WorkMail: Dale Amon c/o Scott-Baird & Co Ardbeg, Drominane Killeagh, Co Cork, Ireland OfficePhone: +44 (0)7802 188325 Email: amon@vnl.com
BS 1973, Carnegie-Mellon University, Electrical Engineering Department. Computer option and minor in Cognitive Psychology.
3 semesters of graduate work under Dr. Herbert Simon (Nobel laureate) in a multidisciplinary program involving Psychology, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Departments. Left to join a startup company.
1969-1972 Carnegie-Mellon University Electrical Engineering Department. Machine shop, inventory work, design of lab power supplies. 1972 Mellon Institute. Research Assistant. Design and construction of interfaces between an NMR Spectrometer, a plotter and a PDP-8 computer. 1972-1973 Carnegie-Mellon University. Teaching Assistant. Freshman Electrical Engineering under Dr. Teare and a graduate level programming course under Dr. Daniel Siewiorek. 1973-1976 Compuguard Corporation (US). First employee. Varied experience; machining, drafting, digital and analog design, PC layout, PC prototyping, purchasing, QA, QC, software design, data collection and analysis, proposal and report writing, marketing assistance and many other tasks. 1976-1978 Compuguard Corporation (US). Software Department Manager. Peak of 15 persons. Managed the fielding of first product lines of the corporation. 1978-1979 Compuguard Corporation (US). Independent Research. Developed PDP-11 and LSI-11 drivers and software packages. Multi-terminal device independent graphics and intelligent user interfaces based on a tree search through a menu space. 1979-1981 Compuguard Corporation (US) (Brown Boveri Compuguard as of 4/80) Firmware Department Manager. Design leader on state of the art distributed process control system with distributed process database. Handled issues of failsoft operation, link loss, local autonomy, database coherency. Developed a full realtime OS from scratch that was still in use at customer sites a decade later. 1981 Brown Boveri Control Systems Inc (US). Staff Scientist. General problem solving activities. Resident expert on DEC hardware and software. 1982 DMA Systems Inc (US). President. One person consulting firm. 1983-1984 Pribadi Systems Group (US). Vice President. Color graphic displays for building automation systems using IBM-PC's as central control computer. 1984-1985 Carnegie-Mellon University Robotics Institute. Research Programmer. Computer vision research. Edge and corner detection using light stripe technique with IR laser striper on a Puma Robot arm for opportunistic investigation of objects. Unix environment, 3d graphics, interprocessor links. 1985-June 1989 Carnegie-Mellon University Computer Science Department. Research Programmer. Work on human interfaces using mouse and gesture sensing input devices. Design of system independent control panel building program in XLISP. Support for XLISP interpreter. Unix environment. Andrew and X11 windows. VAX, Sun2 and RT's. Object oriented programming. Jan 1989-Jul 1989 MicroMed Corporation (US). Consultant, Principal Software Engineer. Design of medical instrumentation using modern object oriented and AI techniques on a NeXT workstation. Software configuration control, standards, development environment, QA/QC procedures design. Jul 1989-Nov 1990 MicroMed Corporation (US). Northern Ireland Representative. Responsible for liaison with Northern Ireland business, financial and technical contacts. System/subsystem level design and specification for a medical instrumentation product line. Nov 1990-Oct 1991 Visual Information Systems Ltd (NI). Consultant. Responsible for set up of a PC based facility for generating animation sequences and downloading them to customer sites. Jan 1991-June 1993 Queens University Belfast, Computer Science Department. Research Programmer/Teaching Assistant. Research in Direct Manipulation Interfaces, gestures, Agora systems on the NeXT Computer. Systems and adminstration support for a network of NeXT Unix workstations. Internet domain administrator for the department. Creation of heterogeneous internetworked computing environment. General purpose campus C and Unix Guru. NeXT Campus Consultant. Creation and presentation of training courses on Unix, C, Object Oriented Programming and the NeXT computer. Demonstrator on hardware and assembly programming course (91) and administrator of the hardware course (92). Jan 1993-Nov 1997 Genesis Project Ltd (NI), Technical Director Design of GIS and Real Estate point of sale package using NeXTStep and Objective-C. Set up of Northern Ireland's first commercial internet service. DNS, routing and software systems for internal automation in Perl, C, html and mSQL. Set up of several of the first web sites in Northern Ireland. Jan 1993-June 1998 Queens University Belfast, School of Music, Consultant Consulting and System Admin for NeXT Computers in the music lab. Nov 1997-2001 Village Networking Ltd (NI), MD/CEO Founder and director. High end Internet consulting, cybercast engineering, product development. Managed moving and set up of ISP's; Linux systems integration and product development. Unix systems admin and security. Apr 1999-2001 Wireless Citynet Ltd, (NI), Board member Aug 2000-2001 WirelessCity.Net Ltd, (NI), Staff Scientist, Board member Aug 2000-Feb 2003 First Commercial Holdings Ltd, (IE), Board member Nov 2001-Feb 2003 Village Networking (Ireland) Ltd, Director High end Internet consulting, Linux based high security product line under development; prime contractor for ITTI's banking and secure trading system. Mar 2003-present Independent consulting. High end Internet consulting; bespoke debian linux based systems; security; critical systems development; system and application software development; webcast on-demands editor for major JPMorgan investor conferences; Perl and C system prototyping; system level design studies. Customers include XCOR Aerospace, MAPDigital, Barnhard Associates and Odyssey Consortium. Sep 2006-present Wyoming Space and Information Systems (WYSIS), VP Information Systems Management of NewSpace information systems design and deployment.
