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Richard Hoppel

32438 N Forest Drive Grayslake, IL 60030
Email: rhoppel@gmail (main) 847.548.0522 (mobile) 847.400.7505

Summary

Independent , pragmatic , experienced and friendly professional; Youthful attitude and approach to life
Takes delight creating and building cool and useful things
Expert in electronics, computer and network systems including project management , design and development, analysis, instruction, customer support, applications and sales
Wide range of technology experience and knowledge; Implemented numerous creative technology solutions
Life-long learner; Moving Forward to continually remain current and improve my knowledge base
Enthusiastic Team player; Enjoys leading and working together to accomplish challenging and profitable goals
Evangelist for Collaborative network tools to improve team interaction, discussion and tribal knowledge

Education

BSEE 1980 Northwestern University ; Evanston, IL

MSEE 1983 Illinois Institute of Technology ; Chicago, IL

Job Experience

May, 2006 – present techDogs Consulting

Independent Consultant for Electronic Engineering, Network, IT and Web services

Implemented a total home automation solution using "Home Assistant" to integrate IoT devices with cloud services
Created, designed and implemented a MQTT/JSON managed remote control and telemetry system using low-cost ESP-8266 based NodeMCU modules for large node networks in a LAN or WAN environment; Written in Lua.
This module was enhanced by adding it to a Node-Red flow implemented on Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone platforms. It was then integrated into the IBM Bluemix Cloud network utilizing Node-Red.
Expert designing and implementing FPGA projects using Intel Quartus Development platform
Designed and built a variety of electronics and network-based projects
Manage projects using Jira Agile Project management with add-in Draw.io diagramming
Configured and maintained a variety of PC based Ethernet and Wi-Fi based networks for small business and personal use utilizing pfSense, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 10, and Linux servers
Designed, configured and maintained websites for customers
Participated in two startup technology-based opportunities
Created, built, and deployed home automation projects utilizing SmartThings, X-11, Nest, & Google Home

November, 2016 – October, 2017 Food Equipment Technology Company (FETCO) 600 Rose Road, Lake Zurich 60047

Embedded Controls Engineering Manager

Managed embedded controls research, development, and manufacturing support for all FETCO product lines
Managed 3 software/hardware developers and one mechanical engineer
Successfully brought FETCO Extractor V+ Product Line from development to production
Project Manager for all FETCO electronics design and development projects
Analyzed and corrected 3-year intermittent crash in FETCO main product line resulting in 40% reduction in support calls
Implemented Kanban for managing projects in an agile development environment
Architect for embedded control design software and hardware with micro-controllers using QP/C, FreeRTOS and super-loop technologies
Utilized schematic entry, PCB design, and Manufacturing data (Gerber, BOM, STEP, OBD++, PDF outputs) using Altium Engineering Products
Successfully produced PCB products manufactured in the USA by Sigmatron and KitchenBrains
Designed and produced wire harness specifications using a custom Excel spreadsheet
Designed, created, and produced a custom electronics design data management system in HTML using MARKDOWN files
Designed, created, and produced custom visual wiring diagrams and libraries using Microsoft Visio
Created manufacturing test procedures using Excel spreadsheets and Access database
Designed a very cool automatic functional test system using a Windows laptop, Python, and Arduino controllers
Designed and implemented a system to provide wireless full system control to FETCO coffee systems using ESP8266 modules over UART connections
Managed engineering mechanical drawings for assemblies and components
Implemented archiving FETCO software products code into BitBucket code repository and managed with Jira

August, 2002 -- May, 2006 College of Lake County, 19351 W. Washington St., Grayslake, IL 60030

Faculty, Electronics Engineering Technology; Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences Division (EMPS)

Instructor for electronics technology classes; PC A+ computing hardware, Circuit Analysis, Digital Hardware Design. Electronic Schematic and PCB Layout, Computer Networking, Cisco CCNA and other electronics technology related classes. Used technology such as Blackboard, PowerPoint and Visio for online content delivery. Member of Faculty Senate; Chair of Information Technology Commission. Program Coordinator for Electronics which involved recruiting and hiring adjunct faculty.

October, 1997 -- June, 2000 3COM Corporation, Personal Connectivity Division, Rolling Meadows, IL 60008

Technical Marketing Manager – Cable Modems

Managed the technical marketing aspects of the cable modem initiative. This includes writing white papers, creating training programs and materials, performing competitive technical analysis, and support of industry trade shows.

