Management Team
Cardinal Peak's management team possesses broad and deep engineering expertise and experience. Our five partners oversee a staff of more than 40 senior technology professionals who work closely with our customers to ensure a high degree of satisfaction.
Most engagements begin with a high-level consultation by one or more of our partners. At the partner level, we help clients define requirements, address technical feasibility, and understand the level of investment required to develop a given feature set on the desired schedule. Our partners are extremely comfortable working at the intersection of business needs and deep engineering challenges.
HOWDY PIERCE
Managing Partner, Co-founder
Howdy Pierce's technical background is in multimedia systems, software engineering and operating systems. Mr. Pierce co-founded Cardinal Peak in 2002. From 1999 to 2002, Mr. Pierce co-founded and served as CEO of Vantum Corporation, a venture-backed startup addressing the market for networked video for enterprise applications: training, meeting recording, video documentation and video surveillance. The company's Video Appliance product was awarded Best of Show at its debut at Networld+Interop in May 2001, and received strongly positive reviews in several industry trade magazines. Prior to Vantum, Mr. Pierce was employed at DiviCom, where he held senior management roles in engineering and system integration. Earlier, Mr. Pierce served in engineering management and engineering roles at Taligent, the Santa Cruz Operation, and Microsoft. Mr. Pierce holds a B.S. in mathematics and writing from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Computer Science Department at the University of Colorado.
Resume (PDF) | Blog posts
MIKE PERKINS, Ph.D.
Managing Partner, Co-founder
Mike Perkins's technical background is concentrated in digital signal processing algorithms, video compression and communications theory. Dr. Perkins co-founded Cardinal Peak in 2002. From 1999 to 2002, Dr. Perkins co-founded and served as VP of Engineering of Vantum Corporation, where he led the on-schedule and on-budget development of the company's award-winning MPEG-over-IP product line. Prior to starting Vantum, Dr. Perkins co-founded DiviCom, where he served as Director of Engineering for video algorithm research, and later as Director of Engineering for IP over cable and satellite products. Previously, Dr. Perkins served as staff engineer at Scientific-Atlanta, acting as SA's internal expert on digital media compression. Dr. Perkins was an active participant on the MPEG-2 standards committee and the ATM Forum; his work has resulted in numerous patents and publications. Dr. Perkins holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in electrical engineering and an M.S. in statistics from Stanford University, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Kansas University. Resume (PDF) | Blog posts
CHAD SCATES
Partner
Chad Scates has significant experience managing software development teams and developing GUI-intensive applications in a cross-platform environment (Windows, Linux, Solaris, Irix). He previously served as Director of Application Development at Green Mountain Geophysics, where he led a team in implementing interactive user interfaces for scientific analysis. Mr. Scates holds a B.S. in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Resume (PDF) | Blog posts
BEN MESANDER
Partner
Ben Mesander has more than 18 years of experience leading software development teams and implementing software. His strengths include Linux, C, C++, numerical methods, control systems and digital signal processing. His experience includes embedded software, scientific software and enterprise software development environments, as well as business development and presales technical work. Mr. Mesander holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Oklahoma. Resume (PDF) | Blog posts
MICHAEL DEEDS
Partner
Mike Deeds' technical background is in embedded systems hardware and software design, including FPGA and ASIC design. He has significant expertise in engineering project management and product definition and architecture. Prior to joining Cardinal Peak in 2008, Mr. Deeds was on the technical staff at MobilePeak Systems, where he was involved in the design of a 3G wireless user terminal. Earlier in his career he worked at Precision Photonics and Qualcomm. He holds an M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a focus on computer architecture, and B.S. in electrical engineering from Marquette University. Resume (PDF) | Blog posts
BLOG:
Engineering Expertise
Experts in embedded software, system software, hardware design, digital video, IP networking, system architecture, signal processing.
Case Studies
See how Cardinal Peak engineering consulting services have helped companies in a variety of industries successfully bring new embedded devices to market.
"Cardinal Peak's knowledge of video recording systems, streaming video solutions and transcoding is exceptional. They have the ability to add expertise to a project on short notice, and allowed us to meet some aggressive timelines."
Red Hen Systems
