Counsel that keeps the mission aligned with the Joint Force.

Ron was named Chairman of the Board of Blackwatch in 2018. He brings to the company seasoned operations and business development experience in the Defense and Civilian sectors of the federal IT and engineering services marketplace. His background includes extensive executive experience with large companies, such as Sperry Corp. and United Technologies, as well as several smaller enterprises.

Ron led the development of RS Information Systems Inc. (RSIS), taking it from a small $10M company with 85 employees to a company with 2,000 professionals serving a diverse government client base nationwide. RSIS was one of the fastest growing companies in the country, making it onto the Washington Technology “Fast 50” list for an unprecedented eight years in a row.

After the sale of RSIS, Ron was then an owner and partnership consultant for Energy Enterprise Solutions LLC (EES), a populated joint-venture company specializing in high technology solutions for the U.S. Department of Energy, Defense, and Homeland Security. EES achieved revenues exceeding $1.76B over the seven-year life of this joint venture agreement.

Ron holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin and is a graduate of the Yale University Executive Management program. He is a Life Member of the U.S. Navy League and the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA).

Mike has more than 25 years of silicon carbide (SiC) epitaxy experience, more than 60 peer reviewed publications, and three U.S. patents. His professional mission is to improve the techniques used to grow and characterize SiC epitaxial layers, increasing the overall quality of SiC epitaxy, especially for thicker epitaxial layers. He is also passionate about training the next generation of the SiC workforce about SiC epitaxy.

Prior to joining Blackwatch, Mike was a consultant for companies providing guidance on SiC epitaxy. Prior to consulting, he was Technical Director, SiC at Veeco, working on process development for their SiC epitaxy tool. Prior to Veeco, he was the Director of Silicon Carbide Epitaxy at Global Power Technologies Group where he chose a green site for a SiC epitaxy operation, designed the facility and directed construction. He was responsible for all SiC epitaxy operations, including custom epitaxy for R&D and low volume manufacturing. Prior to SemiQ, he was a Global Applications Engineer and Senior SiC Epitaxy Specialist at Dow Corning. He established and enabled SiC epitaxial capability with chlorosilane chemistry and developed and implemented 100 mm and >50 um (5 KV) SiC epitaxy processes. Early in his career, he was a SiC Senior Engineer at Northrop Grumman, as well as a visiting scientist at Linköping University in Sweden. He served as a SEMI member leading a SiC resistivity standards group and participating in other SEMI SiC groups.

Mike has a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Pittsburgh, with a focus on SiC and GaN materials.