Speaker Biographies

Kristen Koepsel is the Director of Legal Affairs and Tax at Aerospace Industries Association. In her current position, she specializes in monitoring issues, policies and regulations, as well as developing responses advocating member positions in the areas of intellectual property rights including counterfeiting, standards, and tax. Her previous work history includes implementing ISO 14000 environmental management systems, reviewing proposed legislative changes, as well as serving as a Project Manager for an EPA grant for the state of Texas. Kirsten earned her B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering as well as her M.S. from the University of Tennessee, and she later went on the complete her J.D. and LLM from the Franklin Pierce Law Center, now known as the University of New Hampshire Law School.

Lori Risse is a Parts Engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she manages the electronic parts program for selected flight projects, serves as a GIDEP Representative and is a Training Instructor for Counterfeit Parts Avoidance. Since earning a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from California State University at Northridge, she has many years of experience in her field including application engineering, marketing, management, industrial instrumentation sales, and account management in the semiconductor distribution industry.

Bill Crowley has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and has previous served as the VP of Sales and Marketing for Optimal Electronics, a manufacturing execution system for electronic assembly manufacturing plants. Currently, he is the VP of Sales at QTEC Solutions where he leads all global sales and marketing efforts. Bill’s work has been published multiple times in the Global SMT and Packaging journal, with topics including Lean Manufacturing, SMT Production and Machine Optimization using Algorithms, and MES vs. ERP.

Ethan Plotkin earned his B.S. degree in Industrial Engineering from California Polytechnic University-San Luis Obispo, and previously held an executive position with Accenture. For 12 years, Ethan worked with large companies to understand their business challenges, and to translate strategy into successful execution of large business improvement projects. Ethan is now the CEO of GDCA, Inc., where his goal is to create effective solutions to resolve product end-of-life and related long-term support issues. Ethan’s expertise in process management brings a unique perspective to turning the areas of embedded obsolescence and legacy management into an easily manageable business activity.

Diganta Das, Ph.D.,(Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, B.Tech, Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology) is a member of the research staff at the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering. His expertise is in reliability, environmental and operational ratings of electronic parts, uprating, electronic part reprocessing, counterfeit electronics, technology trends in the electronic parts and parts selection and management methodologies. His current research interests include counterfeit electronics avoidance and detection, light emitting diode failure mechanisms, cooling systems in telecommunications infrastructure and their impact on reliability, and power electronics reliability. Dr. Das has published more than 60 articles on these subjects, and presented his research at international conferences and workshops. He had been the technical editor for two IEEE standards and is currently vice chair of the standards group of IEEE Reliability Society.  Dr. Das leads the Educational Outreach of CALCE with responsibility to develop inter-organizational agreements on joint educational programs, training and internship program, and professional development. He is an editorial board member for the journal Microelectronics Reliability and Circuit World. He is a Six Sigma Black Belt and a member of IEEE, IMAPS and SMTA.

Chrys Shea is the founder and owner of Shea Engineering Services, a consulting firm that serves the electronics manufacturing industry.  Prior to launching Shea Engineering, Chrys spent nearly 20 years working in various PCB assembly process engineering and management roles for Compaq Computer, Texas Instruments, Siemens, Motorola, and Cookson Electronics. Chrys began publishing her research on wave soldering in 1998.  Since then, her work has spanned a wide range of SMT, wave soldering and PCB fabrication topics.  With over 200 technical publications to her credit, Chrys is a frequent presenter and instructor at SMTA functions and IPC international conferences.  Chrys is an active member and former president of the Philadelphia SMTA chapter.  She holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and an M.S. in Manufacturing Engineering from the University of Rhode Island.

Robb Hammond is the President and CEO of American Electronic Resource, Inc.  He established the company in 1994 with the goal of bringing professionalism to the Independent Electronic Component Distribution industry.  His interest and passion in battling the proliferation of counterfeits has led him to take a significant role in leading the industry towards safe practices.  Robb’s company is a founding member of IDEA, a previous member of ERAI’s counterfeit committee, and an active participant of the G19 committee, which developed SAE’s AS5553 and AS6081 documents on Counterfeit Electronic Components; Avoidance, Detection, Mitigation, and Disposition. He has previously spoken at NASA’s supplier conferences, the UK’s Component Obsolescence Group conference, DMSMS conferences, and CTI’s Components Obsolescence Workshops. 