Colleague, Space Studies Institute (SSI). National Space Society Board of Directors, 1987. Candidate for 2004-2007 term. L5 Society Board of Directors, Mid Atlantic Regional Director 1984,86. Pittsburgh L5 Chapter: founder 82; president 82-85; VP R&D 86-87. Prepublication reviewer, "Engines of Creation", K.Eric Drexler. Prepublication reviewer, "Mind Children", Hans Moravec. Spacepac Chapters Coordinator 1984-1987. Member, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Chairman of Northeast Regional Space Development Conference, Pittsburgh 1984. Manager of banquet, luncheon, open, closing. 4th Space Development Conference, Wash., DC 1985. Testified before President's National Commission on Space, 1986. Chairman 6th Space Development Conference, Pittsburgh 1987. Pennsylvania State Delegate, 1987 Libertarian National Convention. Pennsylvania elector for Libertarian Party, 1988. Author of space policy statements for the Ron Paul presidential campaign, Libertarian Party, 1988. Registered NeXT Computer software developer. Permanent member, Mikkelsen Award Governing Board (for the first woman to set foot on the moon). Member Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Chairman and Founder, The Songwriters Session, Belfast (1992-1998). Member, Performing Right Society (1992-1995). Member, Irish Music Right Organization (1995-). Songwriter of The Year, The Front Page music awards, Belfast (1993). Molecular Manufacturing Shortcut Group Board of Directors (1993-). Who's Who in the World, 12th, 13th and 14th Editions. Invited for American Biographical Institute 5000 Personalities of the World, 5th Edition. Invited for Dictionary of International Biography, 24th edition. Wrote several Object Classes now included in MiscKit. Ireland contact for the Artemis Society International (1995-). Member, Artemis Electronic Communications Technical Committee (1995-?). Charter Member, Lunar Entrepreneurs Association (1997-?). National Space Society Conferences Committee Chairman (2002-present) Libertarian Samizdata, Assistant Editor (2001-?). National Space Society Archives Committee Chairman (2005-present) National Space Society Award for Excellence (2007)
"A Gesture Based User Interface Prototyping System", Roger B. Dannenberg and Dale Amon, User Interface Software and Technologies '89 Conference (UIST '89). abstract
"The Impact of Molecular Engineering on Spacecraft Information Systems". Invited paper, special issue on nanotechnology, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Aug 1994.
"Rethinking the Moon Buggy". Moon Miners Manifesto, Dec 95, #91, p9-10
I have 10 hours solo time in a Cessna 150, dual time in both 150's and 172's. I was a part owner of the Cessna 172. I passed my written FAA exam at one time but was unable to complete my training for financial reasons.
I worked as both an amateur and a professional in theater during the 1970's. Jobs included: actor, electrician, lighting designer, technical director, producer and stage carpenter. I also was a guitarist, vocalist and song writer with several bands during the same period. I have performed on radio and at festivals in the US and Ireland. I hold a US Copyright on two collections totalling 24 songs. I organized a Cooperation North cultural exchange between Belfast and Galway in summer 1992. Organized a songwriter tour of several american cities in summer 1994. I have operated the online archives of the Internet based "Space Digest" since 1992; have been a keeper of those archives since the mid 80's and a contributor since 1984.
Hobbies have included skiing, hiking, rock climbing, stamp and coin collecting, and model building.
I have been "bylined" and occasionally paid for articles in national publications of up to 20,000 circulation. I have been a guest speaker on the commercial space business at numerous conferences and meetings.