Capabilities
   Vibration Isolation
   Vibration Damping
   Mechanical Design
   Finite Element Modeling
   Control Systems
   Acoustics / Noise Control
   Shock Mitigation
   Dynamic Testing
   Actuation
   Magnetics / MR Fluid
   Electromechanical
   
  Products
   Zero Gravity Simulation
   SoftRide
   Hexapods
   SA Series Actuators
   Tuned Dampers / Absorbers
   Custom Products
   
  Company
   News
   Employment
   Technical Papers
   
 
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Senior Technical Staff
Conor D. Johnson
President
Principal Engineer

Vibration Suppression Technologies and Applications · Contract and Technical Management

Dr. Johnson has overall management responsibility for the operation of CSA Engineering and technical and contract responsibility for specific projects. He is responsible for leading and directing research, development, and applications in the field of vibration suppression. Dr. Johnson has been a leader in the development, design, analysis, and application of passive vibration suppression. He was instrumental in the development of the modal strain energy method for finite element design of damping treatments. He has designed damping and isolation systems for a large number of structures in the aircraft, space, marine, automobile, electronics, and commercial industries. He has been fundamental in the development of whole-spacecraft vibration and shock isolation. Dr. Johnson is an author of over 35 technical papers and numerous technical reports. He holds four patents. He has taught various topics at ten short courses. He is a member of three technical societies and a Registered Professional Engineer. He was selected for “Who’s Who in America,” “Who’s Who in Finance and Industry,” “Who’s Who in Aviation,” “American Men and Women of Science,” and several other Who’s Who. He has been Technical Director and Chairman of five major technical conferences and is a member of the ASME Adaptive Structures and AIAA Structural Dynamics technical committees and the advisory board for the ESM Department at VPI&SU.

Dr. Johnson received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Engineering Mechanics from Clemson University. He earned his B.S. in Engineering Mechanics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

David A. Kienholz
Vice President
Principal Engineer

Structural Dynamics · Experimental Methods · Product Development

Dr. Kienholz is in charge of dynamic testing and is responsible for CSA’s laboratory facilities. He supports numerous projects in the areas of structural dynamics, vibrations, experimental methods, and noise control. He routinely has responsibility for projects involving product and system development, dynamic testing, troubleshooting, and vibration suppression. He was a co-developer of the Modal Strain Energy method now used throughout aerospace and other industries for analytical design of integrally damped structures and was co-recipient of the 1981 ASME Structures and Materials Award for that work. He has taught university and private courses on vibration and dynamic testing. He designed and led the development of a magnetically damped passive isolation system now in use for Space Shuttle science payloads. He invented and led the development of a unique suspension system for simulating zero-gravity conditions in dynamic testing. That work received the 1995 Space Simulation Award from the Institute for Environmental Sciences and was recognized in 1996 as an Air Force SBIR Success Story. Dr. Kienholz was the principal investigator in the development of several advanced vibration isolation systems, both passive and active, including the Airborne Stabilization/Vibration Isolation System (AS/VIS) and the Optical Bench Isolation System (OBIS), both for the Air Force Airborne Laser program. Dr. Kienholz is the author or coauthor of 20 technical papers and holds one patent. He is a member of the ASME and SAE.

Dr. Kienholz received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. He earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from North Dakota State University.

Eric H. Anderson
Vice President
Principal Engineer

Active Systems · Vibration Suppression · Precision Motion Control · Electromechanical Devices

Dr. Anderson’s technical expertise is in active systems, including actuation and control systems for motion control, vibration suppression and vibration isolation. He began working in structural dynamics and active vibration control in 1984. At both MIT and JPL he participated in research that helped initiate work in “smart structures.” At CSA he has emphasized the integration of transducers and electronic and software control systems in hexapods and other products. Dr. Anderson led teams that developed the SUITE piezoelectric-based hexapod, systems to cancel cryocooler-induced vibrations, and a vibration-isolated workstation product for the semiconductor industry. He has analyzed fatigue and modeled the effects of damage in helicopters, written embedded code for feedback and feedforward control, fabricated composite structures, developed magnetorheological (MR) devices for automotive applications, performed modal tests, and designed and integrated power amplifiers. He is co-author of over 50 technical papers and inventor on 4 patents. He serves on the Adaptive Structures technical committees of AIA and ASME and is a member of IEEE and SAE.

