Portfolio

My Portfolio stacks up to be about 3" thick with brochures of products I have released. I've included some of the more recent and exciting things I've worked on to date. I've designed and managed a very diverse array of products and systems - from Railroad Crossing Gates to Smartphones.

The Verifone Mx870 is below. It is an ARM-based tablet used for running credit card transactions. I introduced a breakthrough new touchscreen technology into this product that was significantly more reliable than previous technologies, yet does not cost any more. This product has built-in security, RFID smart card reader, and is part of a complex system of hardware and software that includes Linux-based system software, applications, secure server connections, cables, power supplies, installation, servicing, helpdesk, etc.

Below is the GWcom Voyager, a smart-phone I designed back in 2000. IDEO did the IDV and mechanical design, and I had a team of EEs that did the digital and baseband design. I also did the OS selection and managed a JV with our customer in China that was writing the applications and would sell it in their channel. The killer-app at the time was stock trading, but we also had wireless internet with our byair.com web portal and search engine. We used some pretty heavy-duty new technologies, like OFDM for our forthcoming 4G version. I also did the entire front-end power system architecture without any switching power conversion, which made for a much quieter EMI environment for our RF
section to work with.

The next item is the HP PowerPad, which we designed as a signature capture tablet  for FedEx. It ended up its life as the PowerPad, which FedEx rolled out some years later. It had some cool new technology in it as well. It had an injected-molded magnesium case, which was rare at the time. It also had a "smart battery" with a built-in fuel gauge serial interface. It also had a very early version of Bluetooth. And it had new display technology called DMTN. But it's biggest claim to fame is that it was the first device in the world running Windows CE on an ARM CPU.

Below is the VeriFone Topaz product. I ran this project and program from whiteboard concept through production and sustaining. We started out with UML use cases and team meetings where we worked out the product concept, then it turned into the usual kind of hardware/mechanical/OS design and application development. I introduced IR touchscreen technology into this space, which has since been generally popularized by IBM. It has an x86 cpu motherboard and and an additional board that I architected that has specialized functions like power conversion, UARTs, an FPGA, specialized hardware diagnostics, peripheral ports, etc.

Below is a successful ODM project I did for a countertop Kiosk that doubled as a POS Workstation. I was given one industrial designer and the only product definition was "give me a counter top kiosk." I did all the product management from defining the product features to marketing literature copywriting. I wrote the specs and RFQs, picked the vendor, and managed the electrical, mechanical, industrial, and OS development.

Below is a payment server and switch I developed recently. It was another ODM project that I ran from concept through production. We had a limited development budget, but ended up with a product that was smaller, faster, and a lot cheaper than its predecessor. It has an x86 motherboard and runs Linux on solid state mass storage.





Below is a payment server I developed a while ago and am still maintaining. Recently we updated the motherboard to a new x86 CPU architecture and added a payment co-processor board. Again, I've managed this one all the way through, along with rolling up my sleeves and diving into schematics and solidworks files.

Below is one of the several PC products I designed. This one was a rugged portable computer I designed at HP. It was used in the automotive service bay and had to handle nasty situations like drops onto a concrete floor, dust, chemical spills, etc. One version of this required Japanese Windows 95, so I got to learn how to do builds and SQA using menus in Japanese. On the more conventional side of the design, I designed the boards inside and specified/integrated the motherboard and display.


Staying on the industrial side, below is a robot controller I designed while at HP in their custom products division. This one had to operate painting robots, so besides taking big falls and nasty chemicals, it had to be designated as Intrinsically Safe, which meant there were severe voltage and current limits set under special provisions by UL. Other than that, it was a tablet PC design running Windows CE on an ARM CPU.




Speaking of devices that had to operate safely, below is the Secure Pump Pay product from VeriFone. It entailed designing retrofit retrofit kits to put new payment devices in gas dispensers, increasing security and reducing fraud. As usual, the design comprised of an entire of system of hardware and software that would interface to the gas dispenser and the in-store workstation. This also required a special category of UL listing.






Shifting gears a bit, below is a networking box I designed that solved an important business problem, leading to an entirely new market and potential revenue stream. It took some significant R&D but led to a unique new product and some new IP.





There's more, a lot more.