Experts

In Memory of

Ronald E. Reedy, PhD

Scientist • Founder • Visionary • Mentor

Dr. Ronald E. Reedy was a rare combination of scientist, inventor, and builder — a technologist whose ideas did not stay on paper but became real systems that advanced industries and expanded what was thought possible.

Throughout his career, Ron dedicated himself to solving hard problems at the intersection of physics, engineering, and space. Trained as a scientist and driven by relentless curiosity, he earned his PhD and went on to become a recognized leader in advanced communications, semiconductor technologies, and satellite systems.

As founder and CEO of Skeyeon, Ron helped pioneer a new class of Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) satellites, redefining how spacecraft can operate closer to Earth with greater efficiency, lower latency, and dramatically improved performance. His work on novel materials, atmospheric survivability, and high-efficiency downlink architectures led to multiple foundational patents and opened the door to a new generation of space-based sensing and communications platforms.

But Ron’s legacy extends far beyond technical achievement.

He believed innovation was a team sport. He built organizations where bold ideas were encouraged, where engineers were empowered to challenge convention, and where “impossible” was simply a starting point. Colleagues remember him as both exacting and generous — a mentor who demanded rigor while freely sharing knowledge and opportunity.

He approached engineering with both discipline and imagination: part scientist, part entrepreneur, and always a problem-solver. To Ron, every constraint was an invitation to invent something better.

Today, the technologies he envisioned continue to shape the future of space systems, communications, and advanced electronics. His influence lives on in the company he built, the patents he authored, the teams he inspired, and the many professionals whose careers he helped guide.

Ron will be remembered not only for what he created, but for how he led — with integrity, intellectual courage, and an unwavering belief that meaningful progress comes from pushing boundaries.

Mike Knowles has been appointed and serves as Executive Officer.  Mike brings 30+ years of aerospace and defense leadership, driving innovation and growth. He previously served as President of Cubic’s Mission & Performance Solutions (leading a broad all-domain C5ISR portfolio) and as VP/GM of C5ISR Systems at Curtiss-Wright. Earlier in his career, he held senior posts at Collins Aerospace and Lockheed Martin. A retired U.S. Navy officer and graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, Knowles holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy, an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School, and an MBA from George Mason University.

Rob Weitendorf has been appointed and serves as Operations Officer. Rob is a satellite-communications veteran who co-founded Lepton Global Solutions (acquired by Kymeta in 2020). At Kymeta, he led U.S. government and military sales and previously served as VP of Business Development, focusing on mission-critical SATCOM solutions for SOCOM and other agencies. He began his career in COTM SATCOM at Tachyon Networks and led sales at MTN Government. Weitendorf also serves on the World Teleport Association Board of Directors.

Tom Schwartzentruber’s role at Skeyeon is to provide technical expertise in the areas of aerodynamics, propulsion, and attitude control. Tom is currently a professor of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Minnesota. He joined the faculty in the Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics department in 2008, after which he received a Young Investigator Program Award from the AFOSR. Tom specializes in rarefied gas dynamics and particle simulation methods such as direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) applied mainly to hypersonic flow problems. Tom has served on Skeyeon’s Executive Advisory Board since 2015 and advises in the areas of aerodynamics, propulsion, and systems integration. He received his bachelor’s degree in engineering science and his master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Toronto. Tom holds a doctorate degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan, for which his work received the AIAA Orville and Wilbur Wright graduate award.

Timothy K. Minton is in charge of materials and coatings for Skeyeon, including our proprietary low drag, atomic-oxygen resistant material. He is currently a professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Colorado. Tim earned his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1980 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1986. Following two post-doctoral positions at the University of Illinois and the University of Zürich, Switzerland, he became a Member of Technical Staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA in 1989. In 1995, he joined the faculty at Montana State University, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, from which he transferred to the University of Colorado in the summer of 2020. He is a fellow of the American Chemical Society, the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he is a senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Tim’s current research projects include studies of gas-phase and gas-surface energy transfer and reactions, including boundary layer chemistry in shock layers on hypersonic vehicles, oxidation and decomposition of heat-shield materials, the concentration of gases in rarefied planetary atmospheres, and the development of new and more durable materials for use on spacecraft in low Earth orbit.

Erica Helgerson is an IP and Innovation Leader. Most recently, she managed patent prosecution at pSemi Corporation (formerly Peregrine Semiconductor) and oversaw a patent portfolio of over 1000 assets.  A founding member of the IP department, she created a comprehensive internal patent system including strategy and management, quality and financial metrics, value analysis, and national and international filing strategies. In five years, her department identified, extracted, and reviewed over 500 inventions at a committee level, more than quadrupling the number of patent assets.  The portfolio has been recognized as a ‘Top 10’ of the semiconductor industry by IEEE.

