By Crystal Hardinger

Like many of the employees at the former Athena Technologies in Warrenton, Va., Mark Callender's interest in avionics began at a young age.

Photo by Rodin Lyasoff, Warrenton, Va.
A growing interest  - Mark Callender's interest in avionics began at a young age. Today, he is a senior engineering manager at Rockwell Collins in Warrenton, Va.

As a child, he would tinker with scrap airplane parts that his father, an aircraft mechanic for United Airlines, brought back to their Ohio home.

"I had a box under my bed where I kept all of these avionics parts," said Callender, the former director of Avionics at Athena Technologies, which was acquired by Rockwell Collins on April 7, 2008. "I would bring those things out and play with them. That's really where my interest in aircraft started."

When Callender began work at Athena Technologies in 1999, shortly after the company was started by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate Dave Vos, he was the only hardware engineer. Back then, Callender helped design the first high-performance, low-cost integrated flight control system for the company.

"At that time, no one had really done what we were trying to do," said Callender, who is now a senior engineering manager at Rockwell Collins. "We wanted to take all of the pieces of a federated flight control system and use the latest technologies to integrate everything into one small box."

After a lot of hard work and a number of late nights, the first-generation GuideStar product was developed for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). This invention was the start of a family of products that would make the former Athena Technologies a leading developer and manufacturer of advanced, integrated flight control systems and sensor suites.

High performance technologies at a low cost
Today, a number of unmanned platforms - including the Shadow Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (TUAS), NASA's Mars Flyer Demonstrator, Raytheon's Loiter Attack Missile, the U.S. Air Force's Subscale Target UAV and the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Organic Air Vehicle - use navigation and control solutions developed by the former Athena Technologies.

"It doesn't matter how big the aircraft is," said Callender. "Our all-in-one integrated flight control systems can fly aircraft that fit in a backpack or vehicles that have wingspans the size of business jets."

Using patented algorithms first developed by the company's founder, employees are able to provide high performance solutions to customers at an extremely low cost.

"Our customers notice the accuracy they are getting in such small, inexpensive units," said Callender. "That's where our controls and math-based technology shine through."

Shirley Kozler, the former director of systems engineering at Athena Technologies, almost gets goose bumps thinking about how they're able to apply scientific principles to solve problems.

Photo by Rodin Lyasoff, Warrenton, Va.
A forward thinker - Shirley Kozler continues to be amazed with the way she and her colleagues are able to apply scientific principles to solve problems. Kozler is the former director of systems engineering at Athena Technologies, which was acquired by Rockwell Collins on April 7, 2008.

"We have a lot of people who are forward thinkers and understand the marketplace," said Kozler, who is now a senior engineering manager for Rockwell Collins. "I think that's where the innovation comes from. We are able to apply technology and mathematical skills to solve modern-day problems."

Whether it's designing concept vehicles to fly over Mars or a UAV to be used in Operation Enduring Freedom, nearly every project is team oriented, according to Kozler.

"People wear many hats here and enjoy talking through things to develop the best solution," she said. "This is very much ingrained in our processes and how we do things. There's a lot of collaboration all the way through the development process."

Talented employees
Much of Athena Technologies' success is credited to the unique combination of talented employees.

"A small bunch of overachievers got together, slowly acquired other overachievers and came up with a company of overachievers," said Callender. "You put all that together and you come up with a force to be reckoned with."

Rodin Lyasoff, a senior systems engineer for Rockwell Collins, started at Athena Technologies in September of 2004 after he finished his master's degree at MIT. Even though he interviewed with a number of companies, he knew he wanted to work with the people in Warrenton.

"Everyone here is really smart, motivated and they have a good attitude toward everything," said Lyasoff. "They take their work seriously without taking themselves too seriously."

Steve Kennell, director of Advanced Sensors Product Line Management at Rockwell Collins, believes the culture at Athena Technologies is very similar to our culture at Rockwell Collins. But, our company can learn from Athena Technologies' frame-breaking thought process.

"Athena's control technology has a very frame-breaking approach - they build, design, simulate and get their products to the marketplace much, much faster than we do," said Kennell, who is heavily involved in the acquisition integration process. "In some cases, there are things they're doing that we need to implement into our culture."

In the past, Athena Technologies has provided solutions primarily for the UAV market segment, but employees hope to do more in the manned market segment by joining forces with Rockwell Collins.

"Since Rockwell Collins is already in the manned industry for avionics and flight systems, the acquisition makes a lot of sense," said Callender. "The patented control technology developed by Athena Technologies lends itself very strongly to fault-tolerant conditions so if parts of an aircraft fail, the control system can recover from that very gracefully. That can be very beneficial to the manned world."