Engineering Industry Advisory Board

Mr. Thomas S. Fergus III is the CEO for Commonwealth Trading Partners, Inc. (CTP) which he founded in September 1993 after serving at the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Security Agency. He served as a technical advisor on U.S. delegations to the Paris-based Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Control (COCOM). Mr. Fergus is a certified cryptologic engineer and a recognized expert on the Commerce Control List and the Department of State’s US Munitions List. As a licensing officer and engineer within the USG, Mr. Fergus conducted thousands of commodity jurisdiction and commodity classification cases as well as guiding hundreds of military and dual-use license applications to successful outcomes.

Mr. Fergus oversaw CTP’s performance as a prime contractor the Department of State’s Export Control and related Border Security Program (EXBS). For ten years under EXBS, Mr. Fergus was the primary instructor to foreign governments on establishing national control lists and then setting up license review processes. He was the principal creator of the Licensing Officer Instructional Simulation (LOIS) which he customized and delivered to twelve countries for the professionalization of their licensing staff. Mr. Fergus continues to assist U.S. and international clients with training and compliance issues related to the EAR and ITAR. Currently, Mr. Fergus oversees business development efforts at CTP with a focus on international trade and security opportunities. He holds a B.A. from Stonehill College, a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame and a master's in National Security Studies from Georgetown University.

Amy Johnson is the Vice President of Platform Security Products for the Cyber Systems line of business of General Dynamics Mission Systems. In this role, she leads a business focused on advancing the cyber resilience of mission critical platforms through the development of market-leading security solutions. The portfolio includes certified Cross Domain, Data at Rest encryption and Multilevel Security Solutions for a variety of environments, to include cloud-based deployments.

This follows her role leading business development for the Nuclear Command, Control and Communications segment of the Strategic Systems business unit at General Dynamics Mission Systems. Ms. Johnson brings over twenty years of experience with military communication systems at General Dynamics, including previous roles as an engineering manager and engineering program director, leading a 200 person team for a tactical network program of record. She has led research and development activities in Advanced Position, Navigation, and Timing (APNT), Network Operations (NETOPS) and Integrated Tactical Network disciplines.

Ms. Johnson is an Agile/SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) champion and a Certified SAFe Agile Trainer, successfully transforming large teams and programs to Agile/DevSecOps and CI/CD practices.

She holds a master’s degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Northeastern University and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Stonehill College. Ms. Johnson is a member of Women in Defense, the Society of Women Engineers, AFCEA, Women in AFCEA, AFA, Girls Who Code, and the Hanscom Representatives Association (HRA).

Drew has a background deeply rooted in technology and real world problem-solving through software. His interest in computers and love of software began at age 10, when he learned to code in BASIC on his IBM 386.

After getting a bachelor's of science degree in computer science from Stonehill College in 2005, Drew joined QVidian (Formerly Kadient) building a distributed job processing architecture for an enterprise level CRM product. He took that expertise to Digital Results Group in 2009 where he was one of the lead developers on Ageon ISR, a cutting edge software product used to provide real time intelligence data from cameras, RADAR, and gunfire detection systems to US Army and Navy forces. Ageon ISR continues to be widely deployed throughout the world and has contributed to a significant reduction in US troop casualties from IEDs.

While his primary role was initially helping to build the software product, he transitioned to become the Director of Engineering, overseeing the day to day development, quality assurance, and documentation teams. As a minority partner, Drew helped grow the company from a four person startup into a highly profitable 40+ person organization, culminating in 2014 with a sale to Novetta Solutions. After the acquisition, Drew assumed the role of VP of ISR Technology, ultimately overseeing the budget and technical road map for three product lines spanning 10 teams across multiple locations in the US.

In 2016 he left to co-found Trimpakt as Chief Technical Officer. Trimpakt focuses on providing e-commerce and business solutions for the rapidly growing legalized Cannabis industry.

Drew has a wide variety of technical expertise and interests including building distributed scalable software and intuitive user interfaces as well as recruiting, building, and managing agile software development teams. His interests outside work include home automation, renewable energy, electric vehicles, and artificial intelligence.

Eliseo is a well-known figure in the autonomous driving industry, having been recognized by Business Insider as a “Power Player” of Self-Driving, honoring the most influential leaders in the space. After receiving undergraduate degrees in Physics and Aerospace Engineering from Stonehill College and the University of Notre Dame, he went on to work as an engineer and product manager for established automotive brands and EV start-ups like Jeep, Dodge, Karma and Lucid Motors.

