DaY nInE

Background Information

P e r s o n : Bruce Sutphen

(Unfortunately my mentor was in and out of the office continually, so below is what I already know about him and more information I was able to obtain through the Internet, we do have an appointment for Friday to conduct an interview)

Bruce has traveled all over the world. Living in New Zealand, the United States, and Germany to name a few. My mentor is a physicist with more than 15 years of research experience. He has worked mostly in composite construction and marine research but is now working on ROVs (remote operated vehicles). He has been part of two world championships involving Bill Koch's Matador 2, Steve Fossett's Maxi-Cat Play Station, and Prada Challenge.

Bellow is more information on my mentor, this was taken straight from SeaBotix.com it is his professional biography.

With over 20 years experience in developing and managing all aspects of Rapid Empiric Investigation & Internal Testing Programs, Bruce brings both domestic and international experience in the areas of rapid prototyping fabrication, model finishing and direct data acquisition and analysis. He began his career with MIT working on a collaborative project determining the performance analysis of Grand Prix Yacht designs. During his tenure with the America’s Cup Teams in the US, New Zealand and Italy he lead the technology development for scaled modeling programs, and optimized measurement instrumentation for wind tunnel, tank testing and real world testing procedures. His work in New Zealand and Italy focused on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) validation for both Aero and Hydrodynamic models for optimizing the performance of America’s Cup Yachts. Most recently, he was the Production and Program Director for the award winning Stiletto, an Office of the Secretary of Defense air-entrapment, 80’ all-carbon fiber hull design.

Bruce’s hands on experience in strategic planning, product development, and technology solutions has enabled him to work closely and effectively with customers, ensuring the fulfillment of customized solutions.

On Friday, I will conduct an interview with my mentor in which I hope to go over topics spanning from what inspired my mentor to get into the field he is in, to asking him if there were any experiences in college or even the college itself that attributed to traveling so much. After the interview is conducted I will add more first hand background information to this blog post.