Engineering Leadership at an Employee-Owned Defense Hardware Company

This employee-owned Wisconsin business makes embedded computing hardware for defense and aerospace applications. Its product lines run within the VPX form factor, a ruggedized bus standard used in military electronics, with capabilities ranging from FPGAs, signal processing boards, and high-performance computing for deployed systems. The organization had grown steadily through engineering quality and long-term relationships with defense primes and program offices. 

The VP Engineering role was at the intersection of deep technical expertise and organizational leadership. The company needed a person who could maintain credibility with a specialized engineering team while building the management infrastructure to support continued growth. A background in embedded hardware, firmware, and FPGA development at a defense standard was essential, and that technical depth had to be matched with genuine people leadership and executive presence. 

The engagement initiated a dedicated external search process for a leadership need that could not be met by engineering networks alone.

The mandate was regarded as a search for a defense hardware leader, not a generic engineering assignment. The assessment was directed at leaders who had moved from hands-on embedded systems, firmware, and FPGA work into management roles where they had built teams, delivery structures, and engineering disciplines. 

The successful candidate had a dual education in engineering and computer science and more than eighteen years of experience in hardware engineering, firmware development, and FPGA design. His background included a strong patent portfolio and management experience leading multi-disciplinary engineering teams through early development to product delivery.