At these companies, Eliseo influenced the development of cutting-edge Advanced Driver Assistance systems across multiple engineering domains— including leading the charge on automated driving features for the world’s longest range electric vehicle, the Lucid Air. He also played a key leadership role in developing a driverless robotaxi service as a Product Lead at Motional. There, he grew the Autonomy Product organization and helped guide technical teams toward successful commercial deployments with partners like Uber and Lyft. Eliseo is particularly known for his work in defining product development processes, vehicle integration, perception software development, and automotive sensors/electronics.

Today, Eliseo is a Group Product Manager at Gatik, a start-up working on an autonomous delivery network for the middle mile, where he continues to drive technical and commercial advancements in the autonomous driving industry. In addition to his undergraduate degrees, he holds an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology.

Michael Paul is a graduate of Stonehill’s engineering 3+2 program (Stonehill ’95, Notre Dame ’96) who has been working in the space industry since graduation. As the Deputy Mission System Engineer on MESSENGER, he contributed to multiple flybys of Venus and Mercury, including the spacecraft’s first encounter with the innermost planet in 2008, an event that convinced him that space exploration was critical work for humanity to continue and accelerate.

Michael founded and led the Lunar Lion team at Penn State, a team of students assisted by researcher factually to pursue the Google Lunar XPRIZE and is proud of the impact that those students have had across the space industry.

Michael is the Program Area Manager for National Security Space Systems Development at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, focusing on formulating new space missions and the technologies that enable them.
Michael likes to work on old motorcycles, build new spacecraft, and canoe down rapids with his family, but not all at the same time.

Michael holds an MS in Applied Physics from Johns Hopkins University, a BS in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, and BA in Liberal Arts from Stonehill College.

In 1995 Burke co-founded Waverly Partners, Inc. for the purpose of acquiring, improving and operating specialty manufacturing businesses. Waverly’s holdings have served the electronics, aerospace, medical, fuel cell, petro chemical and numerous other industries.

Prior to founding Waverly Burke held leadership positions in manufacturing and served as a manager for Andersen Consulting in their information systems and manufacturing productivity practice areas.

In addition to serving on boards of Waverly’s investments, Burke serves as an advisor for startup ventures and on not-for-profit boards in the Philadelphia region focused on education and the arts.

Burke is a graduate of Stonehill’s three-two engineering program with the University of Notre Dame receiving a BA degree from Stonehill in 1984 and a Bachelor of Science Electrical Engineering from Notre Dame in 1985.
Burke was elected a Stonehill Trustee in 2010. He resides with his wife Patricia and three daughters in Wayne, Pennsylvania, and spends summers in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Michael is Senior Vice President of Engineering, with over two decades of software development experience in industries such as financial services, higher education, mobile consumer electronics, and enterprise software. Fluent in numerous programming languages and expert at “getting it done,” he has a deep understanding of how to convert real-world problems to software features and functionality.

Most recently, Michael served as engineering manager at edX, an MIT venture and leading provider of massive open online courses (MOOCs). He was charged with spearheading several major product features including coupons, course bundling, and e-commerce.

Early in his career he co-founded two software companies — Novera Software and BackBeat Systems — and was one of the first five employees at Pepper Computer, a pioneer in tablet computing. Michael has consistently played an instrumental role in bringing products to market, from initial product design and implementation to large scale, Fortune 500 company adoption.

Robert is responsible for all engineering efforts at MineralTree including Software Architecture, Development, QA, Data Science, Cloud Operations, and Information Security.

Rob brings over 25 years of experience in payments, analytics, and operations to MineralTree. He has helped a number of startups successfully grow and achieve prominence. Those learnings have been very beneficial in his role at MineralTree.

Most recently, Rob was Vice President of Engineering at Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN), a global measurement and data analytics company. Rob joined Nielsen from Visual IQ when the marketing analytics company was
acquired by Nielsen in 2017. His career also includes engineering leadership roles at Nuance Communications (NASD: NUAN), a provider of conversational AI solutions; ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading provider of omnichannel payments technology; and P&H Solutions, a pioneer in web-based cash management solutions.

Rob lives in Westford, MA with his wife and two daughters. His extended family includes 2 dogs, a cat, and a parrot as well.

Matt Hinds is currently the Director of B2B Platform Engineering at Tripadvisor where he oversees several global teams working on internal frameworks, cloud infrastructure, data engineering, Devops, and Siteops. He has held leadership positions in other parts of the business such as membership, content collection, vacation rentals, and experiences. Prior to TripAdvisor, Matt was a technical lead at General Dynamics.

Like many engineers, he has always had a desire to work on challenging problems and build technical solutions to address them. In recent years his focus shifted to solving organization challenges and building successful teams where individuals’ accomplishments are recognized and valued. He is passionate about mentorship programs, interviewing processes, and overall team morale.

In his free time, Matt likes to draw, make crafts, spend time with family, and take on various DIY home projects.

