Bill Garmer

Experience

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  Ambient Control Systems (now Vigilys)

  Nov 2003 - Jun 2010

  Principal Senior Engineer

  Operates of one of the most widely used first responder incident management systems in the field. Formerly known as Ambient Control Systems, Ambient changed its name to Vigilys Inc. in 2014.Principal Senior Engineer* Managed a team of in-house Engineers and outside Technical Consultants overseeing electrical, mechanical, optical, and software engineering and ensuring projects were adequately completed* As part of the FireALERT project, utilized MATLAB and PSPICE to reduce the detection threshold for from 27 nW to 7 nW with only minor circuit changes and implemented a CFAR algorithm (resulting in US Patent 7,256,401) in the firmware, resulting in improved performance with zero additional cost* Established a method to combine the satellite terminal patch antenna with the solar array that simplified housing design, resulting in US Patent 7,129,493.* Managed a beta test program conducted at two customer sites and determined that the original IR propagation model failed to account for significant atmospheric effects seen in the field* Created a MWIR propagation model running on MATLAB that explained the field-testing results and allowed for testing of possible solutions * Led the technical team on a successful proposal effort that resulted in a $2-million-dollar contract award to develop a solar power system for Unattended Ground Sensors (UGS)* Spearheaded the technical effort to develop a 10 W-hr/day power system that used a ruggedized solar array for energy generation and an ultra-capacitor array for energy storage* Designed a series of mixed signal PCA that included microcontroller based SMPS, involving the development of a controller loop to handle input/output voltage tracking modes of operation* Produced a set of MATLAB scripts that evaluated solar conditions in various locations worldwide using the NASA Surface Meteorology and Solar Energy database Show less

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  Amron International

  Jun 2010 - Apr 2016

  Senior Electronic Engineer

  A leading manufacturer and supplier of high quality diving, tactical, hyperbaric, and outdoor equipment throughout the world. www.amronintl.comSenior Product Engineer* Oversaw the electrical products produced for the commercial diving industry including diving communication and lighting products* Designed and developed new products, providing sustaining engineering for current products, acted as lead on the evaluation of technical vendors, and provided technical support to sales and marketing* Led the hardware design of a DSP based diver communicator to eliminate noise issues including diver breathing and tool noise that hampers current diver communication equipment* Updated the design of a diver communication product to use digital audio power amplifiers and microprocessor based controls, which resulted in reducing the power draw, decreasing manufacturing costs, and allowed one PCA to be used in three products without modifications* Designed a new power supply module to replace the current unit since the previous design suffered from a high number of field failures on the input filter and low MTBF, resulting in reducing the component count and increasing the surge protection * Designed and developed a new LED lighting product for use in hyperbaric chambers for diving applications that utilized CREE LED arrays operated by a microcontroller based power * Uncovered the theft of Amron’s intellectual property from a former Engineer by working closely with the executive management team, company attorneys, and computer forensic experts to recreate the paper trailo The former employee had started his own company with the stolen intellectual property and our efforts provided enough evidence to pursue a successful lawsuit in federal court, resulting in a $2.5 million award against the former employee Show less

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  Consultant / Independent

  Apr 2016 - now

  Principal Engineer

  Providing electronic engineering and manufacturing support services.