Dr. Anderson received his Ph.D., M.S. and B.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ross M. Blankinship
Principal Engineer

Control Systems · Adaptive Optics - Wavefront and Jitter Control · Active Systems

Mr. Blankinship has 27 years of experience in control system design and analysis. In the Air Force, he analyzed inertial navigation systems at the Central Inertial Guidance Test Facility at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. In 16 years at Lockheed-Martin, he was lead controls engineer for several BMDO and SDIO programs and was responsible for design and analysis of wavefront and jitter control systems. As a member of the team composed of Lockheed, Honeywell, and CSA Engineering, he designed the structural control system for the Space Integrated Controls Experiment (SPICE) at the Phillips Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. He designed and analyzed the beam and isolation control systems in the concept development phase of the Airborne Laser program. His effort in the Alpha-Lamp Integration program was key to successful demonstration of closed-loop control of a high-energy laser beam at the TRW Capistrano Test Site, California. He continues to support the Airborne Laser and Space-Based Laser programs, the PowerSail program at AFRL, as well as research into active isolation systems.

Mr. Blankinship received his B.S. in Astronautical Engineering from the United States Air Force Academy.

Bradley R. Allen
Associate Principal Engineer

Experimental Methods · Dynamic Testing · Vibration Suppression Design

Mr. Allen is a lead engineer in the dynamic testing group at CSA Engineering. He regularly manages and performs dynamic testing, experiment design, and diagnostic testing services at CSA Engineering. Mr. Allen is responsible for directing efforts on dynamic tests in the field and at CSA’s facilities, on vibration isolation and damping design projects, and on many commercial diagnostic or design efforts. Mr. Allen designed CSA’s viscoelastic material test system and is a lead engineer in designs using polymer or specialty materials at CSA. Mr. Allen also specializes in shock testing and design. Analytical codes written by Mr. Allen include simulations of chatter in polishing systems, codes to predict machine positioning error due to floor vibration, and stability and error rejection predictions for single and multivariable control systems. Mr. Allen’s graduate work at Santa Clara specialized in dynamics and controls.

Mr. Allen received his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Santa Clara University and his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati.

James C. Goodding
Associate Principal Engineer

Dynamic Testing · Structural Dynamics & Vibration · Modal Testing · Structural Modeling and Identification

Mr. Goodding leads CSA’s test activities in New Mexico and has supported numerous Air Force, BMDO and Sandia National Laboratory structural dynamic testing programs. For Sandia, he has performed work on damage detection, wind turbine fatigue, satellite sensors, flight qualification tests, and general dynamic and modal testing. Mr. Goodding was the test director, and performed two large-scale modal tests in support of the SPICE program at Kirtland AFB, which demonstrated an unprecedented 100-to-1 attenuation in far-field line-of-sight jitter. He has performed structural dynamic tests, in-flight tests, and component modal tests on the Argus KC-135 aircraft photo-documentation system, ABLE ACE, and HABE. He is an experienced user of LMS Cada-X data acquisition and modal parameter estimation software, Matlab and Data Acquisition Toolbox, and I-Deas test analysis software.

Mr. Goodding earned an M.S. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at the University of Illinois and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.

Joseph R. Maly
Associate Principal Engineer

Vibration Damping / Isolation Design · Structural Dynamics Analysis · Test / Analysis Correlation · Viscoelastic Materials

Mr. Maly leads development of passive damping and isolation systems at CSA, specializing in designs with viscoelastic materials and applications of finite element analysis. Experienced in both analytical and experimental methods of structural dynamics, Mr. Maly has built vibration suppression into space structures, aircraft, medical equipment, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment. He has managed important CSA programs such as the solar array dampers for Hubble Space Telescope and the ARGUS airborne optical system. He has designed numerous tuned-mass dampers, including a magnetic damper for the F/A-18 vertical tail and a 350-lb damper for a multi-ton optical system.. He has performed complex stiffness tests of isolators and viscoelastic systems for correlation with analytical models. Currently, Mr. Maly is managing the EELV Secondary Payload Adapter - ESPA - program at CSA and working with cocured viscoelastic/composites for space structures.