Sherri Schornstein is a senior Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Fraud & Public Corruption Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.  She is also the senior member of the Computer Hacking & Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit.  She leads the D.C. Counterfeit Microelectronics Working Group, a public-private partnership consisting of attorneys, law enforcement, the military, scientists, engineers, quality control and security professionals,  academics, and companies from the defense contracting and semiconductor industries.  Prior to her tenure at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Ms. Schornstein was a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, Tax Division, and Criminal Section in the Honors Program. Ms. Schornstein earned her undergraduate degree in Business Administration from the University of Iowa’s College of Business and her J.D., cum laude, fromCalifornia Western School of Law. A popular public speaker, Ms. Schornstein has provided presentations on Counterfeit Microelectronics for the INTERPOL/EUROPOL Intellectual Property Crime Conference; Women in Defense; AFCEA (Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association) Airborne Networking Symposium; the U.S. Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency; NASA’s Quality Leadership Forum; and the National Reconnaissance Office.

Andrew Olney serves as the Director of Reliability and Product Analysis at Analog Devices, Inc. is responsible for Reliability, Product Analysis, Calibration, and Electrostatic Discharge (ESD). Andrew is based in Wilmington, Massachusetts, and manages a worldwide staff of >200 people responsible for maximizing the quality, reliability, and robustness of ADI’s full portfolio of products.  He has worked for ADI since 1990 in the areas of quality, reliability, failure analysis, ESD protection, and new product development.  Andrew has published numerous technical papers on integrated circuit reliability and ESD, and he holds several patents on ESD protection circuits.  For the past decade, Andrew has been leading ADI’s anti-counterfeiting initiatives.  Since 2006, he has represented ADI on the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force, and he became chairman of this task force in late 2011.  Andrew received a BS degree from Lehigh University (1985) and an MS degree from Boston University (1990), both in Electrical Engineering.

Therese Randazzo was appointed Director, IPR Policy and Programs Division, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in 2008.  Ms. Randazzo leads the agency’s strategic planning for enforcing intellectual property rights (IPR) and deterring IPR theft while facilitating the flow of legal trade across U.S. borders.  She provides policy direction and oversees CBP’s IPR programs.  Ms. Randazzo engages the private sector, Federal agencies, foreign customs administrations, and international organizations to strengthen IPR enforcement at U.S. borders and around the world.  Therese previously served as the Acting Executive Director, Commercial Targeting and Enforcement and as the Director, Risk Management Division, both in CBP’s Headquarters.  Prior to moving to Washington, D.C. in 2006, Therese was the Director, Strategic Trade Center, Los Angeles, with CBP and its predecessor agency, the U.S. Customs Service.  She also served as an International Trade Manager in the U.S. Customs Service’s Strategic Trade Center, Los Angeles.  Prior to joining the Strategic Trade Center, Ms. Randazzo was the Acting Director, U.S. Customs Service, and Office of Commercial Operations at Los Angeles International Airport.  She was also a Supervisory Import Specialist at Los Angeles International Airport, and began her customs career as an Import Specialist at the Los Angeles Seaport in 1988.

William G. Ross is a Unit Chief with the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Washington, DC.  Mr. Ross is currently responsible for overseeing the Intellectual Property (IP) Unit at the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center in Arlington, VA. Prior to his assignment to HSI Headquarters, Mr. Ross served for four years as a Section Chief at the ICE Academy at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick, Georgia.  Mr. Ross served as the Section Chief overseeing the basic training of all HSI Special Agents.  Additionally, Mr. Ross developed and supervised the advanced commercial fraud training program. Mr. Ross began his career as a US Customs Service Special Agent.  Mr. Ross served as a special agent for twenty years in the SAC Atlanta area.  Mr. Ross conducted numerous criminal investigations involving intellectual property, commercial fraud, money laundering, narcotics smuggling, counter-proliferation and anti-terrorism.  Mr. Ross has won the Commissioner of Customs, Unit Citation Award and the ICE Director’s, Excellence in Law Enforcement Award.

Mohammad Tehranipoor, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and the University of Connecticut. Dr. Tehranipoor is a recipient of several awards including NSF CAREER Award, best papers and panel awards, UConn ECE Research Excellence Award, UConn Outstanding Mentor Award, and IEEE Meritorious service award. He has also published 4 books, 10 book chapters, and over 160 journal and conference papers.

Jim Magos is the COO of Cardinal Components, Inc. where he is responsible for design, engineering, manufacturing, sales, and marketing. Jim has many years of experience under the employment of several companies, including his term as VP of LightPath Technologies, and various other tenures at Harris Corporation, GE Corporation, and RCA Corporation. Jim earned his BS from LIU and has been awarded the New Jersey State Legislative Award, and three Product of the Year Awards for Programmable Oscillators, Reconfigurable Oscillators, and Programmable DSP.

