Engineous Management Team

The Engineous management team reflects a broad spectrum of industry knowledge, talent, and leadership in both business and technology.

Siu S. Tong, Ph.D. Founder and Chairman of the Board

Prior to founding Engineous Software, Dr. Tong spent 11 years at General Electric leading a team to develop and deploy the Engineous technology within GE. Dr. Tong has several years of start-up experience and was named a 1998 Entrepreneur of the Year, which was sponsored by Ernst & Young, USA Today, and NASDAQ. He has successfully secured four rounds of financing and managed the company's growth during its first five years. Before founding Engineous Software, Dr. Tong was president of Optimum Technologies, a firm specializing in government and commercial consulting services. Dr. Tong holds a PhD degree in Aeronautic and Astronautic Engineering from M.I.T., and minored in management at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management

Takehiko Kato
President, Engineous Japan

Takehiko Kato brings extensive and proven sales and marketing experience to Engineous. In his role as president of Engineous Japan, Mr. Kato is responsible for the overall direction of Engineous' Asian operations. Prior to joining Engineous, he served as Director of the Board of Nihon Silicon Graphics-Cray KK. In this position, he directed the company's entire marketing organization and program. During his 14 years with Cray Research, Mr. Kato also served in various engineering, sales, marketing and strategic planning positions, as well as a Board of Directors position.

Mr. Kato holds an MS in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Pennsylvania State University.

Wade Ficken
Chief Financial Officer

Wade Ficken has significant financial management and business experience. As Chief Operations and Finance Officer, Mr. Ficken has broad authority concerning Engineous business operations worldwide; additionally, he directly oversees the marketing, development and finance functions. Mr. Ficken also works closely with Engineous' Chairman and CEO on the business-development front, especially in the areas of investor relations and strategic-partnership formation. Prior to Engineous, Mr. Ficken worked as the CFO for two technology start-up companies. Previously, he worked in finance, business development, strategic planning and mergers and acquisitions at American Airlines, SABRE Technology Group, Nortel and United Healthcare.

Mr. Ficken holds a BA in business from Samford University and an MBA from Vanderbilt University.

Mike Lemmons
Vice President of Human Resources and Operations Support

Mike Lemmons brings to Engineous senior experience in human resources management. As Vice President of HR and Operations Support, Mr. Lemmons is responsible for the company's human resources and technical infrastructure functions; additionally, he is significantly involved in contract management and product licensing for Engineous. At Virtus Corporation, where Mr. Lemmons was Vice President of HR and Corporate Secretary, he managed the HR needs of multiple companies. He was directly involved in the successful spin-off of multiple corporate entities and recruited as many as 80 employees a year without utilizing fee-based recruiters. Mr. Lemmons also held HR management positions at Morgan Crucible, Bristol-Myers Squibb and WestPoint Pepperell.

Mr. Lemmons holds a BS degree from Barton College and an MBA from Campbell University.

J. P. Evans
Vice President of Marketing Communications and Product Management

As a former manager of Engineous' development, sales engineering, customer support, and technical training functions, J. P. Evans has broad knowledge of the technical issues and needs facing Engineous customers. As Vice President of Marketing Communications and Product Management, Mr. Evans is responsible for marketing strategy formulation and implementation, including overseeing Engineous' public relations and product management efforts. Before joining Engineous, Mr. Evans worked with SDRC as an Application Engineer to support the sale of CAD/CAM/CAE software. Previously, Mr. Evans held various engineering and project management positions at Newport News Shipbuilding.

Mr. Evans holds a BS in Civil Engineering from Old Dominion University.

Mike Sheh, Ph.D.
Vice President of Automotive Industry

As vice president of automotive industry, Dr. Sheh is responsible for leading the company's sales and marketing efforts targeting the automotive industry. Under his direction, the company has signed deals with the world's leading automotive companies. Prior to joining Engineous, Dr. Sheh, as director of automotive industry marketing, assisted in developing Cray Research's brand campaign. Previously, he was a senior development engineer at General Motors Corporation's Safety and Crashworthiness Systems division, where he focused on numerical simulation and experimental testing.

Dr. Sheh holds MS and PhD degrees from the Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering Department of the University of Cincinnati.

Wei-Shan Chiang
CTO - FIPER Technology

Formerly Director of Product Development at Engineous, Mr. Chiang now serves as the key technical advisor on FIPER product strategy and architecture requirements, is the lead technical liaison for FIPER-related partnerships and alliances and is the senior consultant to scope large and complex FIPER projects. With over 20 years of experience in product development and management, Mr. Chiang has participated in many government-funded projects including the DARPA DICE project, RaDEO project, SBD program, and NIST ATP Federated Intelligent Product EnviRonment (FIPER). Prior to joining Engineous, Mr. Chiang worked in various technical and project-management positions at IsoQuest, Inc., SRA International, Inc., Lockheed Martin, and General Electric.

Mr. Chiang holds an MS in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Alex Van der Velden, Ph.D.
Vice President of Engineering

Dr. Van der Velden manages the engineering group and ensures that Engineous' products address the needs of the engineering community to solve real world problems. Dr. Van der Velden broad experience in mechanical and software product design at Honeywell, NASA and Airbus Industrie. He received the Honeywell Centennial Futurist award, the NASA Tech Brief award for innovation and also the Popular Science best of 1991 (team) award. He pioneered the use of PIDO (process integration and design optimization) software on many new aircraft programs at Airbus in the 1990's. Dr. Van der Velden founded Synaps, Inc., a PIDO software company in 1995 and lead that company until it was acquired by Engineous in 2004. At Synaps Dr. Van der Velden developed the Pointer optimization algorithm, the Epogy software and the aerodynamic shape libraries together with Dr. David Kokan, also now employed by Engineous.

Dr. Van der Velden earned his engineer's degree at Delft University of Technology and his PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University.

Jack Cofer
Director, Aerospace and Turbomachinery Industries

Jack Cofer directs Engineous Software's marketing and sales efforts targeting the turbomachinery and aerospace industries. In his role, he helps turbomachinery manufacturers around the world improve their products, business performance, and market share. Prior to joining Engineous, Mr. Cofer directed the research and development efforts for steam turbines and centrifugal compressors at Demag Delaval Turbomachinery Corporation (now integrated with Siemens AG). Before that, he spent more than 20 years at GE Power Systems in various engineering roles, including Manager of Aerodynamic Engineering. While at GE, he led a team of engineers in the development of new advanced aerodynamics technology for steam turbines for commercial power generation, for Navy surface ship and submarine propulsion, and for mechanical drive applications.

Mr. Cofer holds a BS from the University of Virginia, an MS in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT, and an ME from Northeastern University.