specializes in corporate law, real estate and estates practice.
Job Titles:
- Founder and CEO of Parallax
Ken Gracey, founder and CEO of Parallax, the company that created the world renowned Boe-Bot, a key product that launched educational and hobby robotics for many tens of thousands, and that continues to play a major role today.
Job Titles:
- Manager of Ground Projects for a NASA
Ken Gracey, founder and CEO of Parallax, the company that created the world renowned Boe-Bot, a key product that launched educational and hobby robotics for many tens of thousands, and that continues to play a major role today.
Kevin Berry, Manager of Ground Projects for a NASA contractor at Kennedy Space Center. Mr. Berry also writes extensively, actively contributing to Robot, Servo and Cure magazines. Kevin blogs at:www.curetoday.com/community/kevin-berry and www.takingvienna.blogspot.com.
Leslie Ballard, robotics writer; manuscript copyeditor; Editorial Contributor specializing in music and recording technology, as well as early industrial robotics.
Job Titles:
- Business Process Analyst, Manitoba Telecom Services
Mike Marzetta. Mike is a Foundersof MINDS-i Education (www.mindsieducation.com), a high performance robotics system that empowers STEM educators and their students to create extreme autonomous inventions. Mike is also President of Altek, Inc (www.altek-inc.com), a contract manufacturing organization with core competencies in plastic injection molding, tooling, machining and assembly; serving hi-tech customers in the aerospace, medical, and industrial equipment sectors. Mike is a Founder and Chair of the Inland Northwest Aerospace Consortium (www.inwac.org).
Job Titles:
- Special Projects Director, HyperGold Web Services, Photojournalist and Bay Area Organizer of Robot Boat Combat Competitions Using Pneumatic Pellet Cannons
Russell Schwausch, programmer and who has continued, as time permits, to develop the unique AI technology created by the late Jim Gouge. Schwausch has worked with programmer Patti Alred, daughter of Gouge.
Job Titles:
- Hardware and Software Project Engineer
Job Titles:
- SONY USA Director of Corporate Security, Writer and Contributor to Robot Magazine
Steve Rainwater. Starting in the 1990s, Steve launched and ran Robots.net as a robotics news source, with assistance from fellow robotics enthusiasts. Steve is a photojournalist; he and Tom Atwood often worked together to cover major robotics events for Robot magazine and Robots.net. Robots.net has evolved over the years and today provides podcasts of interviews on robotics.
Tom Atwood has launched several successful magazine titles spanning full scale aviation, radio control hobbies and robotics. In the early 1990s, at Air Age Media, Tom helped revitalize Model Airplane News as Editor-in-Chief, and he cofounded Flight Journal Magazine with Budd Davisson and the late Jeff Ethell. After joining Maplegate Media in 2003, he led the launch of Fly RC, RC Heli Pilot and Robot magazines. There, he oversaw the production of 51 issues of Robot over a period of 7+ years. Notably, Tom has strived to serve the community. In 1992, Tom received a Certificate of Appreciation from the Department of Defense, personally signed by then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, for orchestrating shipment of over 100,000 RC magazines to our armed forces serving in Desert Storm. He has received other awards and honors owing to his community service, as well. Mr. Atwood holds a Juris Doctor (JD) from New York University School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from the University of Arizona. As Executive Director of NREF, Tom is currently focused on facilitating the growth of national robotics-based educational programs.
Thomas S. Marsh, Robot magazine Contributing Writer and Future Bytes columnist. Thomas has assessed trends in robotics and artificial intelligence and their impacts on individuals, companies, military and industry.
Carl Owen, CEO, DSPRobotics. DSPRobotics offers Flowmedia and Flowstone software. These are graphical programming packages that greatly facilitate programming tasks with a library of modules generated by the user community, and with programming capability.
Job Titles:
- President of Ctest Laboratories
Tracey Hughes is the president of Ctest Laboratories, a non-profit research facility dedicated to the study and development of logical and epistemological-based software systems. She is also a software and visualization engineer at Ctest Labs and ASC. She is the co-author of "Build Your Own Teams of Robots" published by McGraw Hill and "Beginners Guide to Robot Programming" published by Pearson Education. She is also the co-author of several other books on software development and engineering. Tracey is a senior member of the ACM, and IEEE professional associations and spends her spare time developing information and epistemic visualizations for the computer science field.