Mr. Maly received an M.S. in Applied Mechanics from Stanford University and a B.S. in  Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati.

Mark E. Mimovich
Associate Principal Engineer
New Mexico Operations Manager

Structural Analysis · Space Systems · Composite Structures · Structures for Optics

Mark has 17 years experience in the fields of analytical structural mechanics and dynamics, dynamic structural testing, and test-analysis correlation. Past experiences include design and analysis of highly stable structures such as telescope metering structures, optical benches, antenna/reflectors, and optics using advanced composite materials, structural dynamic qualification testing of space-based hardware, control-structure interaction for advanced acquisition, tracking, and pointing systems, and programmatic and technical functional management. As Manager of the Engineering Analysis group at Composite Optics, Mark was responsible for a team of 14+ analysts supporting all in-house engineering analysis activities in the Instrument, Antenna, and Spacecraft Structures business areas. Prior to that, Mark worked on-site at AFRL in Albuquerque in support for a variety of programs such as the Advanced Composite Iso-Grid Stiffened Shroud program, the High Altitude Balloon Experiment (HABE), the Space Integrated Control Experiment (SPICE), and ABLE ACE.

Mr. Mimovich earned his M.S. and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico.

Paul S. Wilke
Associate Principal Engineer

Vibration Suppression · Finite Element Methods · Modal Testing & Correlation · Structural Dynamics

Mr. Wilke is head of CSA’s launch vibration isolation group focusing on whole-spacecraft vibration and shock isolation for several launch vehicles and spacecraft. He has successfully completed six isolation flight-hardware programs and is currently developing vibration and shock isolation system hardware for several launch vehicles. Mr. Wilke has received three United States patents in the area of whole-spacecraft vibration and shock isolation. He has extensive experience in finite element modeling, coupled loads analysis, passive damping and isolation design, and isolation hardware design and testing. Mr. Wilke is the co-author of 22 technical papers on passive damping and isolation and is a member of AIAA and ASME.

Mr. Wilke earned his M.S. in Engineering Mechanics from Santa Clara University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from San Jose State University.

Leslie P. Chrzan
Senior Engineer

Active Systems · Control Systems Design · Precision Motion Control · Real-Time Prototyping

Ms. Chrzan is responsible for control system design, modeling, and real-time experimental control system prototyping. She has developed adaptive filtering and disturbance feedforward control systems for jitter rejection in optical systems. Ms. Chrzan continues work in this area with Lockheed Martin to improve performance on the Airborne Laser program. She has experience with active feedforward vibration control (Filtered-X LMS and RLS) for time-periodic systems, specifically disturbance rejection on helicopter rotor blades. Ms. Chrzan has performed dynamic laboratory and field testing, data acquisition and analysis, and real-time control for aerospace and industrial systems. In 7 years at Lord Corporation Ms. Chrzan led the development of active and semi-active control system designs for semiconductor, precision isolation and motion control applications. Ms. Chrzan's most recent roles at Lord included Program Manager and Chief Engineer for the Lift Fan Shaft Monitoring System on the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft. Ms. Chrzan has expertise in a number of engineering software packages including MATLAB, Simulink, dSPACE, Mathworks xPC Target, ANSYS, and LMS CADA-PC. Ms. Chrzan has two patents and one pending patent, is a Licensed Professional Engineer, a Senior Member of IEEE, and a member of ASME.

Ms. Chrzan received her M.S. and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech.

