Contact us at: HR@AxionRacing.com
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Contact us at: HR@AxionRacing.com |
| Tools | Sponsors | Team | Company |
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Operations |
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Systems |
Advisory Board Team (9 PhD members)
High School Team (5 members from 3 High Schools) |
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Special Recognitions |
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| Puneet Khattar | Andi Idarto |
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Bill Kehaly is General Manager of Axion, LLC and the Team Leader of Axion Racing. Per the DARPA rules the Team Leader is the eligible entity responsible for a team; and is the entity that will receive the prize if its team wins the DARPA Grand Challenge's $2 Million prize.
Bill graduated from California State University, Stanislaus where he was a Student Body President. Bill has a degree in Business Administration with a minor in Management Information Systems. Prior to his current job, he spent two years being responsible for all national and international human resource, financial, and logistics systems at eToys.com. Prior to eToys, Bill worked as a consultant at Warner Bros. for a few years. He also owned a consulting firm in the San Francisco Bay Area meeting regularly with executives from a variety of fields to help create synergistic solutions for almost fourteen years. It was here that he envisioned, developed, and sold his pen-based charting system to Major League Baseball (7 clubs), Olympic Baseball, and Olympic Softball teams. He has also consulted with two National Hockey League teams. His baseball work has been featured in the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, SF Chronicle, Marketing Tools, Wireless Magazine, and other periodicals.
Born and raised in San Francisco (McAteer HS) he now lives in Westlake Village, California. Bill has been honored with inductions in Who’s Who in Colleges and Universities and Who’s Who in California. Mr. Kehaly was a special assistant, to the General Manager (Bill Bavasi), of the Anaheim Angels. Bill has also been included in the Baseball Bluebook, International Who's Who in the Computer Industry, and Who's Who of Community Leaders in America. He has also been a candidate for the Los Angeles Leukemia's Society Man of the Year.
As Team Leader, Mr. Kehaly is responsible for all of the Day-to-Day operations of the Axion, Limited Liability Company. He is in charge of managing suppliers, vendors, sponsors, manufactures, and media relations.
Barry Ehlers is a manager for Kurt Salmon Associates, Inc. a Georgia firm that provides logistical services to American and International businesses. He has spent the past five years doing managing logistical consulting for many large distribution companies. Mr. Ehlers specialty is managing large implementations of multi-national organizations and their logistic solutions.
Raised in Santa Barbara, California, Barry now lives with his wife in Marina Del Ray, California. Mr. Ehlers graduated from West Point with Air Defense Artillery as his branch of choice. Barry served for eight years in the following capacities (most recent listed first):
As DARPA Administrator, Mr. Ehlers is managing some of the Department of Defense interactions for Axion Racing. He is responsible for making sure that any defense related agreements are complete and accurate. His understanding of how the Department of Defense interacts with private organizations provides the team with a very valuable resource.
Paul Koscaz is a partner, for Loeb, Koscaz, & Sunberg, Inc. a California firm that provides legal services to local businesses. He has spent the past twelve years practicing law in California. Mr. Koscaz’s specialty is corporate law and he has a great understanding of what makes a workable agreement.
Raised in Santa Barbara, California, Paul now lives in Westlake Village, California. Mr. Koscaz graduated from Yale Law School with honors and was a Summa Cum Lade.
As Barrister, Mr. Koscaz is managing all of the legal affairs for Axion Racing. He is responsible for making sure that any agreements are complete and accurate. Paul deals with representatives from video, marketing, and sponsor companies. His tenacity and ability to see both sides of an issue provides Axion Racing with a good legal resource.
Dana Redhair is the Director of Regulatory Affairs, for Élan, Inc. a San Diego based firm that is involved in the biotech industry. He has spent the last five years making sure that Élan’s FDA required paperwork is complete and accurate. Mr. Redhair has testified in front of the FDA to help answer regulatory questions about Élan’s products. Prior to his current position, he spent ten years doing the same sort of work for Genentech, Inc.
Born in Denver, Colorado Dana was raised in San Francisco (McAteer HS) and now lives with his wife and two children in San Diego, California. Dana is a Harvard graduate who played football in high school and lacrosse in college.
As Regulatory Affairs Administrator, Mr. Redhair is responsible for preparing the necessary paperwork to insure that Axion Racing meets all of the DOD requirements for the DARPA Grand Challenge. This paperwork details each participant’s vehicle, tools, team, and company information.
Barry Weiner is president of Barry Weiner & Associates, Inc., a California firm that provides accounting services to the public, corporations, and non-profit organizations. He has been a Certified Public Accountant for the last thirteen years and has provided services to large and small organizations representing a myriad of companies to help create financial reports that are correct, informative, and helpful in future planning. Prior to his current position, he spent seven years working for a Beverly Hills accounting firm.
