VP Engineering / Operations

Mark DeYong, Ph.D.

**** ******* **** ********, *****, 75070

214-***-**** *****************@*****.***

Executive Profile

Product Engineering New Product Development & Launch International, Multi-Site Team Leadership

Strategic Planning Manufacturing High Technology R&D M&A

Expert senior business executive and top-level scientist with over fifteen years of success bringing new technologies and products from concept to market, increasing efficiency, productivity and quality. Reduces production costs, assesses problems and implements effective, permanent corrective actions. Creates sustainable revenue pipelines, market share growth and brand exposure by rationalizing product lines, consolidating products, defining and implementing the strategic vision and delivering on commitments.

Conceptualizes solutions based on current and emerging technologies, developing concepts into commercial products, transitioning products to high-yield manufacture and driving gains in efficiency. Leads dynamic, productive and effective teams, transforming underperforming individuals, departments and organizations and building cohesive and dedicated groups committed to achieving corporate and individual goals. Additional competencies include:

Intelligent Systems International Compliance

Quality Improvement Contract Negotiations & Deal-Making

Profit & Loss Management Project Management & Implementation

Budgetary Management & Cost Control Direction, Re-engineering of Mission & Vision

Career Synopsis

Xtera Communications, Inc., Allen, Texas 2004-2016

Telecommunications equipment and service supplier and provider of optical networks with annual sales of $100 million

Chief Scientist (2012–2016)

Collaborated with engineering, manufacturing, customer support and sales teams to address open issues, targeted at improving the corporate bottom line. Reporting to the Executive Vice President of Global Operations, handles strategic planning and analysis of historical trends, available technologies and the potential of new technologies to define strategic roadmaps. Leads quality improvement and enhanced tracking of production yields, RMAs and underlying issues to further reduce equipment failures and increase lifetime. Develops critical long-term relationships with suppliers to ensure the synergistic evolution of component and system.

Developing a new business unit and IP to address specialized submarine networks for government applications with projected revenues in excess of $50 million.

Cut COGS 44% by architecting next-generation Optima OTN equipment with a 2.5X capacity increase.

Saved over $600,000 per year in production and support expenses by driving production quality improvement of Optima equipment, reducing manufacturing failures and field returns by 70% and extending nominal product lifetime by over 2X.

Demonstrated the environmental ruggedness of the Optima line to a key customer with demanding physical environments, securing over $8 million in immediate orders, and a solid incumbent supplier position.

Vice President–Corporate Engineering (2008–2012)

Managed an international engineering team of 106 with sites in the US, CAN, UK, TWN and CHN, and a $10 million annual budget. Responsible for hiring and firing, performance evaluation and compensation determination. The team is a fraction of the size of all competitors, yet develops and deploys the most advanced optical networks in the world. Developed “Optima” product line (a consolidation of three acquired product lines with the existing Xtera products) with a 30 engineer team, estimated to be 10% of the size of any competing team, resulting in millions of dollars of savings in development costs.

Optima Product Line: Cut engineering and customer support requirements by 50%; Drove network COGS improvement of 53% and increased inventory turns by 2.7X through modular architecture and application-independent functionality; Cut field failures and RMAs by 2/3 by updating EOL designs to use fewer, more reliable BOL components.

Negotiated Relationship with Acacia Communications: For 100G MSA, the first commercially-available and overall highest performance 100G optical module. Enabled Xtera to deploy the first large scale coherent systems, establishing them as a world-class supplier of optical networks. Negotiated relationship with AMCC for 100G Framer, the first commercially-available 100G multiplexing framer solution. Enabled Xtera to be the first supplier of 10 X 10G to 100G aggregating transceivers, establishing them as a world-class supplier of optical networks. Deployed the first large-scale ($60 million) 100G long-haul network in the industry, with 128 network elements over 22,000 km spanning the entire country of MEX.

Vice President –New Product Introduction (2004–2008)

Led a team of 5 engineers performing due diligence on potential contract manufacturers (Celestica, Jabil, Sanmina-SCI, Flextronics, Solectron and Foxconn). Directed initial large-scale production efforts ($15M network build).

Drove 20% reduction in Xtera’s production costs, saving tens of millions of dollars, by creating Xtera’s first contract manufacturing relationship with Foxconn through significantly lower labor and OH rates than all other qualified CMs, and deferred billing [not billed until products shipped – held large raw component and finished goods inventories].

Drove FPYs to 90% by transitioning “Nu-Wave” product line from prototype to full production, developing CM production flows, training optical and mechanical assembly technicians and refining production processes.

Reduced equipment costs by 33%, bringing the cost of “Raman” line systems into competitive range of EDFA-based networks, resulting in a dramatically larger available market from 10% specialty applications to 70% general applications.

Saved $500,000 by transitioning Nu-Wave product line into full ROHS/WEEE compliance without external consultants, contractors or software packages.

Drove improvement in engineering team development and transfer to production efficiency, and improved inventory management by redesigning company EDC system, saving over $400,000 per year

Photon Dynamics, Inc., San Jose, CA 2001-2003

Flat-panel display test, inspection and repair equipment supplier with sales of $70 million annually

Vice President – Research and Development

Worked in concert with engineering and manufacturing teams to refine and expand product performance and improve production quality. Handled due-diligence reviews of potential acquisitions, assessing value and terms. Transitioned products from prototype to production status. Developed next-generation illumination and imaging systems.

Consolidated five acquired automated inspection technologies into the first reconfigurable, multi-spectral inspection station. Reduced equipment cost by 33%, as compared to single-spectrum solutions and improved inspection performance by over 2X, as compared to single-spectrum solutions.

Reduced the cost of a key acquisition by $2.4 million by exposing technology limitations and competitive IP.

Drove 20% reduction in product COGS, reducing cost from $150,000 to $120,000 per station, by leading the transition to PC LAN based image processing engines versus specialized FPGA/CPU processing accelerators on all products.

Intelligent Reasoning Systems, Inc., Austin, TX 1992-2001

A machine vision start-up focused on automated inspection of fine-pitch PCBAs and high-density IC packages, subsequently acquired by Photon Dynamics, Inc.

Founder, Vice President – Engineering

Managed a 20 engineer team with a $3M annual budget. Responsible for hiring and firing. Presented/demonstrated technology and products to key customers. Led field trials. Managed IP portfolio and wrote patents. Designed new facility layout and oversaw build-out. Built-up in-house production capability. Vendor selection. Product architect – transitioned raw concepts and technologies into compliant commercial products in international markets.

Awarded eight government SBIR contracts and an Intel development contract valued at $3.12 million to design the company’s sensor-driven intelligence engine and apply it to automated machine-vision inspection.

Improved inspection performance and consistency by over 2X, compared to human inspectors.

Reduced programming and operating requirements by over 3X.

Developed image resolution enhancement system that enabled a low resolution imager to produce the results of a high resolution imager at 1/2 - 1/3 the cost.

Education

New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM

Doctor of Philosophy; Master of Science; and Bachelor of Science degrees respectively in Electrical Engineering

Patents, Publications, & Associations

Holder of 12 U.S. Patents; Author of 30 Refereed Publications; Tau Beta Pi: past Member; Eta Kappa Nu: past Member;

NMSU Chapter of the National Academy of Inventors: Inducted Member

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