Matt Hinds is a 2005 Stonehill College graduate and holds a bachelor’s degree for Computer Science as well as the Philip L. Hemingway, SR award for academic excellence. He also holds a master’s degree in Computer science from W.P.I.

John A. Scott retired from Raytheon Technologies in 2021 as the Lead Field Supplier Quality Engineer serving Raytheon Missile Systems. Raytheon Technologies (NYSE:RTX) is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cyber security solutions with 2021 sales of $64 billion and 174,000 employees.

Scott had been with Raytheon for 21 years, previously serving the Stinger Program as the Lead Reliability Engineer and the Camden All-Up Round facility as the Program Quality Manager.

Prior to joining Raytheon, he worked with TRW as the Lead Quality and Reliability Engineer for the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle systems to the U.S. Army. He also worked with EG&G at the Mound Facility, as the Manager of Supplier Quality Assurance for this U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Weapons Integration site.

Scott has an M.S. in reliability and quality engineering from the University of Arizona, a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Notre Dame, and a B.A. in economics with a minor in physics from Stonehill College. He is also an ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer and an ASQ Certified Quality Auditor.

Scott currently lives in Irvine, California with his wife Karen. He teaches math at the Orange County Rescue Mission and is the captain of an endurance tandem cycling team with the Challenged Athletes Foundation. He enjoys teaching Sunday School, traveling and spending time with his daughter Ally.

Tom began his career in international relief and development soon after his formative alternative spring break (HOPE) experience at Stonehill College. Since then, he has spent the last twenty-four years tackling challenging emergencies and entrenched global problems that the poor encounter in Latin America and Africa. In 2007, he joined Catholic Relief Services (CRS), a prominent humanitarian aid and development agency addressing diverse needs in 110 countries. As a fellow, he was first stationed in Peru to contribute to the earthquake response and strengthen different livelihood projects. From 2008-2011, he was responsible for early childhood development programming in Malawi. In Sudan, he worked closely with war-torn communities in Darfur to help them recover from the impact of the genocide for three years. In 2014, he became the sub-regional director for South America leading all operations and programming for Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. In Ethiopia, Tom led the implementation of a large USAID food security project that reduced poverty for 250,000 vulnerable individuals. Across two continents, Tom has had to demonstrate strong leadership and management skills to achieve results and impact. He is eager to innovate new practices and strategies so that global poverty solutions are quality-driven, scalable, and sustainable with a particular focus on food security and migration. He graduated from Stonehill College in 1998 with a BA in International Studies and Spanish. In 2005, he received a MA in International Development and Peace Studies from Universitat de Jaume I in Castellon de La Plana, Spain.

Robert G. Bernazzani is currently the Team Leader for the Joint Foodservice and Engineering Team (JFET) at the US Army Combat Capabilities Developmental Command - Soldier Center in Natick, Massachusetts. Mr. Bernazzani manages a multidiscipline team that designs, develops and supports technologically advanced foodservice field-feeding equipment and systems to enhance the quality of life and performance for all the Military Services. The technical areas for their R&D efforts include combat ration heating technologies, field kitchen appliances, alternative energy sources, burners for field kitchen appliances, cogeneration, refrigeration, sanitation and greywater recycling.

Prior to becoming the Team Leader for the JFET, Mr. Bernazzani served as a Senior Mechanical Engineer responsible for the design, development, testing, and fielding of the US Army’s Containerized Kitchen (CK). The CK is the Army’s largest field kitchen supporting the sustainment of 800-1200 Soldiers per meal period supporting forward deployed units in all environmental conditions throughout the world.

Born in Boston, MA, Mr. Bernazzani has an M.S. in Thermofluids Analysis from Northeastern University, a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, and a B.A. in Pre-Engineering Studies from Stonehill College (3/2 Engineering Program). He is also certified Army Acquisiton Corps (Level III) for Systems Planning, Research, Development, and Engineering and in Program Management.

His awards include Secretary of Defense Productivity Excellence Award; Colonel Rohland A. Isker Award; Department of the Army Achievement Medal for Civilian Service; Army Superior Unit Award (2); Commander’s Award for Civilian Service; Superior Civilian Service Award; Louis Dellamonica Award for Outstanding Army Material Command Personnel of the Year for 2017; and was awarded a Patent for design of a Combustion Chamber for Multi-Fuel Fired Ovens and Griddles, which was filed in January 1991.

Mr. Bernazzani currently lives in Norwood, MA with his wife Diane. They are the parents of three children: Kathryn, Gerard, and Andrew. Kathryn is also a graduate of the Stonehill College/University of Notre Dame (3/2 Engineering Program), currently the only father/daughter graduates of the program.