Meet the Team

Dr. Stan Schneider

Chief Executive Officer

Stan Schneider is the CEO at Real-Time Innovations (RTI), the largest software framework provider for autonomous systems. RTI has over 2,000 designs in autonomous vehicles, medical devices, robotics, transportation, industrial automation and defense.

RTI won the 2018 CODiE award for Best IoT Solution and the Frost and Sullivan 2019 Medical Product Leadership award. RTI earned certification as a Great Place to Work 2019-2021, and holds a top 1% rating on Glassdoor.

Stan has published over 75 papers in both academic and industry press. He speaks widely at events and conferences on connected medical systems, intelligent transportation, smartgrid, the future of industry, and the role of the DDS and other connectivity standards in the IIoT.

Stan served on the Steering Committee of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) for six years before stepping down in 2020. At the IIC, he held roles as Vice Chair, Testbed chair, and Ecosystem Task Group chair. Stan serves on the advisory board for IoT Solutions World Congress. Stan is active in the Silicon Valley Alliance of CEOs. IoTOne named Stan a Top-25 IIoT Influencer in 2017 and 2018. Embedded Computing Design presented Stan the Top Embedded Innovator Award for 2015.

Before RTI, Stan managed a large Stanford robotics laboratory, led an embedded communications software team and built data acquisition systems for automotive impact testing.

Stan graduated summa cum laude from University of Michigan in applied math/physics. He earned an MS in computer engineering also from Michigan. Stan holds a PhD from Stanford in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a focus in autonomous systems.

Dr. Gerardo Pardo-Castellote

Chief Technology Officer

Gerardo Pardo, CTO at RTI, has been with the company since it was founded, held various positions in research, development, and consulting. He became the CTO in 1998.

Gerardo was the main developer of the original versions of the RTI Connext DDS product line. He started this work while still working on his Ph.D. at Stanford and carried on the product at RTI.

Gerardo leads RTI's standardization efforts and he is the main author of the OMG Data Distribution Service Standard (DDS), the OMG Real-Time Publish Subscribe (RTPS) Protocol standard, the DDS Security Standard, and many of the other (currently 7) DDS-related standards. He also chairs the OMG revision task forces for these standards.

In 2005, Gerardo founded and still co-chairs the Data-Distribution SIG within OMG. This is the group that oversees the DDS standard family. In 2009 he was also elected to the OMG board of directors where he still serves.

Prior to joining RTI, Gerardo worked in distributed sensor systems and robotics at CERN (Switzerland) and HP Labs in Palo Alto California.

Gerardo is considered an expert on security, middleware, and publish-subscribe systems. He has been the Principal Investigator on more than a dozen research grants, including SBIR and ATP grants, has authored five patents and over 50 technical papers, journal articles, and conference sessions on the topic of real-time and secure distributed systems.

Gerardo completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Computer Science both at Stanford University. He also holds a BS and an MS in Physics from the University of Granada (Spain) and he was awarded the National 1st Prize Physics award.

David Barnett

Vice President of Products and Markets

David has over 25 years of experience in distributed, real-time and embedded systems. He joined RTI in 2005 and is responsible for the company's product roadmap, product marketing and market development. Prior to RTI, he was vice president of marketing at a real-time middleware startup that was acquired by Borland Software Corporation. He was also director of product marketing at Green Hills Software and Mentor Graphics and a senior product marketing manager at Wind River Systems. David began his career as a software engineering lead at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) where he was responsible for the design and implementation of several distributed real-time applications.

David has BA in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Edwin de Jong

Vice President of Sales

Edwin de Jong brings more than 20 years of experience in the software industry. He is one of the pioneers in the development of large-scale, real-time, publish-subscribe middleware that is now helping to enable the Internet of Things. He previously served as Director of Product Management and Strategy at RTI.

Edwin joined RTI in 2005 following RTI's acquisition of 4TEC, a company he co-founded in 2002 and led as CEO. 4TEC provided products and services for elastic caching. The company's customers included major system integrators, such as Thales and Northrop-Grumman.

Prior to leading 4TEC, Edwin worked as an R&D manager at Thales. He was a software consultant for the application of real-time, publish-subscribe middleware in the development of combat-management systems, and co-authored more than 25 published technical articles. His fields of expertise include systems architecture; large-scale, distributed (hard), real-time systems; fault tolerance, networking and communication protocols; real-time in-memory databases; system modeling and analysis; formal specification and analysis; and software engineering systems and tools.

Edwin holds a PhD in Mathematics and Physics from Leiden University, The Netherlands.

Mark Hamilton

Vice President of Customer Success and Services

Mark joined RTI in 2003 and brings to RTI over 27 years of experience in technical and customer-facing leadership roles. He’s led the department for the past 7 years and is responsible for the Customer Success and Professional Services organization worldwide, defines global business priorities and translates those into operational tactics in order to exceed established goals.

