Technologist of the Year: Jeff DeNatale
Jeff DeNatale is recognized for his technical and program leadership in MEMS technology that has resulted in numerous successes, notably, the 2008 receipt of an unprecedented Phase IV award on the DARPA Chip Scale Atomic Clock (CSAC) contract. By meeting the challenging technical goals of atomic clock stability in a device smaller than a sugar cube, we won the opportunity to demonstrate producibility and mil-spec compliance, in a configuration that can be productized. The CSAC, in combination with development of a MEMS gyroscope with navigation grade stability, can enable Teledyne products in the strategically important area of precision positioning, navigation and timing in GPS-denied environments.

In 2008, Jeff's team also collaborated with Teledyne Imaging Sensors to meet the challenging objectives on the DARPA Adaptive Focal Planar Array contract to develop a wavelength tunable infrared imaging device based on arrays of miniature MEMS tunable filters. This success resulted in advancing to Phase III, including a transition path to the ARMY. The MEMS-enabled AFPA technology can lead to a new imaging product line. The AFPA contract exemplifies the outstanding contributions of Jeff and his team to TS&I’s business. Over the last few years, Jeff has led his team in numerous other technical successes during the development of high density capacitors, RF switches, ICs for manipulating cold atoms, and MEMS-based sensors. During 2008 Jeff's MEMS team contributed nearly half of all Electronics invention disclosures (18 out of 40), including 7 with inventors from other divisions. Jeff is one of TS&I’s most prolific inventors, with over 70 invention disclosures over the past 6 years and 15 issued patents.

Team of the Year: SM-2 Team (Teledyne Judson Technologies)
The Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) Team continues to perform brilliantly in the execution of the production contracts in terms of performance, schedule, quality, and budget. TJT entered production on the SM-2 contract with Raytheon Missile Systems (RMS) in 2005 and has continued through the successful production contract phases to the present. As the result of our performance, TJT has become the sole source supplier of this item to RMS. The SM-2 production phases are expected to continue for several years.

During the past two production contract years, the SM-2 Team has maintained a perfect on time delivery record and 100% Quality rating from RMS. As a result of this outstanding performance, the SM-2 Team was honored with the “Raytheon Missile Systems Supplier Excellence Four Star Award” for two consecutive years, 2007 and 2008.  The significance of this award is highlighted by the fact that only 10 - 15 out of more than 600 suppliers are awarded this distinction each year.  Over the course of this program, the SM-2 Team has also been able to make significant improvements in production efficiencies while maintaining excellent gross margins. For example, the team was able to increase monthly deliveries by 50% without adding any new personnel to the team and still maintained 100% on time delivery and 100% quality performance ratings.

Throughout the course of this program, the SM-2 Team achieved a high level of customer satisfaction, which has led to repeat orders on the program, and a major vote of confidence from RMS in opening the doors for TJT to participate in other new business opportunities.

The SM-2 team members are (in alphabetical order): Phil Bey, Donna Brady, Bob Brennan, Joe Chang, Ki Cho, John  Christman, Witold Czelen, Steve Ebert, Indulis Graufelds, Alex Komjati, Lori Harris, Joyce Laquindanum, Varsha Nalavade, Sunil Patel, Bill Rolls, Angela Russell, Sharon Sandor, Albert Swartz, Shawn Stratten, Mark Walker, and Jaiwen Zhang.

Operations Excellence: Financial Planning and Business Management Team
The Financial Planning and Business Management Team played a key role in enabling TS&I to meet the 2008 financial plan while enabling extremely aggressive business development activity.  TS&I identified a number of important bidding opportunities in 2008 that required a significant adjustment to indirect budgets to enable the company to hold the overall indirect rate multiplier.  The team made several budget revisions, working closely with Management, providing the plan which would ultimately lead to achievement of TS&I’s financial goals.  In addition, the team worked closely with Management to identify contract performance improvements which helped provide additional profits to offset other investments required for future business growth and allowed TS&I to exceed planned income.

It was teamwork, attention to detail and financial skills that enabled this team to provide the support and leadership to Management to enable TS&I to exceed its financial goals in 2008.

Team members are:  Charles Beck, Yolanda Coronado, David Dempkosky, Natasha Ivanova, Howley Leung, Gabriela Martinez, Bobby Mummaneni, Mary Robertson and Liane Youngerman.

Technology Partner of the Year: LXD, LLC
LXD, a Cleveland-based specialty liquid crystal device manufacturing company, is recognized for their close cooperation with TS&I’s Materials and Optics Division in developing high quality components for multiple beam control, optical communication, and imaging applications. TS&I’s liquid crystal devices require the use of non-traditional liquid crystals, electrode materials, challenging structures, and elevated operating voltages. LXD has demonstrated the ability to translate these challenging requirements into production-ready components.  In particular, in 2008, LXD quickly translated design requirements into their production process and delivered liquid crystal cells to TS&I for our AFRL Advanced Agile Device Implementation program. LXD's cells enabled TS&I to quickly exceed program requirements and to earn special recognition from the customer.  Other device designs for polarization imaging and beam distortion compensation applications were also successfully addressed.  The responsiveness and high quality efforts of LXD have helped TS&I set the standard in a wide range of specialized and high-performance liquid crystal optical devices.