George at work:

George is passionate about technology, business, and designing cool, useful, and innovative products (even though he’s not a fan of excessive use of the word “innovative”!). George dedicated almost two decades to the ProAV (Professional Audio Visual) industry, with responsibility for discovering, commercializing, and creating industry-defining products and solutions at Christie Digital Systems.

George is now focusing his insatiable appetite for technology on creating products for Alert Labs. He co-founded Alert Labs in order to nurture a fun, imaginative, non-corporate corporate culture – where Great is celebrated.

George outside of work:

Tech, photography, soccer, family, 1st person shooter games, oh, and Tech. As an advocate for the Kitchener-Waterloo community, George leads a Communitech Product Management peer group, and is a founding member of FlashWR; a Waterloo Region photography exhibition that celebrates the marriage of art and technology through inspirational photography.

Other pertinent bio details:

George graduated from the University of Waterloo with his Bachelor of Physics and entered the field of optics. He earned his Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Wilfrid Laurier University, with a specialization in marketing strategy.

Kevin at work:

Kevin’s love for software development, along with his desire to build high performance, cohesive engineering teams has been the primary drive in his career. He is intent on building products with exceptional user experiences, and knows that only happens with a highly motivated and unified development team.

Kevin outside of (and sometimes at!) work:

Gadgets, nerdy t-shirts, and an up and coming beer club host. There is rumoured video evidence that Kevin’s true vocation is that of the lumberjack, which he has expressed in song, but definite proof has yet to be revealed.

Other pertinent bio details:

Kevin has 20 years of experience developing software, ranging from start-ups to multinational companies. Before joining Alert Labs, Kevin was the Director of Application Software and Solutions at Christie Digital Systems. Kevin holds his B.A.Sc. Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo.

Ruth at work:

Ruth is a professional business generalist. She is motivated by great people doing inventive things. She’s especially fascinated and motivated by zealous geeks, and prides herself on being able to bridge the gap between the geek world and… everybody else. Her years of team leadership have taught her that a cohesive team (even if the ride is bumpy sometimes) is the most rewarding way to sustainable growth – both for the team members and for the organization. By growing and nurturing the capabilities of a team, the finished product will most certainly exceed expectations.

Ruth outside of work:

In her spare time outside of work, school, and parenting three little kids, Ruth is currently obsessed with British TV series on Netflix. She is also a stickler for grammar, so she just had to Google the plural for ‘series’...

Other pertinent bio details:

Before Alert Labs, Ruth had global responsibility for crisis communications management, root cause analysis, and critical customer notification in the BlackBerry Network Operations Centers (NOC). She later transitioned to lead the Enterprise and Security public relations team during the new BlackBerry 10 operating system launch.

Ruth earned her B.Sc. from the University of Waterloo, and hopes(!) to graduate with her Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Athabasca University by 2018.

Terry at work:

Terry is an inventor. He makes MacGyver look like a kindergarten crafter. While he is too humble to say so, Terry was the driving force in inventing digital projection. If you’ve ever enjoyed a digital movie, you can thank Terry. Seriously.

After a 40 year career at Electrohome and Christie Digital as their Chief Scientist, Terry is taking his awe-inspiring ability to troubleshoot difficult problems and is now architecting elegant solutions to complex engineering and user experience issues for Alert Labs. Terry takes a hands on approach to a variety of high tech electronics in both digital and analog disciplines.

Terry outside of work:

Terry likes to travel in a 31-foot motorhome with his wife and six grandchildren, but, not all at the same time.

Once a recreational Cessna pilot, Terry now limits his excitement to flying small drones and model helicopters. He is also a licensed Scuba diver and dives every chance he gets in warmer southern waters.

When not working on electronics in what his grandson calls his 'Nerd Lab’, Terry enjoys wood and metal working projects of all sizes in his well-equipped shop. His local farm upbringing trained him well in building, welding, and mechanical skills.

Other pertinent bio details:

Terry holds a B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo but most of his patents are optical in nature. He says all the equations he learned still apply.....light is just a different wavelength than radio waves.

For more than a decade, Terry served as the Canada Chapter Director for the Society for Information Display and he’s presented technical papers and teaching seminars in display technology for more than 35 years at SID conferences all over North America.

Zach at work:

Zach is the kind of developer that Alert Labs optimistically hoped for when starting to build the team. He’s smart (like, a bit scary-smart), insightful, and hungry for knowledge.

Zach is passionate about getting things right on the first try. To this end, he’s a true believer in test-driven development. Zach stays motivated by thinking about all the data he’ll soon be able to dive into.