Janice Meraglia is the VP of Military and Government Programs.  She joined Applied DNA Sciences almost 4 years ago at which point she began meeting with various government agencies and industry associations to discuss the anti-counterfeiting potential of our DNA marking application for electronics.  Her focus has been to demonstrate the ease, flexibility and power of this solution as a means by which absolute, forensic authentication of originality can be determined at any and all points in the supply chain.  In addition to working with scientists who hold PhDs in various biological and chemical disciplines, she has colleagues in sales with backgrounds in the electronics industry.  Together their team represents a comprehensive and intelligent solution across the technical and business aspects necessary to effectively mitigate the risk of counterfeits.

Alex Tran, PhD is an applications engineer with Applied DNA Sciences. He holds a Bachelor Degree with triple majors in mathematics, chemistry, and physics; a PhD in physics for solving crystal protein structure with six years of wet lab experience at Brookhaven National Lab, plus twelve years of industrial experience in building components for military applications and developing proton source for medical and industrial applications. Dr. Tran is an Application Engineer with hands-on experiences, using his chemistry and physics background, he successfully fixed and developed a compact, high current proton ion source for medical and industrial applications. For testing the proton source, he designed and built a complete test beam line including vacuum pumps, microwave waveguide, instrumentation integration and control. Moreover, using his programming skills, Dr. Tran automated test procedures to map dipole and quadrupole magnets. Before joining Applied DNA Sciences, Dr. Tran worked as a Senior Design Engineer, at Sensitron Semiconductor manufacturing custom, high reliability military component packages using different epoxies and silicones to enhance adhesion to different materials such as ceramic, plastic, glass, metal and coatings. Collaborating effectively with customers, he developed, documented and demonstrated efficient processes for producing and testing components, participating in all design phases from contract review, procurement, and audits to manufacturing of components and training engineers. He was a team leader for the successful design and testing of the rectifier containing 6 silicon chips rotating at 15000 rpm for the 787 Boeing engine. As a result, the prototypes were qualified, and his company was awarded with coveted contracts.

Dr. Sharon Flank founded InfraTrac in 2006, expanding on technology originally developed at the University of Maryland.  InfraTrac develops product protection solutions that rely on spectroscopy.  Dr. Flank has led technical efforts for successful commercial products, and helped create companies later sold to AOL and Kodak.  She is a frequent speaker on anti-counterfeiting, in the pharmaceutical and medical device arena and beyond.  Dr. Flank holds eight patents.  She received her Ph.D. from Harvard and her A.B. from Cornell.

James Lewis is a Principal Engineer at Lewis Innovative Technologies, Inc., and has been employed by the company for 14 years. Also serving as Chief Technical Officer of LIT, Mr. Lewis is responsible for all research and product development. He has been actively involved in the development of electronics technology for the defense industry, and currently holds ten parents in electronic technology. Prior to joining LIT, James was employed as an Electronics Design Engineer in the commercial and defense electronics industry in Huntsville, Alabama. James has both a B.S. and M.S. degree earned from the University of Alabama at Huntsville, and is also currently a member of the IEEE, and is a Licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Alabama.

Henry Livingston is an Engineering Fellow and Technical Director at BAE Systems Electronic Systems. He is responsible for overseeing engineering activity for specifying components and evaluating their suitability for military and aerospace applications. Henry is BAE Systems Electronic Solutions’ subject matter expert in the Component Engineering field – of which the most critical and dynamic area is Electronic Component Technology and Reliability. He leads and supports a number of BAE Systems activities associated with specifying components, evaluating their suitability for military and aerospace applications, and technology road mapping. Henry has published papers on component reliability assessment methods, obsolescence management, semiconductor industry trends and counterfeit electronic components. Henry is a member of the IEEE After obtaining his degree in Electrical Engineering in 1980, Henry went on to work for several companies such as Hybrid Manufacturing, Lockheed Martin, and Component Engineering, all of which he held various engineering positions. Mr. Livingston has written several notable publications and has been credited with various awards including Electronics Industries Association Engineering Department Distinguished Contribution Award, GEIA E. J. Nucci Memorial Award for Engineering Excellence, Special Recognition Award by the DoD, and 3 BAE Systems Chairman’s Awards.    

