After the Antenna: Earth Station Terminal Design at Constellation Scale

As President of SIA, Tom Stroup is the trade association’s lead advocate for regulatory and policy issues of critical importance to SIA’s membership, including spectrum and licensing issues, defense and public safety matters, and export control and international trade issues. He also manages the day-to-day operations of SIA, including member communications, staff leadership and organization of SIA sponsored events.

Prior to joining SIA, Mr. Stroup was with Shared Spectrum Company (SSC), a leading developer of spectrum intelligence technologies, where he served as CEO. For more than a decade, he served as the President of the Personal Communications Industry Association (PCIA). Previous to his position at SSC, he founded and ran several companies in the technology industry, including Columbia Spectrum Management, P-Com Network Services, CSM Wireless, and SquareLoop.

Mr. Stroup holds a BS, summa cum laude, in Public Administration from the University of North Dakota. He is also a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center where he served as Editor of the Georgetown Law Journal.

Brad brings over 20 years of software development experience in the aerospace industry to the ATLAS team. He has designed, developed, tested, and deployed satellite command and control, mission planning, and data management applications throughout his career. Now, Brad, as the architect and visionary behind Freedom GSaaS, is responsible for hundreds of thousands of satellite passes and terabytes of data collected. He holds an MS in Computer Science from Northern Illinois University.

Aaron Hawkins serves as the Director for Viasat’s Real-Time Earth (RTE) Ground-Segment-as-a-Service (GSaaS) business area. He is charged with enabling the network’s global expansion, strategic business development, and creating innovative solutions to enhance the RTE customer experience.  Aaron has also led business development efforts within Viasat’s Antenna Systems full-motion antenna business area.

Aaron brings over 17 years of defense and commercial aerospace experience. He started his professional career as a national security representative within the executive branch of the United States government where he led efforts domestically and internationally to confront transnational threats through engagement with allied partners, often utilizing geospatial tools.

Steve Richeson joined Mission Microwave in 2017 and is responsible for the company’s global sales and marketing. He has over 30 years of Satellite and Radio Frequency (RF) experience in engineering and executive roles across the wireless and satellite communications industry including positions at Harris Corporation, EchoStar, Scientific-Atlanta, GTE Spacenet International, Radiation Systems SATCOM Technologies, and Schlumberger. As a Schlumberger Field Engineer Steve launched the LOGNET service in the Gulf of Mexico with a portable VSAT terminal on a semi-submersible drilling platform – in 1986. This was the first commercial mobile VSAT system. Steve is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a Registered Professional Engineer. He earned his engineering degree at Georgia Tech and an MBA at Georgia State University.

Vagan Shakhgildian is the President of Comtech Satellite Networks Technologies Corp in Montreal, Canada . Previously he held various senior management positions at Comtech, including CEO of the Memotec subsidiary. Vagan first joined Comtech as part of the acquisition of Canada-based UHP Networks. As the CEO of UHP Networks, he led the company from a virtual start-up to a market leader in high-performance VSAT systems.

Prior to that Dr. Shakhgildian was the President and COO of Advantech Wireless, Head of Research at Adaptive Broadband and held senior R&D positions with Motorola and Signal Processors. Dr. Shakhgildian holds advanced degrees in mathematics and electronic engineering, as well as an MBA from the London Business School.

Tim Shroyer is the Chief Technology Officer of the Satcom & Antenna Technologies Division of Communications and Power Industries, LLC, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of satellite communications antennas, power amplifiers, and earth station equipment.  He is a satellite communications systems engineer and has managed, designed, built, installed, and operated satellite earth stations around the world.

Mr. Shroyer has designed and installed uplink stations of all types in many countries, in all the world’s continents, and developed new earth station architectures including pioneering the development of L-Band IF (Intermediate Frequency) systems, now common in commercial and military satcom.  He was one of the principal architects of Satcom-On-The-Move Systems.  He has worked closely with the Federal Communications Commission in the United States to create a licensing class for this entirely new generation of satellite communications systems.

Mr. Shroyer’s first satellite communications experience was as an officer in the United States Navy and with the Defense Information Systems Agency.  While at Stanford Telecommunications he served as the Program Manager for the development and installation of the Network Control system that still manages U.S. military communications satellites.  Since that time he has managed the development and installation of satellite Network Control and TT&C (Telemetry, Tracking and Control) systems for many satellite networks around the world.  He also was the founder and president of a VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) transceiver manufacturing company.