Geoff Rhoads
Chairman, VAA

Over the past eight years Mr. Rhoads founded the now-public company Digimarc and was the chief architect for their world-wide currency anti-counterfeiting system based on digital watermarking (a system now deployed in most of the world’s currencies and operational within most of the world supply of printers and scanners). References are available on this highly confidential program. Geoff developed the core very-weak-spread-spectrum technology utilized in communicating between physical banknotes and a PC’s operating system and scan/print functions. Geoff started his career at Tektronix: first improving radiometric measurement systems, then becoming the principal designer of what was in the mid 80’s the first commercially available 1 GHz digitizing oscilloscope. This commercial offering represented Tektronix’ state-of-the-art for five years, and Geoff’s ongoing contribution was improving its accuracy and precision by one order of magnitude. He was the chief scientist in working with key customers/applications such as Los Alamos/Livermore nuclear yield measurements, particle confinement at Fermilab, and the then nascent commercial efforts toward fiber optics and laser communications systems. In the early 90’s Geoff left Tektronix to found several companies, in parallel, all revolving around Earth remote sensing, large telescopes, and Earth-data visualization. A core competency within these efforts was dealing with precision measurements, distortion compensation and pragmatic applications of information theory, especially in contexts of highly turbulent conditions such as the open atmosphere. Geoff has active TS/TKB clearances sponsored by NRO.

John Niles Wanamaker
Vice Chairman

Wanamaker, a serial entrepreneur, has served as either Founder or CEO of companies from a wide range of industries, including: venture capital; wireless communication; aerospace launch vehicles, electronic monitored security, publishing, real estate development, and foodservice.  His focus has been on the creation of value and the monetization of that value. Active in his community, John donates his time to a number of organizations. 

He is the former Chairman of the Board of Alaska Pacific University and continues to serve as a Trustee; served as a Trustee of the Alaska Pacific University Foundation; serves as an Honorary Commander for the 477th Fighter Group at Elmendorf Air Force Base; serves on the Board of Totem Ocean Trailer Express' Community Advisory Board; and is a Co-Founder (with his wife Karin) and Board Member of the Anchorage Schools Foundation.

John, a graduate of the University of Chicago, also serves Chairman of ZuluTime Corp., (www.zulutimecorp.com) a privately held company that develops breakthrough position, navigation and timing (PNT) technologies for wireless networks.

Hugh Brunk
Principal Investigator, Government Services, VAA

Hugh began his career at Fairchild Space Systems, where he worked on a variety of NASA and DoD programs. He was responsible for the specification and hardware design of the attitude control electronics on the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite. After completing his PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland, Hugh moved to Oregon and joined Digimarc, where he contributed to the development of their core digital watermarking technology. He founded Signal Solutions, a consulting offering solutions to signal processing problems.

Hugh holds 19 U.S. patents in signal processing areas, and has a wide breadth of experience in software and hardware development. He has developed hardware ranging from LS-TTL logic for spacecraft to signal processing blocks in FPGAs, and has written software which has been deployed on millions of consumer devices.

Mead Treadwell
Board Member

Since 1982, Mr. Treadwell has worked on his own account or with former Alaska Governor Walter J. Hickel to invest in and provide support for the development of new ventures, including Yukon Pacific Corporation (a natural gas pipeline firm sold to CSX Corporation in 1989), Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ:DMRC), and All Com JV LLC/Owner State Wireless in formation as Nextel Alaska. Each of these ventures has developed significant value from start-up funds. He is a director of Owner State Wireless/All Com JV LLC and BaltimoreDredges,LLC.

Treadwell served on NASA’s Lunar Base Working Group in the early 1980’s and provided support to the NASA Exploration Task Force in the late 1980’s. He served as Deputy Commissioner of Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation in the Hickel Cabinet from 1990-1994, a director of the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation from 1994 to 1999, and a director of the Prince William Sound Science Center/Prince William Sound Oil Spill Recovery Institute, an endowed research program he worked with Congress to create after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. President George W. Bush appointed him to a four-year term on the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. Treadwell is an adjunct professor of business at Alaska Pacific University (APU) and serves as a Senior Fellow at the Institute of the North of APU, where he has focused on national security (missile defense) and natural resource policy. He serves on the Board of the Yale Library Associates, his undergraduate alma mater, and is Secretary of the Class of 1982 of the Harvard Graduate School of Business where he earned his MBA.

Clarence E. Smith
Founder, Board Member

Clarence E. (“Smitty”) Smith is a highly successful businessman and an acknowledged intelligence expert and pioneer in technical collection and analysis. He began his career as a U.S Air Force technical analyst, but moved quickly to the National Security Agency as an analyst focusing on the developing ABM problem, and then was asked to join the newly created Directorate of Science and Technology at the CIA. There he was a key advisor to various Directors of Central Intelligence on the ABM problem and improving U.S. technical collection capabilities. After his career in government, Mr. Smith served on the Board of Directors of the Space Applications Corporation, providing key technical support to national programs. Subsequent to the acquisition of Space Applications by SM&A Corporation (later Emergent Information Technologies, Inc.), he remained instrumental in the corporate growth in national security and intelligence matters while continuing to provide personal counsel to key government and industry officials. In 2002, he became an independent consultant and investor focusing on small companies and emerging technologies to meet critical needs of the U.S. Government, especially the Intelligence Community. In addition, he continues to provide personal advice to key senior Government and industry leaders on matters of import to the national security. Mr. Smith is married and has two grown children.

Edmund Nowinski
Board Member

Edmund Nowinski is an accomplished systems engineer and manager whose 40-year career spans a broad range of high-tech developments in the field of satellite reconnaissance. Ed began his career with the Central Intelligence Agency in 1967, managing a diverse portfolio of R&D projects supporting the space reconnaissance activities of the National Reconnaissance Program. Over the next decade, Ed led a team of government and industrial systems engineers in the design and execution of the country’s first real-time satellite imaging system, including the design and operations of a number of satellite-based communications systems for the NRP and other Intelligence Community activities. During the next 15 years, he assumed positions of higher responsibility within the CIA and NRO and, in 1993, he was designated the Director of the CIA’s Office of Development and Engineering and the NRO’s IMINT Directorate, positions he held until his retirement from the government in 1995. Subsequently, he served as the VP for Business Development with the Harris Corporation in Melbourne, FL. In 1998, he joined the Boeing Company in Seal Beach, CA as a Vice President and FIA Program Manager and served in that position until his retirement from Boeing in 2005. Ed continues to consult with the aerospace community; he lives in Melbourne Beach, FL.