Prior to her IP career, Erica held multiple roles at Peregrine, including Product Infrastructure Manager, where she managed all Design IP for reuse, and Design Engineer, where she designed RF switches.

Erica holds a M.S. in Electrical Engineering (circuit-design focus), a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, and a B.A. in Piano Performance from University of California, San Diego.  She is a registered patent agent with the USPTO.

Jacqueline Townsend Rosenthal’s role at Skeyeon is to support the company’s internal and external communications. For more than 30 years, Jacqueline, branding expert and Chief Strategist for Townsend Team, has been turning underdogs into market leaders. She has helped clients like HNC Software and Qualcomm through the rigors of an IPO, and she has helped established public companies like ARM and pSemi Corporation (formerly Peregrine Semiconductor) improve market presence. Yet, it was her expertise helping startups launch disruptive offerings that led her to create a methodology for helping companies to quickly identify a unique brand platform and to solidify their unique position in the marketplace. This program is called The Big Brand Workshop. This proven methodology is the basis for her consulting firm and has roots tracing back to The Townsend Agency, which she sold in 2007. She has also served as CMO of BioSurplus and CEO of Restorative Remedies. Her work has become the standard by which successful branding, marketing and public relations campaigns are measured.

Jacqueline graduated summa cum laude from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio with her M.S. in industrial psychology and earned her B.S. in psychology and liberal studies from California State University, Long Beach.

Jacqueline is a published author, co-authoring “Gluten Nation: The Alarming Role That Gluten Plays in Arthritis, ADHD, Autism, Bipolar Disorder, Cancer, Diabetes, Fibromyalgia and Other Ailments” in 2009.

Jacqueline has been recognized for her expertise and contributions by both professional and industry organizations, including the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year, PR Week’s Public Relations Practitioner of the Year, finalist for Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year, and The T Sector’s teleFUSION ’03 PR Leader of the Year. The American Marketing Association named Jacqueline Marketer of the Year, and she was a finalist for the Pinnacle Award sponsored by UCSD’s CONNECT’s Athena Awards. She is also a gifted leader in bringing together teams of highly talented contributors to deliver outstanding results. The Townsend Agency was recognized with the Arthur Andersen Best Practices Award for employee retention and motivation.

Dr. Krishnan has dedicated the past 50 years to the study of plasma physics. After earning his Ph.D. in MPD thrusters in 1976 from Princeton University, Dr. Krishnan spent nine years at Yale where he rose to Associate Professor of Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering. After Yale, he was Chief Scientist at Physics International Company, where he led development of pulsed power-driven x-ray sources and x-ray lasers, before founding AASC in 1994. NASA’s recently refocused attention on small satellites in deep space, along with the sea-change in commercial LEO launch capability and small satellite production, presented Dr. Krishnan with a unique opportunity to introduce a superior new micro-electric propulsion technology (MPT) to small satellite missions in LEO. Dr. Krishnan has over 100 peer reviewed publications on topics ranging from electric propulsion to fusion, plasma isotope separation, pulsed power, atomic physics, UV and x-ray lasers, x-ray spectroscopy, superconducting accelerator science and thin film materials science.

John Roberti currently is the Founder and Managing Director of The Passage Group, a full-service consulting firm specializing in federal and state government affairs and strategy advisory services. Prior to Passage Group, John most recently served as senior vice president of government relations and strategy for Cubic Corporation, a global leader in the defense and transportation industries. He has more than 30 years of defense experience across a variety of assignments and transitioned from active-duty service as a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy. His last assignment while on active duty was as the Deputy Director, Joint Strategic Planning on The Joint Staff, J-5 in the Pentagon. There he was responsible for the Joint Strategic Planning System including the National Military Strategy and the annual Chairman’s Risk Assessment. He was also co-director of the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review. His other shore duty assignments include Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, General Planning and Programming Division (OP-80), The Joint Staff, J-5, Directorate for Strategic Plans and Policy as a politico-military planner assigned as the Bosnia-Herzegovina desk officer; and the Pentagon with assignments as the executive assistant and aide to the ASN (FM&C), USD (Comptroller) and to the Undersecretary of the Navy. Additionally, Roberti served ashore at the Joint Warfighting Center, U.S. Joint Forces Command as Chief, Deployable Training Team where he was responsible for training all Joint Task Forces/Joint Force commanders and all Regional Combatant commander battle staffs in the conduct of real-world Joint/Combined operations and CJCS directed exercises. His sea duty assignments include USS Iwo Jima (LPH-2), serving twice in HSL-34, Commanding Officer of HSL-42; and three tours on USS Nassau (LHA-4) as Air Boss, Executive Officer and Commanding Officer. John graduated from The Pennsylvania State University and attended the Naval War College in Newport, R. I. graduating with distinction.

