Bob Yancey, Executive Director - Global Aerospace at Altair EngineeringI vividly remember watching the Apollo moon landing as a young boy and then the first Shuttle landing as a High School student and those 2 events inspired me to go into the Aerospace field. I received my Aero/Astro degree from MIT and decided to focus my graduate education on composite materials and mechanics. I spent many years working on-site at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio, the birthplace of aviation. What I enjoy most is making connections between technology, people, and solutions. In my current role, I get to meet many individuals throughout the world involved in the Aerospace industry and it is exciting for me to learn of their successes and challenges and connect them with solutions that can help them design the Aerospace systems of the future.
Detlef Schneider, Senior Vice President – Solver products at Altair EngineeringSince high end technology has fascinated me since the early days, I decided to get my degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. Even though simulation technology was not part of the curriculum at that time, somehow most of the work I did during studies was linked with numerical simulation in different fields. Right after I received my degree, I joined a tiny company called Altair in 1997. I started to support our optimization technology and grew with Altair in various support and sales roles. In August 2011, I moved with my family to the beautiful city of Irvine, California, and took on a new challenge within Altair on the solver development side. I am excited to take our leading edge simulation technology to the next level and ensure that we continue to be a market leader in CAE.
Jay Baron, President, Chairman & CEO and Director at Center for Automotive Research (CAR)Prior to becoming president of CAR, Dr. Baron was associate research scientist and manager of Manufacturing Systems with the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. He also worked for Volkswagen of America in quality assurance and as a staff engineer and project manager at the Industrial Technology Institute in Ann Arbor and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Center for Manufacturing Productivity in Troy, New York. Dr. Baron has studied at plants in Europe, Japan, and North America: looking at body shop manufacturing systems, design and flexibility, and evaluating the manufacturing capability of evolving technologies.
Mike Heskitt, Chief Operating Officer, Altair ProductDesignBorn in Ohio, and raised in Michigan, my roots are firmly planted in the Midwestern US, but, as my career migrated to my position now as the COO of Altair ProductDesign, my perspective has definitely shifted to a global view. My career started as a undergraduate at Michigan Technological University and as a co-op at GM. After graduation, I cut my teeth in stress analysis at McDonnell Douglas Corporation (now Boeing) on the AV-8B vertical take-off jet. This was one of the most amazing aircraft of the time and the discipline of weight-conscious engineering was deeply instilled in me. The AV-8B was 40% composites by weight at a time when most of the world barley knew what composites were. I passed the 20 year mark here at Altair recently, and the diversity of experiences and cultures still makes this job exciting and interesting, but what I find most rewarding is that our core technologies and beliefs align so well with those early engineering values I learned.
Phil Hall, Managing Director, Caterham CompositesMy career in Composites started over 17 years ago when, after leaving university, I was employed by Reynard Racing Cars as a Composite Engineer in their Special Vehicles division. After moving to Sauber F1 as a Composite Engineer focusing on composite crash structures and structural composites, I joined Toyota F1 as the Head of Composite Engineering. In 2008 I co-founded the engineering consultancy ‘Composite Designs’ with a Toyota colleague, Duncan Bell. In 2011, Composite Designs was acquired by the Caterham Group and our mission remains to demonstrate ourselves as the unrivalled experts in lightweight structural solutions.
Royston Jones, President, Altair ProductDesignMy name is Royston Jones and I have been at Altair thirteen years. I was born in the green valleys of North Wales and eventually left my village for the bright lights of South Wales; Swansea University. It was there I was eventually persuaded to help the English with their engineering and left the principality. It’s been a great thrill seeing my passion, engineering simulation, gradually increase its impact on the design process. However, a bigger thrill has been seeing Manchester United dominate English football for two decades. I enjoy seeing my boys grow up and I am excited about how engineering simulation has become a key technology in creating highly engineered; Green products.
Tony Norton, Senior Director, Global Automotive at Altair EngineeringI grew up in England, but for the past 12 years I’ve lived in Michigan. I’ve always loved cars, and talking about them, which is great because I now get to do that for a living. My job allows me to interact with engineers across the world at the established OEMs, emerging manufacturers and throughout the supply base. Despite (and maybe to some extent because of) all of the recent turmoil, the automotive industry is as fascinating as ever and continues to apply more technology to keep passengers safe, the planet sustainable and deliver improved performance in multiple attributes. I used to race cars in my spare time, but now I spend most of my time away from work just trying keep up with my kids!
Vassili Toropov, Professor of Aerospace & Structural Engineering, University of LeedsI was born in Okhotsk, a tiny town on the Pacific side of Russia. The first vehicle that I remember seeing was a helicopter, and the miracle of flight amazed me ever since. After six years of FE coding and consulting with a part-time PhD on structural optimization alongside, I switched to an academic career. As a postdoc in Denmark I learned a lot on the FE sensitivity analysis and optimization methods. A kaleidoscope of events followed, where one of the brightest spots was working for Altair as developer/consultant, with great memories of our early attempts at optimization of composite structures. Currently I am professor of aerospace and structural engineering at Leeds University in Yorkshire still spreading around the optimization bug.