leadership

Corporate Leadership

Board of Directors

  • Henry Hillman Jr., Chairman of the Board
  • Eric Close
  • Thomas Emerson
  • Jonathan King
  • Jerry Bresson
  • Wilson Farmerie

Leadership Bios

Eric C. Close - President and CEO

Mr. Close is responsible for the overall strategy and direction of RedZone. He has extensive experience building and managing both product and serviced based emerging companies. Prior to Redzone, he co-founded and successfully sold 2 companies: PartsZone, a provider of parts for lifts, and ProLine Services, a provider of railcar manufacturing and maintenance. He also helped finance and successfully sell Blue Fish Labs, Inc., a Pittsburgh software developer. Mr. Close also served as a management consultant for Coopers and Lybrand. From 1991 to 1995, Mr. Close served as a design engineer, product line manager, and sales engineer at Performance Controls, Inc., a motion control and robotics company.

Mr. Close received the 1999 Western Pennsylvania Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is the primary inventor on two patents and has three patents pending. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh University and an M.B.A. from Carnegie Mellon University.

Brian Zolkos – Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Zolkos is responsible for directing the company’s financial and administrative organization, including treasury, IT, investor relations, and human resources. Mr. Zolkos has over 15 years of experience in Finance, including spending 10 years with Intel Corporation where he held a variety of leadership positions in such areas as product division, technology development, capacity planning and supply chain groups. Mr. Zolkos also brings a banking background as he worked at PNC Bank in their corporate banking group earlier in his career. He has extensive strategic planning and financial analysis and reporting experience from these positions. Mr. Zolkos holds an M.B.A. from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. from Pennsylvania State University.

Scott Thayer - Chief Technology Officer

Dr. Thayer is responsible for Redzone's technical direction. Dr. Thayer was previously a systems scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and the Director of the Subterranean Robotics Group and the Software Systems Group. His main focus is on the development of systems and sub-systems to promote the advancement of subterranean robotics including mapping and exploration in extreme environments, multi-robot coordination and Adaptive Multi-Robot, Multi-Operator Work Systems. He has published 46 technical papers and has lead several applied research projects on the field of robotics with several military contractors including Crane, General Dynamics Robotic Systems, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. He has also been awarded several funding projects from Darpa, NSF, NIOSH and Office of Naval research. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, an MS in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tennessee.

Brian Bannon - VP, Sales and Estimating

Mr. Bannon has been responsible for developing and leading the direction for RedZone's operations and services. Mr. Bannon brings over 17 years of business building and construction experience to the team. Previously, Mr. Bannon owned and operated a $15 Million construction company. In business seventeen years, Mr. Bannon's company has become one of the most accomplished union asbestos abatement and selective demolition contractors in the state of Connecticut. His extensive and varied experience has made the company best in class in several types of construction and field service related tasks. Mr. Bannon performed undergraduate studies at the University of Connecticut and has participated in several industry specific certification and management programs.

Spencer Spiker - VP, Operations, Manufacturing, and Deployment

Mr. Spiker is responsible for developing and leading RedZone's operations, manufacturing, and deployment activities. Mr. Spiker brings over 17 years of operational, logistical, and technical experience to the team. Previously, Mr. Spiker served 13 years in the United States Army as a multifunctional logistician and AH-64A Apache Helicopter pilot and Maintenance Test Pilot. Mr. Spiker comes to RedZone from Carnegie Mellon University where he served as a Principal Research Engineer and played a vital role in the 2004 and 2005 Defense Advanced Research Project Agency Grand Challenges. Also while at CMU, Mr. Spiker was responsible for completing the world's largest autonomous radiological and geophysical survey at the Tonopah Test Range, Nevada. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Military Academy.

William L. "Red" Whittaker - Chief Scientist

Dr. Whittaker co-founded RedZone and serves as its Chief Scientist. A world-renowned researcher and developer of mobile robots and associated components, Dr. Whittaker is the Fredkin Research Professor of Robotics at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. He is also Director of the Field Robotics Center, which he founded in 1986.

Dr. Whittaker has received numerous awards, including Pittsburgh's Man of the Year in Technology (1994), Carnegie Mellon's Teare Award for Teaching Excellence, and Science Digest's Top-100 U.S. Innovators, for his work in robotics (1987). He has served on several select review panels, including the National Academy of Sciences Peer Review Committee, National Research Council Commission, Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, and National Academy of Sciences Committee.

Dr. Whittaker is a member of the Center for the Commercial Development of Space, Space Studies Institute, American Nuclear Society Robotics and Remote Systems Division, and American Association for Artificial Intelligence, of which he is a Fellow. He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Princeton University, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.