Anne Poncheri is the Managing Director at Silicon Cert Laboratories where she is responsible for providing strategic planning and implementing the business plan. Silicon Cert Laboratories is an independent test lab offering reliability, qualification testing as well as analytical services and counterfeit detection of electronic components. Anne Poncheri has held various management positions in Quality and Engineering in industries including telecommunications, automotive, plastics, and chemicals. Currently, she is a member of the SAE Aerospace G19 Counterfeit Electronic Components Committee which is chartered to address aspects of preventing, detecting, responding to and counteracting the threat of counterfeit electronic components. Sharon earned her B.S. degree in Applied Mathematics and Statistics from Carnegie Mellen University, and is a Member of American Society for Quality, Surface Mount Technology Association, and the International Microelectronics and Packaging Society. 

Stan Salot is an acknowledged expert in business and quality process management and is active in U.S. and international industry standards bodies. He serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of the ECC Corporation, which serves as the U.S. National Authorized Institution for the United States National Committee, International Electro-technical Commission Quality Assessment System for Electronic Components. Stan has served as Chairman of the Users Advisory Group for the USNC/IECQ. He is an active senior member of the American Society for Quality where he served two terms as Santa Clara Valley Section Chairman and was the founder and chairman of the Silicon Valley ASQ ISO 9000 Users Task Group. Stan co-founded the Santa Clara Valley Software Quality Association. He has served as a member of the Advisory Board at the University of California Santa Cruz, the American Electronics Association, NorCal Quality Council and was a member of the American Management Association for many years. As a Member of the National Standards Authority of Ireland Stan established the organizations United States Western Region Conformity Assessment marketing and sales operation and conducted more than 150 Quality Management System Assessments based on ISO Standards in a broad range of industries and conducted numerous EU CE Mark Certification Inspections. Stan has held senior component engineering, corporate technical and quality assurance management and executive business development positions with California Computer, Anderson Jacobson, Systems Industries, Altos Computers, Logitech, Inc., The National Standard Authority of Ireland, and Hitachi Micro Systems, Inc. Stan served 10 years in the US Army of which the last 5 were in the Army Signal Corp.

Keith Gregory is a partner at Snell and Wilmer, L.L.P., and practices in the areas of general business matters, corporate, franchise and partnership disputes, and intellectual property and commercial litigation. He is an experienced litigator, with considerable background in intellectual property issues, licensing agreements, trade secret matters and Uniform Commercial Code issues, especially within the electronic components and semi-conductor industries. Keith was recently appointed to the SAE International AS6081 Committee, established to develop standards proscribing counterfeit parts avoidance requirements for independent distributors. Keith is a native of Brooklyn, New York, and went on to obtain his B.A. from the University of California at Los Angeles, and later his J.D. from the University Of San Diego School Of Law.

Soshi Hamaguchi joined Cosmos Corporation as a product safety engineer in 2007.  After he had worked as a product safety engineer for about 2 years, he went on loan to TUV Informationstechnik GmbH in Germany.  In Germany, he mainly learned about IT security in TUV Informationstechnik GmbH, and also learned management, accounting etc. in TUVNord AG for more than 1 year, Then, he had worked for TUViT Japan K.K., joint venture company between TUVNord AG and Cosmos Corporation, as an a security expert in the field of Data Center Security, Common Criteria, and management system of Certification Authority for Digital Certificate from January 2010 to April 2011.  He returned to Cosmos Corporation in April 2011 as a manager of IT Security Section.  Since December 2011, he has concurrently served as Guest Researcher of JIPDEC. He is also serving as an experts and the secretary of ISO TC 247 WG3, “Anti-counterfeiting track and trace method using unique identifier numbering”. 

Richard Katz is an attorney at Snell and Wilmer, L.L.P., and represents U.S. and foreign importers and exporters with respect to U.S. government trade regulation, including the structuring of overseas sales transactions, Customs duties and compliance, federal agency regulation of imports, export licensing, penalties, and audits. He has represented clients in diverse industries, including consumer electronics, footwear, apparel, telecom, natural resources, logistics, and transportation. Typical clients include U.S. import and distribution companies, U.S. high tech exporters, foreign exporters, trade associations, and governmental entities. Richard earned his B.A. and B.A. from Boston University, and completed his J.D. at Columbia Law School.

Marty Lanning is a Founder and Partner of XTREME Semiconductor and has a B.S. in Business Administration from San Diego University. Marty’s goal at XTREME Semiconductor is to provide cost effective solutions and support for obsolete and trailing edge technology semiconductor products. Marty has been in the semiconductor business for many years, holding various management and executive positions in Military Product Sales and Marketing,

Gil Aouizerat is the CEO/President of the independent distributor, PCX, Inc. and has held this position since 1993. He is a thought leader in the area of Quarantine of non-conforming products and has the oldest program in the industry (over six years old).

