Who We Are

Redgarden Engineering



Redgarden Engineering was founded in October, 2008 to offer a high level of electronic design capability that clients may utilize exactly when needed. We can provide continuing support for our designs over periods of many years. Redgarden has an electronics lab to allow assembly, troubleshooting, and testing of prototypes.

We enjoy innovating, solving problems, and organizing complex pieces in useful, clear ways. We use the linguistics of science to differentiate hypotheses we suspect from theories that are solid. We have found the heart-based communications approach of Marshall Rosenberg compelling to engage issues with listening and communication.

We subscribe to the IEEE Code of Ethics. We see engineering as a means to create a more sustainable society. (Consequently, we choose not to work on projects involving weapons of mass destruction.)

Redgarden Engineering is named for the 700-foot high Redgarden Wall in Eldorado Canyon, the largest crag near Boulder, Colorado (and down the street from Redgarden Engineering). Redgarden's founder, Kurt Aronow, applies strategies to electronics engineering from climbing and chess. Both of these involve using classical routes & openings in addition to finding elegant, robust solutions for ambiguous, complex middle sections. For success, one must finish the route or play out the end-game precisely.

The Team

Kurt A. Aronow, PE

Kurt A. Aronow, PE
Meet Kurt A. Aronow, Principal; Electronics Engineer
  • Solving interesting electrical engineering problems since 1981
  • Electronic Design, Project Management, Technical Writing
  • Registered Professional Electrical Engineer in Colorado

Redgarden’s founder, Kurt Aronow, specializes in electronic design for medical devices, instruments, and industrial controls. The range of his designs span the gamut of analog, opto-electronic, digital, logic, and power electronics circuits. In addition to various development projects, he has assisted in writing and executing various grants (with the National Institutes of Health) for research into new types of medical instruments. He also does technical patent analysis.

Kurt received a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1991, including study in power electronics, controls and entrepreneurship. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1981.

Download Kurt's Résumé

Béla Géczy

Béla Géczy
Meet Béla A. Géczy, Electronics Engineer
  • Analog Electronic Design
  • Circuit Board Prototyping & Layout
  • Small Business Development

Béla Géczy first developed skills for creating analog integrated circuits at National Semiconductor in the mid-eighties. It was an exciting time working with such notables as Bob Pease & Bob Wildar. Béla spent fifteen years as co-owner and engineer at Mountain Engineering II, a tape drive consulting company in Longmont. In this capacity, he developed read/write head circuitry, laid out printed circuit boards, and a host of other tasks associated with owning and working in a small company. Béla also co-founded an investment company in 2005 which had over 250 clients. (Please contact Kurt Aronow with any questions about Béla's history following this endeavor.)

Béla attended De Anza College in Cupertino, California. Kurt first met Béla playing chess at Exabyte.

Download Béla's résumé

Byron Drury

Byron Drury
Meet Byron Drury, Electronics Manufacturing Engineer (contractor)

Byron has over 30 years experience in electronics engineering and product development, primarily in the automotive, industrial, aerospace, and instrumentation worlds. He has wide experience solving challenging manufacturing, supply-chain, and quality issues, managing the production of circuit boards and assemblies designed for high-reliability and extreme-conditions applications. He enjoys finding, evaluating, and building partnerships with high-quality suppliers and manufacturers.

Byron received a BS degree from John Brown University in 1985. His long-time favorite hobby is restoring and riding fast on vintage racing bicycles.

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Mark Toukan

Mark Toukan
Meet Mark Toukan, Mechanical Engineer (Contractor)

Mark has worked for 35 years in the mechanical design engineering field. His past jobs ranged from designing flight hardware for the space shuttle to developing the Indiana Jones Ride prototype for Walt Disney Imagineering. His company sponsored 10 senior design projects with the University of Colorado’s Mechanical Engineering Program which exposed undergraduate/graduate students to the many facets of mechanical design, thermodynamics and applying creativity in solving engineering challenges. His most recent work involved developing and designing robust optical mounts used at the National Solar Observatory site in Hawaii.

Mark received a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado along with a BS degree in Business from Villanova.

Download Mark's résumé

Anthony Palazzolo

Anthony Palazzolo
Meet Anthony Palazzolo, Electrical Engineer (contractor)

Anthony Palazzolo, an electrical engineer based in Boulder, CO, has amassed over 24 years of experience in the field of embedded system and FPGA/ASIC development. His technical skills spans programming languages such as C/C++, C#, Python, Verilog and learning Rust. He has hands-on experience with various microcontrollers and debugging tools. Throughout his career, Anthony has worked on a wide array of projects, including Android system analysis, 3D technology development, aviation telephony systems, and wearable wireless medical devices. His innovative approach and multifaceted skills have positioned him as a valuable asset in the engineering field.