Barry graduated from California State University, Stanislaus. Barry was raised and now lives with his wife in Encino, California. Mr. Weiner is a Vietnam veteran who has been involved with a variety of veteran causes throughout the years.
As Accounting Manager, Mr. Weiner is managing all of the financial reporting for Axion Racing. He is responsible for making sure that the books are balanced, accounts paid and received. Mr. Weiner provides quarterly and annual reports for the company which covers the financial health of the organization.
Michael Farrar is the owner of Bennett Automotive, a California firm that works on off-road vehicle modifications. He spent ten years consulting regularly with SCORE level drivers on creating vehicles that can handle desert off-road challenges.
Raised in Simi Valley, California, Michael now lives with his wife in Thousand Oaks, California. Michael is a long-term member of the Better Business Bureau and had spent many weeks driving off-road in the DARPA Grand Challenge race area. He has prepared the UAV to operate, in the target area, with the best equipment requiring the least amount of payload.
As the UAV Mechanical Supervisor, Mr. Farrar is responsible for making sure that the Unmanned Automated Vehicle is race ready. He is responsible for the team's backup Jeep Grand Cherokee, from parts to the whole operating vehicle, through race day. Michael has a team of three individuals help him in his tasks.
Paul Kimmelman is a GIS Certified consultant working with Axion Racing. In the past Paul use to race cars at Sears Point Raceway, and now he is currently working on an Educational interactive history website. This work includes custom historic choropleth and thematic mapping.
Paul is a graduate of California State University, Northridge. Born in Santa Monica and raised in the San Fernando Valley of California, Paul now lives in Thousand Oaks, California. Mr. Kimmelman is interested in helping Axion Racing with mapping needs because he sees the DARPA Challenge as having the perfect synergy of both machines and technology.
As Cartographer, Paul is responsible for the race day global map, aerial photography manipulation, map data storage, and local map data immediately around the vehicle. Paul has a team of two individuals that help him in his tasks.
Josh O'Briant spends his time working on different types of robots. He has spent the past few years working in the electronics field.. Many of these applications are developed for specific consumer usage by Josh's team of engineers.
Raised in the Midwest, Josh spends much of his free time traveling and working on interesting applications, like the DARPA Grand Challenge.
As the Chief Engineer, Josh is responsible for programming and monitoring all of the specifics for the team’s instrument installation and survivability. Josh has a team of eight individuals that help him in his tasks.
Melanie Dumas works with the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego. She has a unique approach to robot building - combining the world class algorithms produced by the university with the practical knowledge acquired from of years of competitive robotics. She currently works for ITT Industries, enhancing speech recognition engines in high noise environments such as M1A2 tanks.
The DARPA Grand Challenge arrives at a point in Melanie’s life where she is ready to apply all her years of artificial intelligence, robotics, and psychology studies into a concrete application, culminating into a vehicle that will intelligently traverse the race course DARPA creates.
As Chief Information Officer, Ms. Dumas leads a team that manages the work of all the sub-teams. Utilizing code developed by Melanie’s team, Axion Racing is able to quickly manage all of the data provided by the team’s UAV toolbox. Weighing, filtering, and manipulating large streams of data will allow Ms. Dumas’ team to provide intelligent commands to the systems and mechanical sub-teams. Melanie has four teams of three or more individuals that help her create exciting technology.
Melanie was the only female Chief Information Officer at the 2004 DARPA Qualifying, Information, and Demonstration (QID) held in Fontana. Her leadership allowed the the autonomous Spirit to be one of only seven teams to "officially qualify" for the March 13, 2004 Grand Challenge.
Greg Jones owns his own San Diego Mechanical Engineering firm that specializes in many unique clients and projects. For the Axion Racing team, Mr. Jones will be responsible for vehicle upgrades such as base modification, installations, and coordination Mr. Jones has 30 years experience creating specialty vehicles. These include reconstruction of 40' greyhound buses into palatial motor homes, the first San Diego SWAT Team Mobile Command Center, and very technical driving systems for high level quadriplegics. These driving systems will be the basis on how the Challenge Vehicle will be controlled by the commands of the attached computers. As the EMC Engineer, for Axion Racing, Mr. Jones is responsible with installing, programming and monitoring all of the specifics for the team’s Electronic Motor Control system. Greg is also responsible for the UAV power subsystem and interior temperature maintenance. Greg has a team of four individuals that will be help.
Mr. George E. Spalding II is a consultant to companies in industries as diverse as industrial computers, nanobiological devices, and high-end consumer audio and video products. Mr. Spalding has over 20 years of experience in component engineering and system integration as and testing. George provides the other team members with a non-conventional way of solving problems. His ability to approach a challenge from an outside-of-the-box perspective continues to offer unique and elegant solutions to seemingly intractable problems. He has assisted in initial testing of the NI Compact FieldPoint hardware and software.
As the Component Engineer Mr. Spalding has helps identify and recommend many of the components used in the DARPA Grand Challenge by Axion Racing. |
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