Customer Project Manager

Managed OEM analog modem products from the late development stages to production for Tier 1 and Tier 2 customers. This included product requirements development, project scheduling, and managing customer and internal testing. Provided customers with point contact to all of engineering development and services.

September, 1995 -- June, 1997 UniCAD Corporation/A Division of Cooper, Chan Technology, Northbrook, IL

Applications Specialist

Provided technical sales support to UniCad's Printed Circuit Board Signal and Emissions Analysis suite of tools. This involved customer evaluations, product demonstrations, giving seminars and trade show support.

April, 1994 -- July, 1995 Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, OR

ZyCAD Alliance Consultant

Provided support for the logic verification phase of the P6 microprocessor design project. This involved support in all areas involving use of the Zycad hardware accelerators for digital simulation of the entire P6 design. The P6 design contained three million primitives on the largest simulations ever attempted. Developed behavioral models of P6 subsystems in order to decrease the size of the simulation and improve the overall performance of the full chip model. Developed behavioral models to replace analog portions of the P6 design. Worked under Cadence's Framework.

June, 1993 -- April, 1994 Intel Corporation, Chandler, AZ

ZyCAD Alliance Consultant

Provide onsite support to Intel for use of Zycad accelerators in their design process. Responsibilities include working with design teams to reduce their Time To Money (TTM) and developing new design flows which allow users to deploy new design tools with their existing databases.

1991 - January, 1993 ZyCAD Corporation, Schaumburg, IL

Senior Application Engineer

Provided pre-sales and post-sales technical support for hardware and software logic simulation products produced by Zycad. Additional responsibilities include giving presentations and demonstrations to customers. Consulted with customers to use simulation products to improve and accelerate their electronic design process.

1986 - 1991 Valid Logic Systems, Hoffman Estates, IL

Account Manager 1989 -- 1991

Sold electronic design automation (EDA) software tools and UNIX based workstations. The territory included Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. Responsibilities required giving technical presentations to engineers and high level selling to senior executives.

Systems Engineer 1986 -- 1989

Provided pre-sales and post-sales support for Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software tools in the Midwest states. These tools included logic and analog simulation, design entry, and also included printed circuit board and integrated circuit layout. Pre-sales work involved giving technical presentations and demonstrations, and completing benchmarks. Post-sales activities included assisting customer's integration and implementation plans. Traveled extensively in the United States.

1983 - 1986 Tellabs, Lisle, IL.

Member of Technical Staff, Research and Development

Designed digital communication systems for telecommunication networks. Had complete design responsibility from 8051 microcontroller hardware and real-time software design. Developed software using assembly and "C" languages on UNIX computer systems. Responsibilities also included managing the circuit board layout.

1980 - 1983 Northrop Defense Systems, Rolling Meadows, IL

Senior Electronic Design Engineer, Advanced Technology Department

Designed digital processing and interface hardware for advanced ECM (Electronic Countermeasures) on the F-15 AN/ALQ 152 program and B-1B radar jammers. Also developed radar simulation hardware for testing ECM equipment. Responsibilities included prototype design, construction and testing. Managed the PCB layout of a number of 10 layer SMT circuit boards I designed. Received SECRET clearance. Completed comprehensive course on ECM from Northrop.