Michael E. Evert
Senior Engineer

Active Systems · Electromechanical Devices · Vibration Suppression · Product Development · Mechanical Design

Mr. Evert’s primary responsibilities involve development of new concepts for mechanical and electromechanical systems, and translation of those concepts into detailed designs and physical hardware. He has been responsible for design and integration of space flight hardware and systems for ground test of space flight components in addition to several of CSA's hexapod products. He is also product manager and lead engineer for CSA's SA series electromagnetic actuator product line. Mr. Evert designed several compact actuators for vibration cancellation. He designed and qualified a large facility level (200 tons+) optical bench for use in vacuum testing of space flight systems. He performed pneumatic and mechanical integration of a large-scale active-passive isolation/suspension system for airborne applications. He has experience in mechanical design, finite element modeling, and numerous CAD software packages.

Mr. Evert received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado

Bryce L. Fowler
Senior Engineer

Engineering Software · Structural Analysis · VEM Characterization · Structural Optimization

Mr. Fowler is trained as a mechanical engineer and has acquired extensive software skills. He has engaged in basic research on characterization of viscoelastic materials and has written software for characterization and database management of these materials. He has performed finite element analysis on diverse problems, from an implantable mechanical medical device to airframe structures. He has written programs on many different platforms, operating systems, and programming languages, including programs for graphic display, data conversion, and numerical analysis. He is experienced in real time control using DSPs and VME processors running VxWorks. He has written and co-authored 10 professional papers on passive damping. Mr. Fowler is a member of ASME.

Mr. Fowler received his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from San Jose State University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Roger M. Glaese
Senior Engineer

Structural Analysis · Control System Design · Vibroacoustics · Active Systems

Dr. Glaese is responsible for modeling, analysis and design of structures, control systems, and their interaction. He is experienced in advanced finite element techniques for structural modeling and in modern control system synthesis. He has developed models and techniques for vibroacoustic control and has demonstrated these methods on several sets of hardware. He has created control design models for a space flight experiment and implemented various optimal control algorithms on terrestrial systems using DSP’s. Dr. Glaese has analyzed gossamer and membrane structures and the effects of gravity on the response of highly flexible structures. He has co-authored more than 20 papers in the fields of structural analysis, structural control, and active structural acoustics. He is a Senior Member of AIAA and member of the ASME and the Acoustical Society of America.

Dr. Glaese received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Paul C. Janzen
Senior Engineer

Acoustics · DSP and Embedded Control · Active Systems · Finite Element Methods

Mr. Janzen is responsible for structural and acoustic analysis and active noise control at CSA. He has performed structural and acoustic analysis for active and passive noise control for launch vehicle fairings, vacuum-loaded panels, optical systems, and manufacturing equipment. Mr. Janzen’s responsibilities at CSA also include the development and testing of software for embedded systems. He has developed software for embedded control of systems ranging from miniature optical devices to hydraulic-powered flight motion simulators. He also has experience in designing and implementing feedforward and feedback controllers for a variety of systems. Mr. Janzen is experienced in a number of engineering analysis packages, including I-DEAS, Patran, Nastran, Matlab, Autocad, Comet/Acoustics, and Sysnoise, and is experienced in several computer languages and operating systems.

Mr. Janzen received his M.S. in Acoustics from Pennsylvania State University and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas.

Raman S. Johal
Senior Engineer

Coupled Loads Analysis · Active Vibration Suppression Systems · Vibration Isolation

The analysis, design, and optimization of spacecraft isolation systems are Mr. Johal’s main responsibilities at CSA Engineering. He is currently involved in the development of whole-spacecraft isolation systems for single and multiple spacecraft on the EELV family of vehicles. His experience also includes the finite element modeling and analysis of space structures, including a Russian module for the International Space Station and several payloads launched on the Space Shuttle. Mr. Johal was the lead dynamicist for a team that designed and built a satellite bus simulator. He also has performed trade studies for several theoretical damping formulations for Space Shuttle components. Mr. Johal is proficient in NASTRAN and DMAP and he has used this to create Craig-Bampton reduced math models and data recovery matrices. He is proficient in the use of I-DEAS FEM and Test packages and he is also knowledgeable in the use of MATLAB. Mr. Johal is a member of AIAA.

