Leadership Team

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Catherine F. Newman

President and Secretary/Treasurer

Cathy joined CSI in 2008 after more than 25 years in college and professional publishing in sales, marketing, and editorial positions in science and engineering programs; most recently as Senior Acquisitions Editor at the IEEE Press.  A gifted communicator she is responsible for all marketing and sales materials, as well as the facilitator of our proposals.  She is a Member of the IEEE and holds a B.S. degree in Business.

Philip M. Kane, P.E./Esq.

Vice President

General and Regulatory Counsel, and Engineering Manager.  Over 50 years’ experience in communication systems design and regulatory matters, including project engineering on the first highly sophisticated military command and control system.  He has 28 years of experience in an engineering and management capacity with the Federal Communications Commission, and is a specialist in the measurement and verification of radio system parameters and compliance with regulatory requirements.  Admitted to legal practice in California and Federal venues as well as before the Federal Communications Commission, he also holds several operator licenses from the FCC.  Phil is a Life Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a Life Member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE).  Phil earned the Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree from The Cooper Union School of Engineering and the Juris Doctor degree from San Francisco Law School.  A Registered Professional Engineer in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah, he is eligible in all other jurisdictions.

Craig Trygstad, P.E./PMP

Principal Engineer

Over 25 years’ experience working with public safety agencies in the design and implementation of small to large multi-jurisdictional communication systems as an engineer and project manager with Motorola.  As a Coverage Subject Matter Expert at Motorola, he reviewed and mentored other engineers with coverage prediction and simulcast design.  PMP certified and Six Sigma Green Belt, he holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from UC Davis and a Master’s Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University.

Professional Staff

Tom Brinkoetter

Consultant

Tom has over 30 years’ experience at companies such as HP, Tektronix and Anritsu.  His comprehensive work experience includes assignments in R&D, Project Management, Applications Engineering, Customer Support, and Marketing.  Throughout his career, he has worked with a wide variety of test products including: microwave sources, spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, oscilloscopes, and IP protocol analyzers. Most recently, at Anritsu, he was the Product Manager for Anritsu’s Land Mobile Radio product line and helped define and launch Anritsu’s S412E LMR Master.  Tom is both a Member of IEEE and the APCO Spectrum Management Committee.  He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and M.S. in Industrial Engineering.

Mike Del Fava

CIO

30 years supporting and managing all aspects of Information Technology from help desk, server infrastructure, networking, project management and radio communications. Most recently he served as Communication Manager for the County of Santa Cruz, supporting public safety and public service telecommunication systems.

Clayton H. Hawkins

Consultant

Over 25 years of experience in public safety and 10 years in business administration.  Clay worked in Calaveras County for more than 25 years developing wildland fire response, management, and recovery plans, numerous federal and state grant proposals, and led complex multijurisdictional investigations of clandestine drug laboratory manufacturing cases and explosives incidents.  He also managed annual operating budgets (as high as $155 million), and the contract award and construction financing of a new 75,600 square foot $59.3 million county criminal justice center.  Clay has taught hazardous materials and explosives courses to law enforcement personnel for over 20 years.  He retired in 2012 and enjoys hiking and fly fishing in his free time.  Clay holds a B.S. in Business Administration and a M.A. in Public Administration.

George Kizer

Consultant

George has 48 years of experience in telecommunications systems with main focus on fixed point to point microwave radio systems. Authored Digital Microwave Communication, Microwave Communication and contributed chapter in Handbook of Microwave Technology. Author of several peer-reviewed technical articles. Currently Chairman of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) Working Group for Microwave Systems, Editor of Wiley Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Series on RF and Microwave and Technical Chairman of Fixed Wireless Communications Coalition (FWCC).  Previous President of National Spectrum Management Association (NSMA) and Chairman of TIA’s Fixed Point to Point Microwave Section.  George authored Comsearch’s Microwave Path Design course (which can be viewed here) and teaches microwave path design fundamentals.  After 24 years at Alcatel George retired as their Product Manager for microwave radios and radio network managers. Previously served as Program Manager for domestic projects. Lead engineer for international projects in Western Europe, North Africa, and South Korea.  George has both a B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering, is a Life member of IEEE and NSMA Fellow.