Anthony received a B.S. in Electrical/Computer Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Download Anthony's résumé

Adriaan G. Verheij

Adriaan G. Verheij
Meet Adriaan G. Verheij, Advisory Software Engineer (contractor)
  • Software: C++, C#, Visual Basic, DSP, SQL, etc.
  • Operating Systems: Windows, Windows CE, µC/OS
  • Electronics: Digital design, analysis, controls, etc.
  • Project Management: Project, software & IT

Adriaan Verheij has over twenty-five years of experience as both a software engineer and as a manager. His principle experience is with such medical device areas as a heart-lung machine, pulse oximetry, and eye-scanning. In addition, he has worked in several other areas including data storage and flight control. Adriaan and Kurt have been working together at various companies and as consultants since 1998.

Adriaan’s management experience includes nine years at Evergreen Research where he served as both the Director of Software Development and the Director of Information Systems (as well as an software engineer).

Adriaan received a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology in 1994 as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from HTS Dordrecht in 1989 (both in the Netherlands). He is a U.S. citizen.

Download Adriaan's résumé

John Schell

John Schell
Meet John Schell, FPGA Engineer (contractor)
  • FPGA architecture, design, and simulation
  • Verilog, System Verilog, and VHDL
  • Experience with high-speed transceivers and data processing, DDR interfacing
  • Experience with processors inside FPGAs such as Microblaze and ARM®Cortex-A9
  • Familiar with Xilinx FPGAs including 7-series, Ultrascale and Ultrascale+ (including Zynq)

John Schell has almost 20 years of design, test, debug, and verification experience with Xilinx FPGAs starting with the Spartan 2E all the way through Virtex Ultrascale+. Designs completed include 4k/UHD video processing and compression, video recording, high bandwidth DDR interfacing and data management, high speed serial transceiver design at 12 GHz, MIPI LCD video interfaces, HDMI and displayport interfaces, and RAW video processing including de-mosaic algorithms. He has been the principal system architect on a number of professional video recording systems.

John received a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in 2013 (including study of HDL verification and RAW video de-mosaic algorithms). He received a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Kettering University in Flint, MI in 2004.

Download John's résumé

Paul M. Stoltz

Paul M. Stoltz
Meet Paul M. Stoltz, Ph.D. (contractor)

Dr. Stoltz has 42 years of experience designing guidance, navigation and control systems for a wide range aircraft, rockets, and satellites. Prior to founding PK Systems, he has been a guidance and control specialist and manager at Google, AeroControl, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Orbital Sciences Corporation, the American Rocket Company, and the Avidyne Corp.

Dr. Stoltz has designed, implemented and tested airplane autopilots, UAV autopilots, rocket guidance systems, and satellite attitude control systems during the course of his career. He managed the successful development and FAA certification of the first attitude and heading reference system (AHRS) for small general aviation airplanes. Dr. Stoltz’s capabilities include developing dynamic models of complex vehicles, analyzing and synthesizing control systems, developing and coding complex computer simulations, and coding control system designs in realtime flight computers. He has also participated in flight tests and data analysis for several aircraft and satellite programs.

Dr. Stoltz received a BS in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the University of Washington, and an MS and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University. He has over 1500 hours as an FAA certified commercial pilot with instrument and multi-engine ratings. Dr. Stoltz was a recipient of the 1991 National Medal of Technology as a member of the Pegasus air-launched rocket design team.

Michael Rowley

Michael Rowley
Meet Michael Rowley: Printed Circuit Board Designer (contractor)

Michael started his Electro-Mechanical career in 1981. He worked captive for three corporations, as their Engineering Services Manager. Upon leaving the third company, he worked as a CAM Operator for a Boulder circuit board shop, to immerse himself in the manufacturing process for 18 months. He then started his consulting layout business; Metro Logic, Inc.

Through his career, he has work with almost 600 firms. The list of products includes such things as electrician tools, Teledyne Water Pik’s first ultrasonic toothbrush, a SONY motherboard, medical lasers, ultrasound units, GE’s first MRI, the Hubble telescope, an Israeli border security system, wind turbines, drones and even a new electronic operating system for model railroads. His passion is driven by the ever-changing scope of products that have come across his desk.

In his personnel time he has coached youth soccer and golf. Metro-Logic was the charter organization to start BSA Troop 49. Michael has also been on or led mission teams in Romania, Puerto Rico, and 8 times to Haiti. He has founded an organization, Christ in the Caribbean, that continues to work on clean water solutions for island nations.

Contact Michael Rowley with Metro Logic, Inc. by phone at (303) 661-9425 or via email at: michael@metro-logic.com

Rick Smerglia

Rick Smerglia
Meet Rick Smerglia: Printed Circuit Board Designer (contractor)

Rick earned his BSEE from the University of Akron in 2014. Based out of Ohio, he has gained a diverse range of experience in the field of electronics over the past 10 years, working on products ranging from high current, industrial power supplies to micro-circuit, implantable medical devices.

