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February 22, 2007
WatchGuard Video Expands Engineering Division
In-Car Video Industry’s Largest Engineering Team
PLANO, TX — WatchGuard Video recently expanded its Engineering Team with the recent appointments of Andrew Cilia as Chief Technology Officer, and Alan Gant, PhD as Vice President of Engineering, plus the addition of five more senior level staff engineers. This expansion is intended to enable the company to more rapidly add capabilities to the industry leading WatchGuard DV-1, while simultaneously furthering the development of other new products.
Andrew Cilia, Chief Technology Officer
Andrew Cilia brings over 19 years of engineering experience in the design and production of military, industrial, and commercial systems including such projects as the LOSAT missile, image processing and target tracking, automated underwater tactical vehicles, and wireless communications and infrastructure. After 9/11, Cilia focused his efforts on developing military programs including battlefield mine and IED detection, automated human detection and tracking in occluded and complex environments, battlefield friendly force ID, in addition to other classified projects for the military. Cilia holds a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Auburn University, a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington, and will shortly receive his PhD in Electrical Engineering specializing in Image Processing and Target Tracking from the University of Texas at Dallas. He holds a number of patents, and is a part-time lecturer at a local university. “Regarding WatchGuard,” Cilia said, “I really enjoy the collaborative process, and WatchGuard provides an exciting and challenging environment with the opportunity for expansion and design creativity.”
Alan Gant, PhD, Vice President of Engineering
Alan Gant has 25 yeas of industry experience in managing a broad range of organizations that vary in size from small entrepreneurial ventures to Fortune 50 companies in such markets as consumer electronics, embedded electronics, super computers, and engineering software. Gant has managed such projects as chip design, hardware design, operating systems, system architecture, and test program management. He earned his BS in Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois, and a PhD in Computer Architecture (EE) at the University of Illinois, and he holds several patents. “What I found most attractive about WatchGuard was the entrepreneurial spirit of the company as well as the prolific standard of excellence and character of employees”, said Gant. “WatchGuard Video is a true technology company that does not need to depend on other companies to engineer solutions for us. WatchGuard has the largest and most experienced engineering team in the industry so we are able to pioneer absolute breakthrough solutions like the DV-1. To ensure that we are creating the right solutions, our engineers actually spend considerable time with our customers, which is unheard of in most organizations.”
An Evolving Solution
“The WatchGuard DV-1 is a unique solution not only because of its Direct-to-DVD-Video technology, but because the system is fully upgradeable by CD and is continually evolving,” said Robert Vanman, President of WatchGuard Video. “The upgradeability of the DV-1 goes beyond just changes in software because the motherboard includes 2 FPGA processors (programmable hardware chips). Our most recent upgrade actually improved the electrical characteristics of the system by loading an upgrade CD. Our customers are not merely purchasing a product that is what it is today, but they are receiving a total solution that is ever expanding and getting even better with each firmware upgrade, which are always free and automatic for our customers.”
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