CHARLES COLBY / COLBY SYSTEMS CORPORATION
2991 Alexis Drive, Palo Alto, CA 94304
(650) 941-9090 chuckcolby@colbysystems.com
TECHNOLOGY ARCHITECTURE, MARKETING, AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE
1982-Present
Design and Consultant Firm President for Colby Systems Corporation, Palo
Alto, CA.
Responsible for Technology Architecture, Product Design and
Development of many high-tech products including: Portable Computers, MPEG1 and MPEG-2 Video Recorders, CD, DVD and DVD-RAM Jukeboxes, Video and
Media Storage and Retrieval systems, Cellular & Pots line Video-Modem™, Mission
Critical Broadcast Servers and Workstations, Industrial Rack-Mount Pentium and
Alpha Computers, Pocket Data Terminals, and Electric Vehicles.
Highlights of products invented and developed include : The first Home
Satellite Receive Station, the first low-cost Telephone Answering Machine, the first
low-cost wireless telephone, the first low cost TV camera, the first remote Tilt-Pan
TV camera, the first Underwater TV Camera with 5000 ft capability, the first
portable MS-DOS and Macintosh Computers, the first Rack-Mount PC, the first
MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 Video Recorders, the first MPEG Video Transmission System
over Cellular, ISDN and T-1&E-1 lines, the first DVD-RAM Jukebox, high-end Video
Conferencing Systems, Wearable Computers with head-mounted Virtual Displays,
Remote Control Counter-Rotating-Blade Helicopter with on-board TV camera,
Magnetometer and GPS navigation, Robotic Control Systems, GO-Chair™ Electric
Vehicle, and Video Phones, and Virtual Reality Devices, including wireless Video,
GPS and data transmission, casino digital recorders and police car computers
and digital video recorders and wireless camera systems.
Won top ten Best of Show award for MPEG-1 Video Recorder at 1994 National Association
of Broadcasters Show and won again at 1996 NAB show for development of MPEG-2 Video
Recorder. Also, holder of several patents. Many patents pending and author of numer ous
articles in a variety of technical trade journals.
Other experience includes: Sales, R&D, defining product development
strategies, managing product ramp-up and roadmap-feature sets, full
product budgetary control, and management of third party, sub-contractors
and vendor relationships.
1998–1999
Design and Marketing Consultant for clients including: Sony Electronics,
Mitsubishi Electronics, Digital Video Designs, AlphaBase Corp. and many others.
Responsible for Product Development and Project Management, initial
Marketing, and new product introductions, promotion and trade shows.
1997-1999
Senior Video Systems Design Engineer and Engineering Supervisor for Sony
Electronics/Systems Integration Center in San Jose, CA. Responsible for design
and testing of video and L-band RF systems for broadcast and satellite facilities,
including overall design responsibly for the new five (5) million dollar Test bed for
DirecTV Japan and A-Sky B Satellite Brodcasting networks. Supervised the entire
Sony engineering department of 85 video systems design and software engineers.
1985-1987
Taught Business for Entrepreneurs courses, (part time), at Stanford University.
1989-1990
Taught Satellite Communications at several Movie Studio technical seminars,
Hollywood, Ca
1978-1979
Communications Instructor for Special Agents, (part time), at the FBI
Academy, Quantico, VA.
1977-1982
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Microwave General
Corporation, Mountain View, CA. Managed design and development of
Television Uplink and Downlink Satellite Earth Station product line. Developed one
of the first low-cost commercial Video Receive Only Earth Station and Portable
Video Uplink Earth Stations. Installed Earth stations at many TV Stations and
Broadcast facilities. Developed low-cost consumer C-Band Satellite Earth station
for home use.
1966-1977
Senior Video Engineer And Video Product Manager for Ampex
Corporation, Redwood City, CA. Designed and managed professional video
products such as videotape recorders, video cameras, computer controlled
video editing systems. Also designed complete video and audio production
facilities, both fixed and mobile. Managed system integration projects for NASA,
the US Army, US Navy, Eastern Airlines, and many commercial TV stations and
video post-production houses.
Highlights include: Designed and built more than of 20 major broadcast and
educational production systems for Ampex Corporation Special Products Group.
Self-contained TV mobile production units delivered to the US Army at Fort Knox,
Fort Rucker and Fort Sill. Closed-circuit television system for NASA Apollo Program,
at Cape Canaveral, FL. Mobile TV production unit for National Teleproductions,
purchased and used extensively by ABC Wide World of Sports.
Mobile TV production units for Transmedia Productions in New York, used
extensively by ABC TV in field video productions. Color Corrector, Video Disc
product, Computer-controlled Video Editing System, Complete, turnkey system
design, installation and testing of UHF TV station, Channel 31, Sacramento, CA.
and 100 Million $ TV station complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Bachelors of Science Degree in Electronics from California State University at
Fresno, CA. Credits towards MBA. Many technical and management classes.
Technical classes attended include: MPEG, ATM, ADSL, IEEE 1394 Firewire, Fiber
Channel, DSP, FPLA, NGIO, TCP/IP, H-320, H-323, T-120 Voice over IP, and Gigabit
Routing and Switching, Bluetooth, cellular systems. Software classes and
experience include AutoCAD, Douglas Cad for PCB Layout and Sheet-metal
Layout, Word, Excel, Astound, Power Point, Visual Basic, Real Basic, C, C++, Delphi,
Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, Cyberstudio, Director, Premier, Java, Java
Script, HTML, YK2 problem solving, WEB Page design, deployment, debugging, &
performance testing; Fuzzy Logic, GUI design, Computer Telephony Technology,
PIC Development.
