Nick Pearce Email & Phone Number

Chose to move to Service because I could see that this organization would play a growing role in the company's future and believed that I could help it get there.Dramatically raised the quality of of the product support staff by hiring higher technical skill-sets (from Development Engineering (DE) and bringing in new Ph.D.'s) and developing individuals that are viewed as peers by DE. As a result, the service team is tightly involved with DE throughout the design process and serviceability is built in from the beginning.Identified gaps in diagnostics and setting of field specs. Hired proper skill sets and worked with engineering to: 1) build in ability to collect the required data in real-time; and 2) develop tools to efficiently analyze this data to make it actionable.Made major improvements to the company-wide Cost-of-Service (COS) program, reducing COS by 30% on the products I manage. Now driving inclusion of the Field groups into the process.Fostered outstanding team-work with the product divisions throughout the product life-cycle. This has resulted in the release of products with excellent performance in the Field including high maturity at release, much lower COS, higher reliability, strong diagnostics, and better tool stability and matching.

Track record of on-schedule delivery of successful Dark-Field inspection products. Direct management of Optical, Electrical, Mechanical, and Systems engineering personnel.As Program Manager, developed the highly successful AIT XP, which recovered the market share lost by the previous generation product. The AIT XP included several key architectural changes, resulting in a tremendous increase in performance with limted impact on COGS.

Responsible for product characterization, demos, and field applications for the two competing wafer inspection divisions after the merger of KLA and Tencor. Built a strong applications organization by merging the KLA and Tencor applications teams, weathering the post-merger “civil war”, down-sizing the team during the 1998 down-turn, and ramping back up to support peak sales in 1999-2000.

Promoted from previous position to manage the company's principal product line.Supervised product management group including three product manager level individuals responsible for specific products within the product groupLed the move of this growing $100M product line into the market share leadership position against strong and entrenched competition (Tencor).Chaired the weekly product team meetings which ensure that all activities critical to the success of the product line are properly resourced and managed, and that schedules are met.Managed all aspects of the new product launch process and presentation of the Opti-Probe product line to the market place.

Leader of product team responsible for all aspects of this growing $30M per year product line. Worked with VP of Engineering to replace what had been a culture of blame between Marketing and Engineering, with one of trust and cooperation.Defined, lead cross-functional development team, and launched the dramatically improved TP500 model, meeting the market needs for the next five years. Successfully increased the price over previous model by over 30% while reducing both COGS and COS. This resulted in a doubling of the gross profit per tool.

Responsible for customer support (applications and systems) and marketing of Bio-Rad's line of semiconductor characterization systems.Designed novel product for measuring extremely low concentrations of residual impurities in silicon. Supervised development of the system. Worked with ASTM task force to generate a standard for the technique.Marketed a product which I had developed at the University of Manchester through seminars and application notes, opening up new markets in the Far East.

Industrial consultant on MOS Physics and Technology. Clients included G.E.C., Ferranti, and Bio-Rad. Developed a new technique for measuring lifetimes and defect concentrations in micron-sized structures. Built this technique into a commercial MOS characterization system sold by Bio-Rad to a wide variety of companies, including Samsung.Provided laboratory instruction to EE and Physics students enrolled in B.S. degrees.

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering And Electronics

B.Sc. (1St Class), Physics, 1St Class Hons. With Distinction