Technology >> CEO Interviews >> February 5, 2001
TERRY TURPIN is Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at
Essex Corp. Mr. Turpin began his engineering career developing computing
engines for the National Security Agency (NSA) where he became the Chief
of Advanced Processing Technologies Division. It was with the NSA that
Mr. Turpin was introduced to the capabilities and advantages of using
optics combined with high-speed electronics for advanced signal
processing computation tasks. In 1986, Mr. Turpin joined Systems
Engineering and Development Corporation (SEDC). In 1988, SEDC was bought
by Essex Corporation, largely based on Mr. Turpin's proprietary optical
architectures. At Essex Corporation, Mr. Turpin is a Director, Senior
Vice President, and Chief Technology Officer. His unified theory of two
signal interactions has given the company a competitive edge in the
signal processing community. The digital and acousto-optic
implementations of this theory are a mainstream business area for Essex
Corporation. Mr. Turpin holds many patents, four of which have led to
the development of a synthetic radar image processor called ImSyn_ the
world's first commercially available opto-electronic processor and
several concepts for commercial imaging products. He is the co-inventor
(patent pending) of the new Essex HyperFine WDM_ channelizer and OPERA_
' Optical Processor Enhanced Receiver Architecture. Mr. Turpin has a
Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from The Catholic
University of America, as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in
Electrical Engineering from The University of Akron. Profile
LEONARD MOODISPAW is President and CEO at Essex Corporation. He joined
the Essex management team as President and Chief Operating Officer in
1998. A seasoned veteran as a lawyer, an executive at ManTech
International Corporation and a former NSA employee, Mr. Moodispaw's
history with Essex dates back to 1988, when he acted as Director and
Corporate Counsel to Systems Engineering and Development Corporation
(SEDC), a company acquired by Essex that year. Mr. Moodispaw was named
Chief Executive Officer in August 2000, and immediately closed a
financing deal with Networking Ventures and, the Global Environment
Fund, designed to increase stockholder value by focusing the company's
core competencies on the development of optical products for the
commercial telecommunications market. Mr. Moodispaw received a Bachelor
of Science degree in Business Administration from American University,
Washington, DC; a Master of Science degree in Business Administration
from The George Washington University in Washington, DC; and Juris
Doctor in Law from the University of Baltimore, Maryland. Profile
TWST: Could we begin with a brief overview of the company?Mr. Moodispaw: Essex is a company that's been around for some 30 years,
for most of that time doing human factors work, such as the