Mr. Johal received his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from San Jose State University.

Paul J. Keas
Senior Engineer

Control Systems · Software Development · Flight Test Systems

Mr. Keas recently joined CSA after working for Orbital Sciences for several years. He supports the integration and test of control systems for aircraft instrumentation and flight experiments for Airborne Laser, Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), and morphing wing concept testing on the B-52. His focus at Orbital was work on the NASA/DLR SOFIA, where he had responsibility for control system, dynamic testing and damping evaluation and participated in wind tunnel testing. He developed models for the NASA Vertical Motion Simulator (VMS), a facility used for pilot training on vehicles ranging from helicopters to the Space Shuttle. At Rockwell Collins Flight Dynamics, he developed a simulator for rapid prototyping of heads-up display guidance control laws and symbology. He developed and flight tested optical sensor control systems for a NASA DC8 atmospheric research aircraft.

Mr. Keas's postgraduate engineering work is being done at Stanford and Santa Clara Universities.  He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

Scott C. Pendleton
Senior Engineer

Space Flight Hardware · Magnetic Circuit Design · Vibration Suppression Design / Testing · Product Development

Mr. Pendleton is experienced in the design, analysis, and testing of vibration suppression technologies for structures relating to aircraft, spacecraft, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Mr. Pendleton’s expertise is in mechanical design, which includes viscous and magnetic eddy current tuned-mass dampers, piezoelectric actuators for active vibration isolation, and viscoelastic shear damping technologies. He has extensive experience with several CAD software packages and is well versed in using two- and three-dimensional magnetic boundary element modelers. Mr. Pendleton has been with CSA Engineering, Inc. for 10 years and has become a primary contributor to space flight hardware programs. Mr. Pendleton is currently managing several programs including the development of flight hardware launch isolation systems for attenuating high frequency shock loads to small and medium size payloads. Most notably, he was the lead designer for a solar array damper installed into the Hubble Space Telescope in March 2002 on Servicing Mission 3B. Mr. Pendleton has coauthored 6 technical papers and is a member of AIAA and SEM.

Mr. Pendleton received his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from San Jose State University and a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from San Jose State University.

Gregory E. Sanford
Senior Engineer

Structural Test Design · Component Design · Test Conduct

Mr. Sanford is part of CSA’s New Mexico office and is based at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, NM. He is responsible for the development and operation of a large structural test facility, including a multi-channel load controller and data acquisition system. This system is used to test a variety of launch vehicle structures. Previous experience includes the design, conduct, and supervision of all aspects of static and dynamic structural tests on space launch vehicles, ground support, and launch vehicle payloads. Additional responsibilities include mechanical design for a variety of aerospace applications including payload accommodation and ground test structures. Mr. Sanford also has extensive experience with materials characterization testing primarily in the field of composites. He is a member of SEM and AIAA.

Mr. Sanford received his M.S. in Structural Mechanics from the University of New Mexico and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wyoming.

Christian "Smitty" Smith
Senior Engineer

Engineering Software · Structural Analysis · Electro-Optics · Structural Optimization

Dr. Smith’s primary responsibilities at CSA include systems engineering, vibration isolation, magnetics design, and vibroacoustic noise suppression for optical systems. He has designed eddy current dampers for a variety of space and terrestrial based applications. These dampers have been integrated into vibration isolation systems for sensitive Space Shuttle payloads, tuned mass dampers for large solar arrays, as well as in a prototype MRI machine suffering from vibration-induced image degradation. He has designed various electromagnetic devices for active induced image degradation. He has designed various electromagnetic devices for active structural control including voice coil actuators, proof mass actuators, and stepper motors. Dr. Smith has also worked in image stabilization for airborne cameras. In addition to his core CSA responsibilities, Dr. Smith directs CSA’s Airborne Laser related jitter suppression efforts and is CSA’s quality assurance manager.

Dr. Smith received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Southern California and his Sc.B. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University.