Robert Pfahl, Ph.D., is the VP of Global Operations at iNemi, where he is responsible for all Global Operations of the company. Robert has previously served as the Director of International and Environmental Technology R&D at Motorola Labs, has developed 9 U.S. patents, and has written numerous publications. Robert has also earned the CPMT 2005 Electronics Manufacturing Technology Award, EPA Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award and the Electronic Goes Green Award 2008+ from the Fraunhofer Society. Robert currently serves as a Member of the Board on Materials and Manufacturing Systems of the National Research Council.

Donald Davidson is currently assigned to Trusted Mission Systems and Networks (TMSN, formerly known as the Globalization Task Force, GTF) in the Office of the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer (DoD CIO), where he leads the outreach, S&T investment and standardization efforts for the White House’s Comprehensive National CyberSecurity Initiative (CNCI) task #11 on improving Supply Chain Risk Management for Information Communications Technology capabilities (ICT SCRM).  He has over 37 years of federal service, to include 11 years active duty, as well as civilian assignments in Army Research Laboratory, Army Materiel Command, Army Secretariat, US Joint Forces Command, OUSD-Acquisition, Technology & Logistics (AT&L), and OASD-Networks and Information Integration (NII), which is now known only as the DoD-Chief Information Office (CIO).Don is currently the a Global ICT-SCRM Ad-Hoc WG under American National Standards Institute / International Committee for Information Technology Standards (ANSI / INCITS).  He co-chairs the US interagency working group on SCRM LifeCycle Processes & Standards.  He serves as the government Co-Chair for the Acquisition & Outsourcing Working Group with the Software Assurance Program; SwA Program is a public-private partnership effort sponsored by DHS, DoD and DoC (NIST). He helped establish the ongoing DoD Anti-Counterfeits Working Group and a new DoD “Core” Software Assurance (SwA) Working Group.  He is advising National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) on their new Cyber Division.  He also serves on the Executive Board of Directors for SOLE, the International Society of Logistics, as the VP for Technical & Professional Development.  SOLE is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization.  He is a graduate of Brookings Institute’s Executive Leadership 1 & 2 (2005), UNC’s LOGTECH at Kenan-Flagler Business School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2007) and the Defense Leadership and Management Program (DLAMP, 2008). He has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering from USMA at West Point NY and a Master of Science Degree in National Security Strategy with concentration in Information Resources Management from the National War College (NWC) at National Defense University.

David Loaney is the CEO of Premier Semiconductor Services, LLC. After completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and his Master’s Degree at the American Graduate School of International Management, he went on to hold various positions at Arthur Andersen, Pillsbury, and Apple Computer. David currently serves on the G-19 Subcommittee and sits on the Electrical Test subcommittee. Dave and his company are actively involved in G-12 Corporate representation, are SMTA and IPC Corporate Members, as well as ERAI members. Dave is also currently President Elect for the Arizona Chapter of EO (formerly YEO - Young Entrepreneurs Organization).

Bill Cardoso, Ph.D., is a dynamic executive and researcher with +15 years of history driving revolutionary breakthroughs in high-tech industry for worldwide private, governmental, medical, aerospace, and research institutions. Dr. Cardoso founded Creative Electron, Inc. (CEI) in 2008, a defense contractor specializing in turnkey solutions, Creative Electron, Inc. has four business units: TruView X-ray Inspection Systems, Radiation Detector Systems, Micro fabrication & Assembly, and Conductive Adhesives. Bill was previously the President and Co-Owner of Aguila Technologies, and he also invented innovative solutions to process and assemble Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) crystals for homeland security, medical imaging, and astrophysics gamma and x-ray applications. Dr. Cardoso spent 10 years at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) where he was the Head of the Fermi lab Electronics Systems Engineering Department. Dr. Cardoso played a key role in the design and development of radiation detector systems to find the structure of matter, and ultimately the origins of the universe. He also headed development of onboard electronics for a new NASA satellite. Bill has a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UFRGS, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, a MBA from The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and Post Ph.D., Ph.D., M.S. (all in Electrical and Computer Engineering) Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois.

Erik Jordan is responsible for the sales of decapsulation equipment in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.  He specializes in equipping labs with automated decapsulation equipment for Failure Analysis and counterfeit detection.  He has partnered with multiple organizations including SMTA, ERAI, CTI, and ISTFA to present decapsulation as a counterfeit detection solution.  He is a contributing member of SAE 6081 and is the head chair for decap on SAE 6171.  Erik has published work with SMTA, ERAI and ISTFA regarding decapsulation as a method of counterfeit detection.

* Biography was not available at time of printing

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