Tero Ranta is a seasoned entrepreneur and investor with a rich background in technology and innovation. Beginning his Radio Frequency Engineering career at Nokia in 2002, Tero later joined Peregrine Semiconductor (currently pSemi Corporation) in San Diego, where he spent 18 years leading an RF semiconductor design team that developed components for Tier 1 cell phone companies. His contributions were instrumental in generating over $1B in revenue, and he holds more than 100 patents. As the founder of Stella Polaris Ventures, Tero now focuses on empowering visionary startups, providing strategic capital and guidance across diverse industries. His portfolio includes innovative companies like Newtopia Cyder, Skeyeon, and Talos AGI.

Ron Melanson serves as Chief Engineer & Operations for EvoNexus Silicon Valley. He previously served as Vice President of Engineering and managed the Hardware Quality Office at Oracle Corp.

As VP of Engineering, he was responsible for Hardware Central Engineering, hardware quality, and customer advocacy. To this capacity, his organization provided customer solutions and best practice guides, competitive benchmarking, application tuning, and advanced compiles. His team also supported compliance, safety and RoHS testing, and certification.

Prior to Oracle, Ron served a dual role at Sun MicroSystems as Distinguished Engineer and Vice President of Engineering. To that capacity, he managed the development of several SRARC CPU programs and lead the development of advanced semiconductor technologies with strategic FAB partners.

Ron’s engineering career before Sun Microsystems was rooted at Digital Equipment Corporation, where Ron served as a consulting engineer developing process technologies, custom chips and EDA tools for the development of VAX and high-end systems.

Ron took his B.S. and M.S degrees in E.E. at Northeastern University.

University.

Dan Nobbe is responsible for Skeyeon’s radio systems, regulatory approvals, and patents.
Dan has served on the Skeyeon Expert Advisory Board since 2017. He is responsible for the RF links, regulatory approvals, and patent activity.

Since 2018, Dan has served on the leadership team and as an instructor for the Microfacturing Institute, where he participates in the mission and strategy definition, and creates courses as an instructor at San Jose City College. Dan is currently the director of IP Development at pSemi Corporation (formerly Peregrine Semiconductor). Dan has held several high-level leadership roles at pSemi, serving as vice president of Corporate Research and Patent Development from 2014 to 2018, vice president of RF Integration from 2009 to 2014, and vice president of engineering from 2002 to 2009. During Dan’s 20-year tenure, pSemi created breakthroughs in RF SOI antenna switches and tuning products, as well as CMOS power amplifiers. These breakthroughs have led to changes in the cell phone industry both in technology adoption and phone functionality.

Prior to pSemi, Dan was a senior staff engineer at Motorola and held engineering positions at Glenayre. He earned his MS in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington and his BS in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla. Currently, Dan holds 45 patents with more pending, and has published and presented more than a dozen technical papers. From 2002 to 2007, he served on the Technical Program Committee for IEEE’s RFIC Symposium.

Dr. Joseph Ford is the lead optical engineer at Skeyeon, where he oversees optical systems design and testing. As a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California San Diego, he led UCSD’s Photonics Systems Integration Lab, which does design and integration of free-space optical components including fiber optic switches and compact imagers. Dr. Ford was a member of Bell Labs Advanced Photonics Research Department from 1994 to 2000, where he demonstrated the first MEMS spectral equalizer and wavelength add/drop switches. He later became chief scientist of the San Diego startup Optical Micro-Machines before joining UCSD in 2002. Dr. Ford was General Co-Chair of the first IEEE Conference on Optical MEMS in 2000, the 2008 OSA/IEEE Optical Fiber Communications Conference, and the 2011 OSA Congress on Optics in Solar Power. Dr. Ford is an OSA and IEEE Fellow, author of over 200 journal articles and conference proceedings, and inventor on more than 50 United States optical communication and imaging patents. He holds degrees in physics from UCLA and the University of British Columbia, in optical engineering from Rochester’s Institute of Optics, and a Ph.D. in applied physics from UCSD.