Dean started doing product development work for Vansco in 1981 during his first year of undergraduate studies, attaining BSc.(EE) 1984 from UofM.  He developed analog and digital electronics, and wrote real-time firmware and software, developing a load shedding sequencer for electric furnaces, control algorithms for Conviron growth chambers, and a power disturbance recorder for Manitoba Hydro’s remote grid.  As General Manager and Product Development Manager of Vansco’s APT Division, he participated in, and managed, the design of entirely new power system relays and disturbance recorders.  The APT division became NxtPhase Relays & Recorders Division, now ERLPhase.  He and a colleague founded Elecsys Solutions, which served small businesses and individuals, developing data acquisition systems, agricultural electronics, and medical device proof-of-concept devices.  Elecsys was purchased by Norscan in 2007, where, as Product Development Manager, Dean helped to hire and mentor young engineers who developed new products for telecom outside plant monitoring.  Dean recently worked for four years at GE Grid Automation in Phoenix, Arizona, in the Digital Instrument Transformers “DIT” group, working on the electronics for fibre optic current transformers.  At present, Dean is the Embedded Software Engineering Manager for Wabtec in Oakbank, Manitoba.

Dr. Philip Ferguson is a space systems engineer and Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Manitoba.  He received his Bachelor of Applied Science from the University of Toronto in Engineering Science (Aerospace option) and holds a Masters and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Aerospace Engineering.   Dr. Ferguson is the Director of the Space Technology and Advanced Research Lab (STARLab) and holds the NSERC / Canadian Space Agency / Magellan Aerospace Industrial Research Chair in Satellite Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Manitoba.  Dr. Ferguson’s research focuses on new spacecraft manufacturing and control technologies that can improve satellite reliability while simultaneously reducing the cost and design cycle times, thereby improving the accessibility of space.