Computer and Technology Experience and Skills

Electronic Design and Tools: Expert user of electronic design tools for schematic, PCB layout, digital and analog simulation, logic and functional verification since 1987. Experienced with Altium, KiCAD, Cadence, PCAD, Orcad, and Eagle products among many others.
Embedded System Design: Utilizing Open Source Applications and Standards. Operating Systems: Debian, BSD, Linux, FreeRTOS, QP/C. Programming Languages: C, C++, Python, and Assembly. Hardware platforms: STM, ARM, Atmel, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Beaglebone Black. Communication: Wi-Fi, TCP Stack, Bluetooth, MQTT, SPI, and I2C. Development Platforms: Django, Eclipse, Android Studio, Visual Studio, 2015, Blynk (Android Apps-embedded controller). Security: SSH, Public Key Encryption (PKI). Expert with IBM Bluemix and Node-Red flows.
Presentation Skills : Taught nine different electronic technology classes at College of Lake County. Classes were, personally developed and delivered using lectures utilizing PowerPoint slides, online testing using Blackboard, and hands-on labs. Classes included schematic entry. PCB layout, circuit analysis, digital design, PC computer hardware and peripherals, electric motors, and networking. Have given numerous technical presentations to students, engineers and executive management.
Group Collaborative and Cloud-based Tools : Expert Git/GitHub; Expert user of Office 365, Evernote and Google Docs. Configured and maintained a number of group collaboration sites using Google Groups.
Mobile Devices: Expert user of Android Devices. Successfully completed an Android Mobile App class on Coursera
Software Development: Have programmed in Node-Red, assembly language, C, Python, Lua, PowerShell, and Bash.
Open Source Hardware: Expert for NodeMCU, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and BeagleBone Black computers
Windows OS: Installed, deployed, and administered Windows 10, 8.1, and earlier versions. Windows Server 2012 R2 and earlier versions. Installed and maintain a Domain. Experienced with PowerShell. Utilized Hyper-V to implement Windows and Linux based virtual machines.
Linux and Unix OS: Installed, deployed, and administered Linux Desktop and Servers. Used UNIX systems extensively since 1984. Server Applications include DNS, Virtual Machine, DHCP, File storage and LAMP implementations. UNIX, BSD, Debian, Ubuntu Desktop and Server.
Computer Hardware: Have personally configured, maintained, upgraded and repaired well over 200 laptop and desktop PCs, and UNIX workstations. Procured, designed and deployed three engineering computer labs at College of Lake County.
Server Hardware: Have configured and maintained Dell, Sun, and Compaq servers. These systems have used Windows Server 2012 R2, UNIX and several Linux based operating systems.
Networking: Cisco Certified Network Instructor. Expert (20 years) configuring and maintaining Local Area Networks in a TCP/IP environment. Familiar and proficient with the following networking tools: VNC, Ethereal, and NMAP, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), TeamViewer, and other network management tools. My Business Netw ork
Wireless Networking: Expert installed and configured numerous 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless networks utilizing WEP, WPA, WPA2 security protocols using TKIP and AES encryption protocols. Integrated many Bluetooth devices with mobile devices.
Network Firewalls: Installed configured, and maintained the open source pfSense network firewall. Installed services included DHCP, Snort Intrusion detection, QoS filtering, IP based filtering for outgoing and incoming packets, networking monitoring and proxy server implementations. Implemented OpenVPN on my business network which allow my mobile devices complete access to serve services.
Web and Internet Tools: Proficient in Dreamweaver MX4, HTML, FTP, IIS 6.0; DNS configuration, FTP and DHCP Servers. Deployed Content Management System (CMS) for website development. Developed several websites using the open source CMS Joomla. Currently using GRAV for creating websites.
Virtualization: Deployed and evaluated the following virtualization solutions: Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, VMWare Workstation
Microsoft Office: Expert power user of Visio, MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. Have created over 100 presentations using PowerPoint.
Multimedia: Experienced Digital Photographer. Proficient with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe LightRoom.
Project Management Tools: Expert manager and user of Jira"Agile and Kanban management" with draw.io diagramming and Microsoft Project
GPS: Active user of GPS aviation navigation systems since 1996.

Community Activities

Lake County Forest Preserve Volunteer Steward for Almond Marsh/Rhyan Tract (2002-present)
Arbor Vista Homeowners Association Board Member (2002-present) (3 years as president)
Adopt-A-Highway Coordinator for Route 45 between Rt. 120 and Casey Road (2002-present)
Member of Lake County Forest Preserve District Controlled Burn Team (2014 to present)
Liberty Prairie Conservancy Board Member (2001-2006) and current member
Lake County Audubon Society Board Member and Newsletter Editor (2011-2012)
Northwestern University Alumni Advisor and Board member (1981-1996)

Personal Accomplishments

Licensed VFR Private Pilot with IFR Training
PADI Certified Scuba Diving Instructor
Travelled to 49 states; only Alaska is left.
Controlled Burn certified by Chicago Wilderness
Herbicide Applicator through the State of Illinois
Completed and participated in online courses from Courseran my many interests which included Astronomy, Science of the Solar System,Interactive Python Programming, Genetics and Evolution, Big Bang to Dark Energy, Android Creative Programming for Digital Media and Mobile Apps, and many more.
Completed extensive natural area restoration around my home and the adjoining Almond Marsh Nature Preserve resulting in a Conservation Certificate from Conserve Lake County
Completed extensive home restoration using my own plumbing, electrical, and carpentry skills to make my home into a beautiful technology show piece with advanced home automation features.