Rick specializes in PCB design and layout for electronic systems in a broad range of applications such as Medical Devices, Computers, Networking & Communication, Industrial Equipment, Consumer Electronics, Automotive, and more. He is an expert using Altium and PADS for PCB design. Before starting his consulting layout business three years ago, Rick gained invaluable experience in an electronic contract manufacturing environment emphasizing design for manufacturing principles.

In his personal time, Rick enjoys spending time with his daughter and traveling to new places. He plays the drums and enjoys attending concerts and musicals. He has season tickets to Cleveland’s premier playhouse Broadway series.

Download Rick's résumé

Jim Gitter

Jim Gitter
Meet James R. Gitter, Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Designer (contractor)

Jim does PCB layouts using Mentor Graphics' Pads software. His well-crafted layouts often belie their underlying complexity.

Jim has lived in the Boulder area for most of his career and has well over thirty years of experience designing circuit boards for numerous companies. His experience covers applications in aerospace, data storage, disk drives, instrumentation, medical, and telecommunications designs.

Jim has worked with many different computer aided design (CAD) packages and now uses Mentor Graphics' PADs layout tools. He does all types of PCB designs including analog, high-speed digital (with controlled impedances), power supplies, backplanes, and flex circuits.

Jim received a two-year Drafting certificate in 1969 from the FDL Vo-Tech in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. He attended the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1972 to 1974, as well as attending numerous electronics and PCB-related classes and short-courses over the years.

Download Jim's résumé

Phil Cassel

Phil Cassel
Meet Phil Cassel, PCB Designer (Contractor)

Phil does PC board layouts using Cadence Allegro software.

Phil lives in Pittsburgh, PA since 1994 where he honed his skills while working as a contract designer at a contracted manufacturer before becoming self employed in 2003. He has utilized Cadence Allegro to support the needs of suppliers and customers. Phil has worked with customers to develop products such as wearable computers, network servers, nuclear controls, industrial controls and network products in the defense field. He has been doing PC board layout since 1978. He used Gerber scientific CAD tool from 1983-1994 to support nuclear and industrial control systems.

Phil received a three year Vo-Tech education in mechanical drafting from North Montco Area Vo-Tech School, Lansdale, PA in just two years in 1973. He also took two electrical and Electronic I (1979) and Electronic II (1980) courses from this school. He has taken EMI courses and training in Cadence Allegro in 1993.

Download Phil's résumé

Katrina Cerkez

Katrina Cerkez
Meet Katrina Cerkez, Bookkeeping (contractor)

Katrina has over 28 years experience as an accountant/bookkeeper managing accounting functions for a diverse range of small businesses. She spent eight years working for a weather radar manufacturer with extensive responsibilities in accounting, purchasing, and inventory management. Katrina is a native of Boulder and enjoys spending her free time with her husband and five children.

Katrina received a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Accounting from the University of Phoenix.

Download Katrina's résumé

Larry Benko

Larry Benko
Meet Larry Benko, Redgarden Engineering Advisor (contractor)

Larry Benko is a recently-retired electrical engineer with a career in telecommunications that included long stints at Bell Labs, Texas Instruments, and Aztek Engineering. He has broad experience in analog, digital, and radio frequency electronic designs as well as embedded software.

Pamela DeBellis

Pamela DeBellis
Meet Mackie DeBellis Associates (MDA) (contractor)

Mackie DeBellis Associates is a full-service, strategy consulting firm focused on healthcare and medical devices in the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Our multidisciplinary team uses an integrated approach to translate technically complex ideas into innovative products and global marketing strategy. We have designed, developed, marketed, and launched numerous products exceeding $60 million in collective sales revenue globally.

Contact us and let us help you develop these marketing and innovation opportunities!

Speed to Market

Speed to Market
Meet Speed to Market Inc.

Tom Kroenke founded Speed To Market in 2001 to assist medical device companies to quickly obtain market access for their products, and to maintain that access through compliant products and systems. Medical device companies have more specialized quality assurance and regulatory affairs needs than other companies because medical device regulations are more stringent than those affecting most companies. Additionally, medical device companies are regulated by federal agencies in many different ways in almost every country. These quality assurance and regulatory affairs needs require specialized resources, especially when fast market access is critical to company success.

First and foremost, all Speed To Market products and services are focused on regulatory compliance. The risks to any medical device company are too great if it does not operate within the law. However, regulatory compliance is not mutually exclusive with fast market access. This is where Speed To Market products and services give your company an advantage.

Contact Maren Kroenke with Speed to Market by phone at (702) 615-9441 or via email at: info@SpeedToMarket.net