Team Biographies

Wendell E. McCulley | Steven Repetto | Abhijeet D. Sathe


Wendell E. McCulley

Wendell E. McCulley received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Missouri-Rolla in 1982. Initial work included research in the use of platinum doping in fast switching transistors. He has worked in design and process development of MEMS devices since 1983 first with Motorola where his work included development of the first commercially available monolithic integrated pressure sensor which is still in production today, and the 50,000g accelerometer used in the Desert Storm Bunker Buster missle. At Honeywell from 1985-1989 his work encompassed Design, Development, and Long Term Stability Testing of high accuracy sensors for jet engine and avionics applications. These included the primary Airspeed and Altitude Sensor for most Boeing and McDonell Douglas Commercial Aircraft, and a suite of sensors for GE Jet engines.

From 1989-1992 his development efforts were directed in the automotive sensor and process control industries in the Delco Advanced Sensor Design group, and Foxboro/ICT respectively. As one of the initial members in the startup of Silicon MicroStructures Inc. he designed a range of MEMS including Pressure Sensors, Accelerometers, and Biomedical Sensors, and engaged in extensive process development playing a key role in taking the company’s growth to $3 million annual revenue within two years.

Later, from 1993-1995, as Staff Scientist at Lucas NovaSensor, he developed a novel double spring-mass accelerometer, and was a co-inventor of the Deep Reactive Ion Etching Process used to fabricate many novel MEMS devices such as leaf spring Comb Resonators, Wobble Motors, and Thermal Actuators in monolithic silicon several years ahead of the rest of the industry. Mr. McCulley was also President of Tesseract Engineering Consultants beginning in 1995 and developed such novel MEMS structures as a Bi-stable Buckling Mode Micro-relay actuated by TiNi shape memory alloy, and a unique thermally actuated Normally Closed Silicon MicroValve among others.

As Sr. Scientist at SSI Technologies in Wisconsin from 1997-2000, he directed a team of engineers in the development of an entire line of Automotive Sensors for ABS braking, Vehicle Stability Enhancement Systems (VSES), and Continuously Variable Transmission applications among others, as well as basic reasearch into polysilicon surface micromachined sensors. He also engaged in extensive Sales and Marketing activity both in the US and Europe dealing directly with key corporate customers in the early negotiations culminating in delivery of a Multi-year, Multi-million Dollar contract for delivery of ABS brake sensors to TRW. Most recently, as Sr. Staff Scientist at Invensys Sensor Systems - SenSym/ICT Div., he was involved in solving Design and Process problems resulting in retaining several million dollars in annual revenue that would have otherwise been lost to competitors. He was also responsible for implementing a new product development group under his direction, and forging strategic relationships with University and Industry partners aimed at producing future business opportunities.

After a quarter of a century as one of the pioneers in the MEMS Industry, Wendell has a proven track record of both Technical and Business successes. Along with his extensive experience in the industry he affords a plethora of past relationships, and tried and true judgement to draw upon in his role as President & CEO of InterMEMS Inc.

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Steven Repetto

Steven Repetto is an experienced Sales and Marketing professional with an excellent track record of business development and market growth within the industry. He has over 25 years experience including 12 years specific to the MEMS industry. During his career, Steve has demonstrated a superlative ability to interface with colleagues and clients to provide optimal solutions to customer requirements. By applying his expertise in strategic planning, in conjunction with his deep knowledge of the MEMS Industry and customers, he will be a key contributor to the success of InterMEMS Inc as Director of Sales.

Since 1981 Steve has worked as an applications engineer, product marketing engineer and various positions in technical sales and sales management. During his tenure in the MEMS industry, Steve has held technical sales and sales management positions with companies such as IC Sensors, Silicon Microstructures, Microflow Analytical and Foxboro/ICT. Steve’s efforts have been instrumental in meeting and exceeding sales goals as well as other successes such as application notes, sales channel development and training, market analysis (markets, products, applications etc.) and product presentations.

Prior to InterMEMS, Steve spent 10 years in the RF and Microwave industries. During this term at Avantek, Inc., Steve’s responsibilities included product line support and growth of RF amplifiers, mixers, and control devices including a key role introducing a new product line of surface mount RF components. Steve also has 8 years experience in the Semiconductor industry at ENI, Inc. and Huettinger Electronic providing sales expertise and support for DC and RF power delivery systems. Among Steve’s accomplishments was to establish new customer relationships and win key power supply sockets for new solar photovoltaic requirements.

Steve graduated with a B.S. in Business Management at Golden Gate University and he holds an A.S. degree in Electronics Technology from the College of San Mateo.

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Abhijeet D. Sathe

Abhijeet D. Sathe received the BS degree in Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunication from the University of Poona, Pune, India in 1990. He began his career working in R&D for Phillips India’s Test & measurement group where he performed extensive analog circuit simulation, design, and product development resulting in a state of the art Dual Trace Oscilloscope. Based on his interest in MEMS he attended graduate school at University of Hawaii, Manoa in Honolulu, Hawaii where He received the MS degree in 1993 with specialization in MEMS and Microelectronics. He is a Bona Fide expert in Thin Film deposition techniques especially as they relate to MEMS devices.

Consequently, he joined Silicon Microstructures Inc. where he utilized his considerable expertise in Design for Manufacturability, Process Development and Characterization, Statistical Process Control, and advanced Device and Process Simulation techniques. He also conceived and led the implementation of SMI’s ISO-9001 and QS-9000 compliance, and subsequent certification. He demonstrated his exceptional expertise in design and development at SMI as evidenced by publication of several Industry recognized Papers, and 3 MEMS patents issued.

In 1999 he demonstrated his entrepreneurial skills when along with his partners he started Percep Inc. a MEMS startup targeting the Humidity Sensor Market. At Percep he acted as Vice President of Development, and Managed Design, Processing, Assembly, and Testing of the humidity sensor as well as interfacing with Venture Capital and Angel investors. He was intimately involved in creating the business plan, and negotiated key supplier relationships, along with implementation of a Micromachining fabrication facility.

Subsequently, at Nayna Networks Inc. as their Engineering Manager, he was involved with a pre-IPO startup in the development of a MEMS optical cross-connect switch. As such he was involved in all phases of product development from MEMS design, Fabrication, and Packaging, to Device stability, Deep RIE etch, Mirror curvature, and Actuation Schemes. This effort culminating in compliance testing to exacting Telcordia standards.

More recently he served as the Manager of General Electric’s R&D Laboratory in Bangalore India, where he was responsible for leading technical breakthroughs in MEMS. After his successes in Bangalore, He returned to the US with the then recently acquired NovaSensor Division of GE as Director of their Wafer Fabrication Facility. In this role Abhijeet was responsible for GE’s Global MEMS production and Process engineering, improving yields, cost performance, and successfully launching new products. He was awarded the coveted Master Black Belt in DMAIC/DFSS Six Sigma at GE.

Currently he is Director of Quality at SunPower Inc. a premier Solar Cell developer with one of the highest efficiency devices in the industry. Abhijeet has worked in the entire value chain of this highly vertically integrated Solar Company. He is currently working on product quality and reliability that is essential for the solar industry.

Abhijeet’s extensive experience in various areas of MEMS design, well known penchant for process control, significant industry contacts, entrepreneurial affinity, and proven track record of success are among the myriad reasons he was invited to serve on InterMEMS’ Technical Advisory Board.

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