His previous experience includes positions at companies such as the Applied Physics Laboratory and Wind River Systems. He served as a Field Applications Engineer, designed embedded real-time systems, and was employed at the Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory as a design engineer developing intelligence gathering systems, as well as developing high-performance embedded software for various Navy programs including the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) and Ship Self-Defense System (SSDS).

Mark graduated with a BSEE from Virginia Tech, and a MSEE from Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Bob Kindel

Vice President of Finance

Bob Kindel has worked with RTI since 1997, initially as a collaborator on NIST-funded product development. He joined the company full-time in 2000 as a Sr. Applications Engineer. He has since held numerous customer-facing roles at RTI leveraging his analytical background and his passion for business. These include creating RTI's very first customer support organization, expanding the Services organization as VP of Services, operationalizing the worldwide sales organization, and transitioning RTI's business to a subscription business model.

Throughout his career Bob’s focus has been on establishing the structures, processes and culture necessary to enable RTI to grow, while ensuring the success of RTI's ever-growing customer base. Bob currently serves as RTI's VP of Finance.

Bob holds a PhD from Stanford and an B.S. from MIT, each in Aerospace Engineering.

Catherine Mekler

Vice President of Operations

Catherine joined RTI in 1998 and is currently the VP of Operations. She manages Human Resources, Information Technology, Facilities, and Governance. She is also President of Real-Time Innovations International, LLC., a Delaware holding company with branches in North America, Europe, Asia and a Spain Development Center subsidiary. Her background includes compensation, government contracts, research administration, audits, sales/marketing automation and cloud-based document management.
Catherine holds a BS in Business Administration from San Jose State University and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Cameron Emery

Vice President of Marketing

Cameron Emery believes in the art of marketing through effective storytelling. At RTI she combines her background in technology marketing with a passion for writing.

Joining the company in 2017, Cameron managed the Corporate Communications, Public Relations, Social Media, Account Based Marketing and Events strategy. Now, as a member of the executive team, Cameron leads the marketing department, including strategic and operational planning, people management, execution planning, and budgeting.

Cameron brings a broad background to RTI. Prior to joining, she served as Vice President at a leading technology Public Relations agency where she played an integral role in securing new business, driving revenue, and hiring and onboarding new team members. Cameron also served as the director of strategic accounts for both B2B and consumer technology companies. She delivered PR strategies to meet specific objectives, such as achieving market leadership, building awareness and creating new market opportunities. Her clients spanned the technology industry including the Internet of Things, enterprise security, cloud computing, advertising technology, fintech and ecommerce.

Cameron holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Journalism and Media Studies with an emphasis in Digital Journalism from San Diego State University.

Jan Van Bruaene

Vice President of Engineering

Jan joined RTI in 2006 and has over 25 years of experience in technical and customer-facing leadership roles at companies such as Sun Microsystems and VLSI Technology. He has led professional Services, Support, and Engineering organizations and has experience in middleware, infrastructure software, operating system design and device drivers, and network chip development.

Jan came to RTI as a senior application engineer, providing consulting and design services, and being a trusted advisor to customers using RTI Connext software. Next, Jan developed a new Support organization which achieved a record-setting 98 percent customer satisfaction rate. As the Director of Application Services, Jan led a team of application services engineers delivering system design and custom implementations using RTI Connext software. In his current role of Vice President of Engineering, Jan is responsible for RTI’s Research, Development and Support efforts. He leads a distributed engineering team of more than 100 people developing and supporting RTI Connext’s software, and is responsible for the software development processes and product quality.

Jan graduated with an MS equivalent degree in Electronics, Digital Communications (Summa Cum Laude) from KIHK in Geel, Belgium.

Dr. Stan Schneider

Chief Executive Officer

Stan Schneider is the CEO at Real-Time Innovations (RTI), the largest software framework provider for autonomous systems. RTI has over 2,000 designs in autonomous vehicles, medical devices, robotics, transportation, industrial automation and defense.

RTI won the 2018 CODiE award for Best IoT Solution and the Frost and Sullivan 2019 Medical Product Leadership award. RTI earned certification as a Great Place to Work 2019-2021, and holds a top 1% rating on Glassdoor.

Stan has published over 75 papers in both academic and industry press. He speaks widely at events and conferences on connected medical systems, intelligent transportation, smartgrid, the future of industry, and the role of the DDS and other connectivity standards in the IIoT.

Stan served on the Steering Committee of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) for six years before stepping down in 2020. At the IIC, he held roles as Vice Chair, Testbed chair, and Ecosystem Task Group chair. Stan serves on the advisory board for IoT Solutions World Congress. Stan is active in the Silicon Valley Alliance of CEOs. IoTOne named Stan a Top-25 IIoT Influencer in 2017 and 2018. Embedded Computing Design presented Stan the Top Embedded Innovator Award for 2015.

