Doug Patterson
Doug’s long involvement in open standards started back at the dawn of VME, first in the pivotal role of Director of Defense Marketing at Plessy Microsystems, which was one of the first companies to adopt VME standards in the 1980s. Doug transitioned with the company when it became Radstone Technologies, which is now a part of Abaco Systems that operates today.
Throughout his career with many leading embedded computing companies, Doug has loyally championed open standards to help facilitate interoperability and technology reuse, supporting VITA’s mission of technology excellence in real-time, modular critical embedded computing systems.
He served on the VITA Board of Directors from 2007 to 2012 and is a widely published author of open standards-based rugged embedded computing concepts for the defense and aerospace market. He also holds three patents in advanced metered mailing systems and non-volatile memory redundancy mapping.
Most recently, Doug worked at Aitech, a provider of rugged electronics and systems for military, aerospace, and space applications, where he served as VP of Global Marketing. During his more than 15-year tenure, Doug sought to not only build on the legacy of existing VME platforms, but also to embrace the forward-looking path that VPX provided through the company’s technology and product innovations.
Doug is currently principal of DH Patterson Associates, where he is applying his extensive technical and business expertise to a broad range of electronics companies.
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Marty Simon
Building a strong ecosystem of interoperable, open source computing technologies goes beyond just the technical bits and bytes. The need to understand the benefits behind the standards and what, as a community, can be built using them is an important aspect to successful market adoption.
Marty Simon, founder of The Simon Group, is known to many in our industry for his long commitment to helping member companies communicate the complex intricacies of critical embedded systems by shaping them into educational, relatable concepts as well as his expertise in publicizing the benefits and uses of open standards-based products across many industries.
While many engineering types in our industry often discuss the highly technical aspects of VITA and its open standards, Marty always had a question ready: Why is this important? His training in journalism positioned him to help discover the true meaning behind what open standards were trying to achieve, so that this essence could be explained to the markets the open standards would serve.
Marty helped kick off the VME buzz by coordinating the first-ever trade-press article on VME; this initial article appeared in Electronic Products, circa 1986. From there, he continued to build awareness for VITA’s technical standards through participation in industry events and marketing activities for companies employing VITA’s technical standards.
Nowadays, he enjoys a quiet retirement with his wife, Vera (whom he met through the VME editorial community).