Tyler MacCready, PhD
CEO, is a former engineer and scientist for AeroVironment, and a proven innovator and inventor. Tyler received his BA at Yale, his MSc at University of Wyoming, and his PhD at Monash University in Melbourne Australia. As the Founder and CEO of Apium, Tyler developed a low cost marine drone for the purposes of monitoring and addressing chemical imbalances in the coastal waters of California, which led to his passionate pursuit of a scalable swarming solution. Prior inventions include the Walkalong Glider, which was featured on the PBS show Scientific American Frontiers, and achieved significant commercial success in retail stores across the United States.
Alan Nise
Lead System Architect, Alan has over 20 years of experience creating high reliability Embedded Systems for Laser and RF communications systems and chemical sensing equipment. He was also founder and CTO of an offshore software development outsourcing company specializing in Mobile and Web application development. At Apium, Alan is the primary architect of the software systems used for Swarming, Simulation, Vehicle Control and Radio Communications. He also is responsible for the Mobile, PC and Server Applications used to control Apium's swarms.
Jacob Christ
Firmware Engineer, Jacob cut his engineering teeth building telemetry systems for the Cal Poly Pomona Solar Energy Team's ‘93 and ‘95 solar cars Intrepid and Intrepid Too. While on the team he helped co-found PONTECH. Some of Jacob's many accomplishments at PONTECH include building and supporting the first commercial serial RC servo controller that paved the path for the small drone revolution as well desktop robotics such its use in the MIT Robot "Toddler" and the Carnegie Mellon Palm Pilot Robot Kit. Jacob's breadth of work includes: automation systems for the offshore oil industry and eTail fulfillment system for Kingston Technologies. Jacob co-founded AscentVario.com and was the lead firmware, software and electronics designer for the world's first wrist mounted variometer (Sabobba V1) which captured 5% of the world market within the first year in production. In 2017 Jacob licensed PONTECH technologies to his largest customer Tecan-SP, Inc and began employment for Tecan.