ENGINEERING
Steven Pressnall, Chief Engineer
Steven Pressnall came on board as FirstGuard’s Chief Engineer in the fall of 2014. He has been co-owner and lead programmer for CompuQuest, Inc. since 1989, specializing in computer programming for the defense industry, primarily in the areas of data acquisition, radar control and signal processing. His expertise also includes database programming and design, Radar Cross Section, ISAR Imaging, antenna processing and radome processing. Mr. Pressnall holds a BSEE in Solid State Physics from Rice University.
Shantanu Sanyal, Senior Engineer
A Washington D.C. area native, Shantanu Sanyal joined FirstGuard in 2014 after earning his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. During his time in university, he developed a strong interest in electromagnetics and gained significant experience designing PCB based microwave components. Shantanu’s research areas include artificial impedance surfaces and computationally efficient power plane modeling algorithms. While at Rose-Hulman he successfully co-founded and operated a T-shirt company offering electronically lighted apparel. An avid international traveler and hiker, in the summer of 2017 Mr. Sanyal summitted Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Dr. Dennis McCaughey, Senior Technology Advisor
Dr. Dennis McCaughey has more than 40 years senior experience as an engineer for the Federal government, specializing in advanced physics, communications, radar, and project development. Dr. McCaughey received the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1977 with a thesis entitled “Degrees of Freedom for Projection Images”. His research addressed the topic of information content in the linear operator representing Computerized Transactional Tomography. Subsequently he conducted research into the information content of transform based image compression using spline functions and other non-DCT based schemes. He joined the U.S. government and analyzed the performance of various technical collection systems, in particular JPEG and MPEG encoding performance. He has extensive experience in LPI/LPD communications and RF spectrum analysis of Markov process based signals. Since 2006, Dr. McCaughey has been an adjunct Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering teaching senior level courses in the concepts of multimedia processing and transmission, signal processing and electromagnetic theory.
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
James W. Wolfe, Co-Founder and President
Jim Wolfe is a management executive, consultant, and attorney with more than 35 years of experience helping emerging growth firms. He is the CEO and Co-Founder of Founders Consulting, a Washington, DC firm providing strategic marketing for new products, markets and companies. He also serves as the Entrepreneur in Residence and Assistant Professor of Management in the School of Business, George Mason University. Mr. Wolfe has been a founder, director or consultant to more than 50 early-stage firms in a wide range of industries in the U.S. and abroad. He is a past director of Millennium Bankshares Corporation, the National Entrepreneurship Foundation, the National Business Incubation Association, and is a former Trustee of Indiana University. Previously he was Corporate Counsel to Finalco Capital Corporation, where he held N.A.S.D. securities principal licenses. He began his Washington career as an aide to U.S. Senator Dan Quayle (R. – Ind.). Mr. Wolfe holds the J.D., M.B.A. and B.S. degrees, all from Indiana University.
Jay Kerness, Co-Founder and Vice President
Jay Kerness is President and Co-Founder of Founders Consulting. He has more than 30 years experience in strategy, marketing, branding and advertising for clients with household names such as General Motors, Keebler, Verizon, Lockheed Martin, U.S. Census Bureau, as well as numerous nonprofit, technology and early stage firms. His previous experience includes Leo Burnett, Arnold Communications and Rainmaker Interactive. Mr. Kerness’ expertise is in business management, marketing strategy and brand development, as well as new product launch. He has developed and launched marketing campaigns more than 50 leading American brands and has founded and managed three start-up companies with Co-Founder Jim Wolfe, including FirstGuard. He earned his B.A. degree in Fine Arts & Psychology from Brandeis University and his M.B.A. from Harvard University. Mr. Kerness manages operations, finance, marketing, HR and business development for FGT.