The Rockwell Collins Engineer of the Year award is our company’s highest individual engineering honor. It recognizes employees whose innovative ideas and outstanding technical contributions have led to significant achievements – such as increased sales and profitability, reduced cycle times and costs, new product opportunities and business growth.

Corporate Engineer of the Year winners

Commercial Systems - John Roltgen  
Government Systems - Ryan Murphy
Shared Services - Jim Sampica 

Award finalists

Commercial Systems

Rick Dove
Principal electrical engineer
Commercial Systems
Communication/Navigation/Surveillance Systems Integration

Rick Dove provided exceptional customer support when he introduced the ability to test Airbus A400M and Multi Platform Program navigational equipment using model-based verification, which uses a mathematical model of the returned signals from terrain. Specifically, the model is used for testing the Digital Low Range Altimeter (DLRA), our company's first altimeter design using digital signal processing. Altimeters are used to gauge the aircraft's height above terrain.

Due to his innovation, the DLRA can now be tested in various scenarios without ever leaving the ground. Dove's innovation and knowledge of the technology led to reduced flight testing time and a significant reduction in standard costs, enabling new business opportunities in the government transport market.

Travis VanDer Kamp
Senior systems engineer
Commercial Systems
Situation Awareness Applications

Travis VanDer Kamp was recognized for his innovation and leadership in the development of the Synthetic Vision System for our Pro Line Fusion™ avionics system. In low-visibility conditions, the system provides pilots with a virtual view of what they would see outside the cockpit on a clear day.

By making sure that this new technology would be successfully integrated with the Head-up Guidance System and incorporated into our latest generation of Rockwell Collins business jet avionics, VanDer Kamp helped Rockwell Collins ensure wins with customers such as Bombardier Aerospace and Embraer.

Government Systems

Stephanie Burns
Principal systems engineer
Government Systems
Architects

Stephanie Burns provided her technical expertise and leadership on multiple proposals for our company's Precision Strike and Mobility and Rotary Wing businesses. Her role as a systems architect for various programs resulted in innovative solutions with less hardware and software.

Additionally, Burns developed a 3D display for an aircraft tanker program that allows operators to better control a boom during refueling missions.

Mitch Riley
Senior software engineer
Government Systems
Soldier Systems

Mitch Riley was the lead system engineer/architect for the Ground Solider System (GSS) pursuit. His efforts resulted in Rockwell Collins being awarded a contract for the technology development phase of the U.S. Army GSS program.

GSS focuses on providing mature technologies that minimize size, weight and power while providing improved situational awareness and network connectivity capabilities for the soldier.

Shared Services

H. Dee Gardiner
Principal systems engineer
Simulation and Training Solutions
Visual Products

H. Dee Gardiner developed the new architecture for our EP®-8000 - a flexible, cost-effective custom image generator system based on field programmable gate array technology and our Common Open Reusable Elements (CORE™) simulation architecture.

Used for training and simulation, the EP-8000 image generator introduces a new standard for training applications, combining groundbreaking realism and performance with a scalable, adaptable design to meet the most complex training requirements. Due, in part, to Gardiner's work, this architecture allows our company to continue offering discriminating image generator products for the next decade and also allows us to quickly meet new customer requirements.

Nathan Lower
Senior mechanical engineer
Engineering and Technology
Miniaturized Power Technology

Nathan Lower successfully streamlined several Rockwell Collins initiatives, including hermetic thermal coating, liquid metal cooling, and the fabrication of miniature radio frequency microchip components.

Lower's innovations have led to improved thermal management and electronic circuit robustness while improving our use of commercial packaging/assembly methods, providing the potential for greater savings over the next five years.

Dan Turner
Material and process engineer
Operations
Advanced Industrial Engineering

Dan Turner made significant technical contributions to Virtual Manufacturing and Simulation. His innovations with Augmented Reality Manufacturing Simulation allow manufacturing and support personnel to physically exercise and evaluate the manufacture of a product's design in a virtual environment.

Turner’s contributions reduced modeling lead-time by 75 percent, file size by 27 percent, memory requirements by 35 percent and load time by 83 percent. Additionally, Turner’s design of a low-cost virtual reality system has provided schools across Iowa with virtual reality capabilities to enhance learning, which supports our company’s commitment to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education.