Introduction

Larry Van Der Jagt is a hands-on expert in technology with the capability to build and motivate teams and to implement effective and efficient solutions.  He has been called on many times in his career to “fix” situations where engineering errors have been made, products have been abandoned in an incomplete state or projects were in trouble during final stages of commissioning. He is skilled in RF Technology, Network and Information Technology, Hardware, Software and Firmware Technology and Project Management Techniques.

Recent Example Engagements

Henry Brother Electronics (acquired by Kratos) October 2007-December 2015

Completion of unfinished projects at the Lincoln Tunnel Holland Tunnel and World Trade Center 7 Henry Brothers Electronics had acquired a company that manufactured a variety of RF equipment for use in in-building and in-tunnel applications.  This equipment had evolved through several generations and was in use in a number of installations including the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and the Queens Midtown Tunnel since the early 1990s. 

As a result of this acquisition they won several projects including the replacement of the 800 MHz EDACs system in the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and the First Responders System (FDNY, EMS, Mutual Aid and PANYNJ Police) in-building system for WTC 7.

As these projects neared their committed completion date, the engineering and management team from the acquired company elected to terminate their employment and move on to other opportunities.  This left HBE with unfinished projects and as it turns out unfinished products.

Had been involved with the then current COO of Henry Brothers Electronics on previous projects and he requested support to guide the completion of these projects.

What was found was that the hardware and firmware of the products was incomplete and exhibited several design flaws.  This included bi-directional amplifiers, power amplifiers and the FDNY Control Console for WTC 7. Over the course of the next 12 months guided the effort to repopulate and engineering team, resolve the design flaws and test, install and commission the systems.

Acted as technical lead for maintaining the system at WTC 7 between it’s installation and 2016.  Also provided the technical lead for maintaining and upgrading where possible the equipment installed in the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and the Queens Midtown Tunnel.

Lead Technical Proposal Generating Team for WTC Tower One and MTA VHF Narrowband Upgrade

Henry Brother Electronics (now Kratos) had a desire to bid on the WTC Tower One Project and was hopeful that it’s successful implementation at WTC 7 might be a valuable asset in winning that work.  Led the team in analyzing the requested system and in generating Statements of Work for Electrical Contractors, Equipment Lists, Descriptions of Operation and various other items required to be compliant with the RFP requirements.

As part of this effort also developed an alternate design proposal that would have significantly reduced the project cost while eliminating some of the weaknesses of the requested design by replacing the required analog optical RF links with digital links.  There was no latitude at that late stage of the project to consider such alternates, however, we did deliver a proposal based on the approach requested in the RFP.

The best and final pricing we provided on this proposal ended up being within $100K of the final published price at which the project was awarded.

Technical Redesign and Implementation of in-building enhancement of coverage at Amtrak Union Station, Washington DC.

As part of an economic stimulus package Kratos was awarded a contract to upgrade the VHF coverage at Union Station in Washington DC.  The current coverage was being provided by a repeater that was approximately 100 yards from the station and called for an additional repeater and discrete antennas to be added to the station to enhance coverage.  A modification to this that included auxiliary receivers at the station, a voting system at the repeater and an RF over fiber transport of the transmit signal from the existing repeater with appropriate power amplification at the station and a radiating cable system to deliver the signal to the station areas requiring coverage was developed and implemented.

Defined cable routing options, coverage pre-testing, equipment specification, equipment factory testing, installation support to electrical contractors and field testing of installed system.

The system was installed as planned, on time and did not require any modifications to achieve acceptable performance.

Other Past Projects

Broad Air Communications - 2004 to 2007

Chief Technology Officer

A small team of individuals attempted to start a company to provide wireless internet coverage to rural counties in Western New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania.   Acted as the CTO of this effort.  The company was unsuccessful at achieving adequate funding and failed to recognize the fact that carriers such as Verizon and AT&T while slow to install coverage in the beginning would eventually service the area with adequate digital communications.

LeCroy Corporation - 2002 - 2004

Program Manager for Vertical Market Applications

Organized and guided an engineering team responsible for developing and supporting a line of high performance digital oscilloscopes and for implementing firmware and software applications that would enable those oscilloscopes to be used in testing of protocols such as Ethernet, USB, PCI, SATA and others.

Aptegrity Incorporated - 2000 - 2002

Director Of Infrastructure

Executed the design and build-out of an International Network infrastructure to support operations of a startup company performing the development and support of web applications during the dotcom years.

Implemented data centers in New Jersey, Suburban London and San Francisco within a Cisco environment with support for various Unix, Linux and Windows operating system.  This included operation servers, quality control servers, development servers and the implementation of a small scale 24/7/365 call center.

Chairman of IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) Physical Layer Subgroup - 1990-1998

As part of a small group of individuals starting in 1986, worked to develop a standardized means to provide interoperable wireless data network communications.  As a founding member of IEEE 802.11 when attempts to provide this standard for operation under the IEEE 802.4 Media Access Control Machine was deemed to be impossible.  

Served as the Chairman of the Physical Layer subgroup of IEEE 802.11 from it’s formation in 1990 until the first versions of the standard became technically stable in 1997.  Managed the negotiations of the group to reach consensus from the Chair and was involved in countless discussions of what would and wouldn’t work with some of the best radio minds in the industry in this position.

Education

BS Physics,  Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY MS Computer and Systems Engineering,   Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY

University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Executive Effectiveness Program

Landmark Education – Curriculum for Living

Other Information

Master Thesis,  “An Adaptive Approach to the Estimation of Power Spectral Density Functions.”

Holder of United States Patent Number 4,805,197 “Method and Apparatus for Recovering Clock Information from a Received Digital Signal and for Synchronizing that Signal”, February 14, 1989

Licensed Radio Amateur Operator – Extra Class – Call Sign AC2ED

US Citizen