Recognizing “Best” Engineers: David R. Hargis
The person who nominated Dave Hargis said, “Every product David designs get into production without difficulties. He knows what needs to be done.”

Name: David R. Hargis
Location: San Jose, California, U.S.
Current position: Chief technology officer for a startup operating in stealth mode at the moment.


Industry positions: Mostly startup experience since arriving to the Valley, as I like bringing new companies and their programs on-line. Most recently, I’m vice president of engineering at U4EA Technologies, providing a multi-service business gateway product enabling service providers’ deployment opportunities of VoIP communication techniques, targeting voice, video, data, and security features.

Other positions include:

• Director of engineering program management at LeapFrog, developing innovative educational products that provide an engaging and effective learning experience for all ages.

• Director of hardware engineering at Trapeze Networks, developing enterprise wireless equipment for deployment into WiFi networking environments.

These are my most recent positions, but I have also been affiliated with companies such as Phaethon Communication, Red Jade, Weave Innovations, Royal Philips Mobile Computing, HaL Computer, and a host of other startups throughout Silicon Valley.

Accomplishments you’re proud of: U4EA was a five-year-old startup with very little to show for the +$40MM invested when I arrived. After being with the company for less than two years, the engineering team was rebuilt and five VoIP gateway products had been released into the market. This meant redesigning the hardware platforms, bringing software back to a structured mainline of code that could support a continual release strategy, and developing a release process supporting both existing customers and an operational ramp for new products.

Trapeze Networks was a clean paper startup when I arrived, with nothing but a concept and a direction. From that point, the hardware team was built and structure was created to support the development of seven wireless Access Points, based on the developing technology at the time and the implementation of five different L2/L3 switch products supporting SOHO, SMB, and Enterprise environments. This endeavor took just under four years, and was leveraged initially off captive resources, but to scale required leveraging off ODM resources from offshore engineering firms. As the only one with international ODM experience from my five years with Royal Philips Electronics, the responsibility to establish the teams and processes came under my responsibility.

First job: Started as a draftsman at Tektronix Inc., Portland, Oregon, with the Portable Oscilloscope Division. I spent 18 years working my way through the engineering and management ranks prior to arriving here in the Valley. Tektronix products were not considered consumer grade, they had to be consumer-portable and rugged, since these oscilloscopes were used everywhere from a stationary lab environment, carried to and from a customer site by a technician, to being used on a host of mobile military projects.

Favorite website: No real favorites, but I spend plenty of time with Unstrung and ZDNet. Of course, since most of my computers are Dells, I guess you can say I spend plenty of time on the Microsoft website, as well.

The last book I read: The last set of books was for pleasure, as I was traveling over the summer to the Cayman Islands and Acapulco, Mexico for relaxation and golf. The books were the last two in the Clive Cussler series, centered on scuba diving and shipwrecks.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have: Majored in aeronautical engineering instead of mechanical engineering. I think it would have been a real rush to try and learn how to fly military jets.

The best advice anyone ever gave me was: The advice that I continue to use today from a very colorful engineering manager at Tektronix, who I totally respect, is the following: First, “Accept the fact that project management at any level should really be called ‘contingency management.’ You never have 100 percent of the information to make a risk-free decision, so be prepared.” Second, “The engineering phase system allows you to see firsthand the results of your decisions, so it is best to get it right the first time in Alpha, otherwise the risk of Beta being clean, is exceptionally low, causing slips and cost over-runs.” Third, “Do you still want to run projects?”

What trend in the industry is affecting your job and what would you like to do about it? It started in the early ‘80s, with the departure of manufacturing jobs, and now it’s progressed heavily into the engineering ranks as well as other areas of a company—it’s cheaper to utilize resources abroad. My question is: Is it really cheaper, or just convenient? Or, has the U.S. painted itself into a corner and now we’re forced to move abroad?

I’ve spent considerable time moving projects to other countries, so you could say that I’m part of the problem, but that’s the easy way out. My reasons for going abroad stem from a mediocre or non-existent engineering pool to draw from, locally. In the past 10 years of hiring, I’ve only seen a handful of new engineering grads to choose from, so the pool in the Valley must be extremely small, or is there a problem with my HR department? Secondly, when looking for mid-level engineering talent with less than 10 years of experience, it’s mostly non-existent in the Valley. Why? Is it too expensive to live here, or isn’t there any talent to draw from?

I also don’t think the solution is to increase the number of H1s available each year. In fact, I believe this only dilutes the engineering pool further and places a greater strain on the economy.

So, why isn’t more being done to get the school system in the U.S. on par with school systems of other countries, building a stronger base at an earlier level? Sorry, but I believe our elementary and primary school system drastically needs help, and either nobody cares, doesn’t know what to do about it, or doesn’t want to step up to the educational costs and reforms required to make the system work.

What incentives can be provided, either congressional, industrial, or both, to incentivize students to move into engineering programs? This could be in the form of aid, internships, or other methods to offset the cost of school. Even having a place to begin work when you graduate would be an incentive, especially in this economy.

It seems that the government has an opportunity to provide economical tax breaks to businesses in support of engineering development activities, but for some reason the government either won’t do it, can’t do it, or doesn’t want to implement change. Remember, this country was developed on great engineering discoveries and it would be a shame to lose this edge now.

I can only say that it feels like engineering as a viable career for the individual or an activity in support of a company is at an inflection point, and the decision to either support it locally or move it abroad completely is almost before us. I say this because the new company I’m with now will have three engineers, including me, here in the U.S., and all other engineering activities will be completed offshore. So, how does a graduating engineer go from zero experience to managing programs internationally without the 25-plus years of interim development experience required to get them to this point?

You can reach David at drhargis@yahoo.com.

Wanted: Nominations for "Best" Engineers in Europe and Asia
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