Ryan Thompson Email & Phone Number

Santa Rosa, Ca

• Process engineer supporting development, optimization, and manufacturing of state-of-the-art optical-interference filters for aerospace (government and commercial), consumer electronics, and automotive (eg LIDAR) applications.• Qualified and commissioned custom capital equipment to create new factory capabilities based upon customer requests; developed and optimized processes using Six-Sigma and LEAN philosophies.• Deployed to international customer location on long-term assignment (6 months) to develop novel processing capability; led production teams on extended assignment. Transferred technology and equipment to domestic factory for future production.• Developed new predictive quality tools using VBA (Excel) and SQL to data-mine, correlate, and develop product trends for process steering improvements.• Partnered with marketing to investigate consumer electronics and automotive markets for product development opportunities.

Santa Rosa, Ca

• Partnered with prospective and current customers to develop software and interfaces with embedded SENtral Sensor Fusion co-processor running AHRS, indoor-location, and activity tracking algorithms.• Provided technical demonstrations, customer support, built custom code and applications, and troubleshooting for UAV, mobile, and wearable applications.• Travelled to domestic and international customers for application and sales support.

Santa Rosa, Ca

• Engineer tasked with start-up of new factory for high-volume manufacture of magnetic sensors for Nintendo WiiU: 6 machines @ 8k units/day (1.6M units/month); developed and optimized processes using SPC, DOE, Six-Sigma and LEAN methods; sole-process engineer supporting 24/7 operations.• Guided ramp-up to HVM numbers within 6 weeks, beating plan by over 2 months; optimized processes and established best practices; developed training materials for operators, technicians, and support staff.• Utilized significant troubleshooting skills to rectify line-down situations, despite PLCs being coded in Japanese, and GUIs in English (I don’t speak/read Japanese).• Presented key learnings and recommendations to Senior Executive Management team upon request during potential show-stopping moments.

Santa Rosa, Ca

• Optimized chemical vapor deposition (CVD) optical coating system resulting in up to 500% yield increase, 50% decrease in cycle time, and up to 300% increase in reactor uptime/product throughput. • Acted as technical product manager to reduce total number of unique products from over 30 to fewer than 12 while maintaining technical capability of product portfolio. • Managed projects including proposal writing, budget creation, and equipment scheduling. • Developed optical anti-reflection (AR) and bandpass filters for UV, visible, and infrared applications. • Regularly acted as technical sales engineer during development meetings with existing and new customers. • Instituted data gathering and analysis of machine uptime to determine, and then improve mean time between failure (MTBF), and optimize preventive maintenance (PM). • Investigated new techniques for future high-performance optical coatings; hosted equipment vendors, and facilitated discussions about joint projects.

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

• Opened new downtown location; hired and trained new staff, ordered capital equipment, established supplier contacts and set customer-service standards.• Hired, trained, and retained new team; fostered a culture of excellence with respect to food quality, communications, service and hospitality. Restaurant was profitable in less than 3 months.• Leveraged process engineering principles expertise in kitchen operations to augment business experience: average daily volume 400 pizzas (600+ in summer months), peak: 100/hour at 90 seconds in 800F ovens; Friday-night oven cook.• Responsible for day-to-day operations, product and service quality, training, culture, maintenance, and continuous improvement at one of the top 15 restaurants in the Twin Cities, MN market.• Prepared and reviewed quarterly and annual reports and P&L statements.• Transferred back to flagship location to restore, reorganize, and re-energize culture to first-class standards of food and service quality.• Cultivated work ethic and leadership philosophy for incoming managers-in-training program.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States

• Conducted research on silicon- and nitride-based nanomaterials, crystal defect and characterization of III-V semiconductors, oxides and nitrides (In/Ga/Al compounds) used in LED applications and photovoltaic applications.• Built ultra-high vacuum (UHV) systems for molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) and pulsed-laser deposition (PLD); integrated hardware and software control systems using LabVIew.• Two-time visitor to National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM)

San Diego, California, United States

Developed and executed comprehensive testing of next-generation optical, electrical, and mechanical subsystems for spectrally-narrowed excimer and molecular gas lasers used in semiconductor lithography systems.

San Diego, California, United States

• Key member of the capital equipment engineering team responsible for fluidics, and pneumatic systems; learned mechanical, and electrical systems in Intel’s next generation burn-in and test technology.• Built custom HMI/GUI environment using LabVIEW and GE PLC software.• Leveraged sub- and whole-system knowledge to support equipment installation at domestic and international customer sites.• Engineering lead during installation and customer support at domestic and international production locations.• Liaison for engineering, manufacturing, field service, and customer teams.

San Diego, California, United States

• Optimized and supported semiconductor fabrication processes including lithography, chemical-vapor deposition (CVD), wire-bonding, solder reflow, encapsulation, and underfill using DOE and SPC methods.• Managed failure analysis lab: coordinated sample preparation, experiments, investigations, and analyses.• Conducted semiconductor characterization including SEM w/ EDS, logic/circuit analysis, electrical testing, oscilloscopes, and rework.

Ph.D. (Abd), Materials Science

B.S; B.S, Materials Science; Chemical Engineering