Carl B. “Bernie” Olson

Senior Principal Engineer and Fellow of the Technical Staff

Over 55 years of experience in communications: U.S. Army Signal Corp., Microwave Transmission Engineer (Lenkurt Electric) and Motorola — from which he retired in 2002 as Director of Resource Development Engineering and Fellow of the Technical Staff and continued to consult for them through 2012.  Bernie has been involved in the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) Mobile and Personal Private Radio Standards for the last 20 years and for 12 of those years served as chair of TR8.18 “Frequency Compatibility of Dissimilar Modulations” the standards committee that addresses the methods and procedures for system design, frequency coordination and spectrum management during the complex migration from the current 25 kHz channel bandwidths to 12.5 kHz and 6.25 kHz bandwidths.  The author of numerous internal white papers for Motorola, as an Northern California APCO member he served on the APCO Public Safety Communications magazine Editorial Advisory Committee for 3 years writing articles on spectrum issues.  Bernie has been granted eleven US patents involving the telecommunications field, is a Life Senior Member of the IEEE, a Fellow in The Radio Club of America and recipient of their 2011 Fred M. Link Award, “awarded to persons who have contributed substantially to the advancement and development of land-mobile radio and communications.”  He has the B.S. degree in Electronic Engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.  He has an amateur radio license, W6CBO, a GMRS license and General Radio Telephone license.

Thomas N. Rubinstein

Principal Engineer

Over 50 years experience in communications engineering including more than 45 years in Private Land Mobile Radio:  Engineering positions at McDonnell Douglas, and Hughes Aircraft, and Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Motorola as well as consulting prior to coming to CSI.  At Motorola, Tom was recognized as an expert at radiowave propagation (coverage), simulcast, and spectrum regulation.  He has been involved in  standards development in such organizations as The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), The International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R), and the Institite of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Antennas and Propagation Society (IEEE-APS).  In TIA, he was the Chair of TR-8.18, the formulating group responsible for the TSB‑88 series plus other documents, for six years and is currently the Chair of the Working Group responsible for TSB-88.2.  He was Vice-Chair of TR-8.11, the group responsible for antenna standards, for 3 years.  He has made major contributions to numerous TIA published standards and TSBs.  He also held leadership positions within ITU-R and the U.S. delegation to ITU-R as well as making major contributions to several ITU-R recommendations.  He was also the editor (Rapporteur) responsible for the publication of ITU’s Handbook titled Terrestrial land mobile radiowave propagation in the VHF/UHF bands.  As a Life Senior Member of IEEE, his professional activities include being a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (IEEE-VTS) since 1997, where he currently holds the positions of Treasurer and Chair of the Constitution & Bylaws Committee.  He has also held local IEEE leadership positions.  He earned his B.S. and M.S.E. degrees in Engineering from California State University, Northridge.

William F. Ruck

Principal Radio Systems Engineer

Over 35 years’ experience in radio frequency communications, and systems engineering and implementation.  Bill is proficient in the measurement of radio frequency signals and problem resolution.  He is the Chair of the Northern California Frequency Coordinating Committee and is a NARTE certified Senior Engineer.  He is a Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Society of Broadcast Engineers, EIBASS, and the Audio Engineering Society.  He holds an FCC General Radio Telephone License, was recently named Fellow for Historic Preservation by the California Historical Radio Society.  He was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame Class of 2014 under the category of Engineer on September 20th, 2014.

Jacques M. Verdier

Principal Video/Audio Engineering Associate

Over 35 years’ experience in broadcast consulting, systems marketing, systems integration, broadcast production, and CD mastering.  In addition to his work for CSI, Jacques has spent the last 15 years as President of Verdier Ventures, Inc. a full service video systems planning/project management house.  He previously worked for Sony Systems Integration, Lude’ Broadcast Engineering, National Broadcasting Co. (both GE & RCA), and Star Broadcasting.