Before RTI, Stan managed a large Stanford robotics laboratory, led an embedded communications software team and built data acquisition systems for automotive impact testing.

Stan graduated summa cum laude from University of Michigan in applied math/physics. He earned an MS in computer engineering also from Michigan. Stan holds a PhD from Stanford in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a focus in autonomous systems.

Michael Lyons

Venture Partner and Stanford Management Science Professor

Mr. Lyons is currently a Partner with the Ratio Group, a technology advisory and venture capital group working with Fortune 500 clients and the U.S. Government. He also serves as as Chairman of CypherPath, a converged infrastructure virtualization company. He was former Chairman of Shadow Networks, Inc. a cyber security company acquired by Alcalvio in 2016; both are based on technology developed through a tech transfer partnership with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He is a strategic advisor to ICEYE, a SAR-based microsatellite data acquisition company and CEO of its U.S. data subsidiary driving machine learning for SAR data.

Concurrently, Mr. Lyons is an Adjunct Professor at the Stanford University Departments of Management Science and Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering . Serving in the Stanford position since 1988, he was a co-developer of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program with Prof. Tom Byers and the founding professor of Technology Venture Formation. He also co-teaches, with Prof. Ray Levitt, Entrepreneurship in Civil and Environmental Engineeering. Both of these courses are some of the highest rated courses in the School of Engineering. He is the co-creator of the Stanford Innovation and Entrepreneurship two-week program for existing high tech companies produced and managed by the Stanford Center for Professional Development (SCPD).

Mr. Lyons received a Bachelors and Masters (equivalent) in Engineering Physics from Cornell University, an MSEE from Stanford, did Ph.D research in Aero/Astro at Stanford (abd) and an MBA, with Distinction, from the Pepperdine Presidential/Key Executive Program. He is a graduate of the Stanford/AEA Institute for the Management of High Technology Companies and a Price-Babson Fellow in Entrepreneurship Education.

Kevin Kopczynski

Executive and Investor

Kevin Kopczynski is an experienced energy technology executive, entrepreneur and investor who currently serves as Vice President, Strategy and M&A at Plug Power (PLUG). At Plug Power, Kevin supports corporate M&A, investments, joint ventures, partnerships and the company’s global hydrogen generation business. He was previously Senior Director of Corporate Development at First Solar (FSLR) where he was responsible for external sourcing to expand First Solar's product and service offerings. At First Solar, he also managed the post-acquisition integration of the former Enki Technology team, overseeing the successful development and full production implementation of durable, high-efficiency coatings for the Series 6 solar module. From 2013 to 2016 he was President and CEO of Enki Technology, where he guided the solar materials company from the development to revenue stages and established key customer partnerships in the US and China that culminated with Enki’s acquisition by First Solar. Prior to Enki, Kevin was a Partner at RockPort Capital Partners, an energy technology focused venture capital firm, where he led venture capital investments in the power generation, oil & gas, materials and agriculture segments. Kevin’s primary investments at RockPort were Enki Technology (acquired), GlassPoint Solar, New Leaf Symbiotics and Northern Power Systems (TSX). He previously held several operating and senior technical positions at IQuum, a molecular diagnostics company that was acquired by Roche.

Kevin began his career as a product design consultant at Arthur D. Little, assisting clients from startups to the Fortune 500 on consumer, healthcare and industrial product design efforts. He serves as Chairman of Ascension Industries, a closely held industrial manufacturing and filtration products company. Kevin earned a BSE with honors from Princeton University, an MS in engineering from Stanford, and an MBA with honors from UC Berkeley.

Peter Dalton

CEO of Globalstar, Management Consultant

As Chief Executive Officer, Peter manages the long-term strategic growth of Globalstar, Inc. and its subsidiary company SPOT LLC. He is responsible for extending the quality and broadening the reach of the company’s portfolio of satellite voice and data solutions.

Peter has served as a director of Globalstar since 2004 and as Chair of the Audit Committee. He is CEO of Dalton Partners, Inc., a management consulting firm, and has served as CEO and director of a number of its clients. He also served as president of SPACE (Society of Private and Commercial Earth Stations), the satellite television industry trade association. As CEO of KLM Electronics he grew revenue more than twenty five times making it the world’s largest manufacturer of satellite television systems at that time. From November 2001 to September 2004, Peter served as chief executive officer of Clickhome Realty, Inc., a discount real estate and mortgage company.

Before that, Peter had more than thirty years experience in business management, turnaround management, and investment banking. He has been a board member of over twenty companies both public and private. His industry experience is broad-reaching, including food processing, medical products, semiconductor industry test equipment, telecommunications equipment, house-wares, ready-to-wear, concert lighting, and candles. Peter’s experience includes strategic partnering, mergers and acquisitions, and high growth situations. He has arranged significant financing for startups and growing companies through his own investment banking firm.

Peter holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting from La Salle University in Philadelphia, PA and is an executive fellow, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University.