Experienced using and supervising development of projects using Basic,
DOS, Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT, Linux and BE OS, Netscape, Internet Explorer on 386,
486, Pentium II, Pentium Pro, Xeon, Pentium III and Alpha platforms. Macintosh
user since 1984.
Co-author of technical white paper on Computer Clustering. Author of
technical paper on MPEG, DVD and DVD-RAM, published in both Television
Broadcast and DVD Replicator magazines as well as numerous other technical
articles.
Training in Broadcast Automation and Multi-Channel Broadcast Systems at
the Systems Integration Center at Sony Electronics Headquarters in San Jose, CA.
Trained on broadcast and digital video systems used by DirecTV, DirecTV-Japan,
and A-SkyB Satellite Broadcast facilities.
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS AND AFILIATIONS
Society of Motion Picture and Televison Engineers
IEEE
Silicon Valley Robotics Society
Silicon Valley Model Helicopter Society
PARTIAL LIST OF CLIENTS
NBC, ABC & CBS Television Networks
CNN Television Network
PBS Television Network
RYE Television Network
Bloomberg Financial Network
News Channel 8
Apple Computer
KHOU-TV
KOTV
KUSA,
KWTV
KTUL
KICU
KETH
KAKE-TV
WISN-TV
WGME-TV
APPLE COMPUTER
SONY ELECTRONICS
MITSUBISHI ELECTRONICS
San Francisco Airport Security Department
Cellular OneCampbell Police Dept.
San Jose Traffic Dept.
BellSouth Cellular
AT&T
AVA
Advanced Video Technology
Richardson Electronics
(New York)
(Atlanta)
(Washington, DC)
(Italy)
(London)
(Washington, DC)
(Cupertino, CA)
(Houston, TX)
(Tulsa, OK)
(Denver, CO)
(Oklahoma City, OK)
(Tulsa, OK)
(Ch 36, San Jose, CA)
(Ch 54, San Jose, CA)
(Wichita, KS)
(Milwaukee, WI)
(Portland, ME)
(Cupertino, CA)
(San Jose, CA)
(Sunnyvale, CA)
(South San Francisco, CA)
(Atlanta, GA and Madison, WI)
(Campbell, CA)
(San Jose, CA)
(Atlanta, GA)
(New York)
(Tokyo, Japan)
(Rome, Italy)
(Chicago)
PARTIAL LIST OF CLIENTS (continued)
Allegheny Power
(Pennsylvania)
Geoffrey Industries
(New York)
Time Lapse Corporation
(Los Angeles)
Naval Air
(New Jersey)
Fort Meade
(Maryland)
Scandia National Labs
(New Mexico)
Port Everglades
(Florida)
Televisa
(Mexico)
FBI
(Washington, DC)
CIA
(Washington, DC)
NSA
(Washington, DC)
Bell Labs
(New Jersey)
Missouri Dept Of Transportation
(Jefferson City, MO)
Oregon Dept Of Transportation
(Portland, Oregon)
Southern Pacific Railroad
(Texas Border)
Rocky Mountain National Parks
(FBI- Colorado)
Los Angeles Sheriff Dept
(Los Angeles, CA)
City of Boca Raton
(Florida)
Roseville Hospital
(Roseville, CA)
USGS Geophysical Institute
(Alaska)
Steve Wosniac, Co-Founder, Apple Computer
John Sculley, President, Apple Computer
Lee Feldenstein, Designer of Osborne Computer
Nolan Bushnell, Founder of Atari
George Foster, President, Foster Farms
Brett Leonard, Director of “Lawnmower Man” Movie
Francis Ford Coppola at Zeotrope Studios, Hollywood, CA
George Lucas at Skywalker Ranch, CA
TECHNICAL CONFERENCES AND TRADE SHOWS RECENTLY ATTENDED
National Association of Broadcasters, (NAB), Las Vegas, NV
IBC Broadcaster Show, Amsterdam
Montreaux Broadcast Show, Switzerland
Comtek Computer Show, Moscow, Russia
Computex Computer Show, Taipei, Taiwan
Consumer Electronic Show, Hong Kong
DVD Digital Video Show, Santa Clara
Telecon Videoconferencing Show, Anaheim, CA
DVD Digital Video Show, Santa Clara
Electric Vehicle Expo, Alameda, CA
DVD Digital Video Show, Santa Clara
Internet World Show, San Jose, CA
Linux World Show, San Jose, CA
Wescon, San Francisco, CA
Nepcon, Anaheim, CA
Comdex, Las Vegas, NV
RF Design show, San Jose, CA
Electronic Show, Osaka, Japan
Wireless System Show, San Jose, CA
Embedded System Show, Santa Clara, CA
Computer Telephony Show, San Jose, CA
MacWorld Computer Show, San Francisco, CA
Consumer Electronic Show, Las Vegas, NV
Wireless System Show, San Jose, CA
CAD Design Show, Santa Clara, CA
Vision Show, San Francisco, CA
Security Show, Los Angeles, CA
Sensors Expo, Santa Clara, CA
PLD Show, Santa Clara, CA
Altera System-On-A-Chip Seminar, San Francisco, CA
Teleconferencing Show, San Jose, CA