Zach outside of work:

When the weather cooperates, you’ll find Zach exploring all of Waterloo Region’s bike trails. Zach is an avid reader (mostly sci-fi and fantasy) and his favorite author is the estimable Lois McMaster Bujold. He has overflowing bookshelves and piles of books strategically stacked around his apartment. Zach is a board game aficionado, with a special affection for Small World, Resistance, and Fiasco.

Other pertinent bio details:

Zach graduated from the University of Waterloo with a B.A.Sc. in Nanotechnology Engineering. His co-op stream gave him experience in both industry and academic research. Luckily for Alert Labs, Zach decided to get a ‘real job’ after a brief stint at in a PhD program at the University of Washington and found his way to our team.

Anthony at work:

Anthony is so immersed in designing world-class hardware and electronics for Alert Labs that he hasn’t had time to submit any info for his website bio. This is the awesome reality of #startuplife.

Anthony outside of work:

Anthony goes home after work. He might enjoy pina coladas, getting caught in the rain, and long walks on the beach (who doesn’t, really?).

Other pertinent bio details:

Now a Professional Engineer, Anthony earned his B.E.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Western Ontario. During his nine and half years at BlackBerry, Anthony focused on power management, power distribution, and audio electronic designs for an impressive list of smartphone models. There is a whole scrabble game worth of acronyms on his resume.

Chris at work:

Chris has the rare and awe-inspiring ability to bridge the gap between artistry, design, and engineering. He has designed products spanning professional AV, surveillance, consumer electronics, heavy machinery, medical applications, furniture, lighting, ceramics, handheld devices, and wearables.

Chris believes that every part of the user's experience matters; from buying the product, to taking it out of the box, installing it, using the app, dealing with problems, and interfacing with the company's website.  Every time someone engages with our company or products, we have the opportunity to create either delight or frustration.  In fact, the very best designs are often ones that go totally unnoticed because everything feels natural and goes as expected; a person's attention is only raised if we miss the mark.  Chris loves spending time with customers and learning first-hand what works, and what doesn't, so he can go back to the lab and make their experience that much better.

As an experienced mechanical engineer, Chris loves working with 3D CAD models and balancing user needs with technical constraints - designing products is like solving big, complicated puzzles.

Chris outside of work:

When Chris isn’t busy rehabbing his knees, he enjoys hiking and mountain biking. He likes travelling and is always in search of strange new food experiences. He’s lived in Ontario, British Columbia, Germany, and Japan. He enjoys bridge, poker, and all manner of board games and mobile games. He’s a fan of Halo on console (yet somehow, has bought only PlayStation for the last 10 years thus keeping himself locked out of the franchise…).

Other pertinent bio details:

Previously at Christie Digital, Chris executed or led the industrial design of more than 20 new products, including professional digital projectors and rack-mounted processors, and including the industrial design of Christie’s award-winning Boxer projector.

While living in Japan, Chris showed original interior product designs at juried exhibitions in Tokyo, London, and Milan and was highlighted as one of 50 designers to watch by Dezain no Genba magazine.

Chris is Professional Engineer with his B.A.Sc., Engineering Physics, from Queen’s University, his Master of Mechanical Engineering from the University of British Columbia, and his Bachelor of Design, Industrial Design from Emily Carr University in Vancouver, BC.

Scott at work:

Scott has more than 20 years of progressive manufacturing experience at global organizations including BlackBerry and Celestica. He’s probably the only one on the Alert Labs team that includes “KPIs” as a trait to describe himself, but, this is an important consideration when responsible for high quality, repeatable manufacturing! He is focused on reducing waste and cost, while ensuring a quality product and work environment. He excels at building high performance collaborative teams that are engaged, innovative, motivated, and focused on the customer.

Scott outside of work:

Scott has 3 children (22, 10, 5) and with his two youngest busy with horse riding lessons, hockey, soccer and baseball, most of his evenings are occupied with running them around from one place to another. When he has time to himself, he’s into weight lifting and sports; especially baseball, volleyball and squash. He loves dirt biking, boating and snowmobiling with his family, but, don’t ask him to eat sushi or anything with spice or heat – he’s a meat and potatoes guy to the core.

Other pertinent bio details:

Scott has an Electronics Engineering Technology diploma from Niagara College, and he started his career at Celestica on the production line, fresh out of college. Over the next twenty years, he’s continuously grown in his career primarily at Celestica (9 years) and BlackBerry (10 years). At BlackBerry, Scott was the Director of Engineering Services, where he led a team responsible for the planning, manufacturing, life cycle management, maintenance support and distribution of all of BlackBerry's global production test systems. Most recently, Scott was the VP of Production for Tamaggo Inc.