Benigno (Ben) Cruz is Director of the Center for Advanced Automotive Technology (CAAT) at Macomb Community College (MCC). Prior to joining CAAT on July 1, 2019, Ben was a Senior Engineering Group Manager responsible for the GM Climatic Wind Tunnels and the HVAC Laboratories. He was responsible for vehicle development and validation testing in wind […]
Zackary Nicklin joined the US Army in 2003. He began his career as an Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Maintainer/Integrator and moved into the UAS space in 2005. His career has involved fielding and maintaining state of the art intelligence collection and dissemination systems, both airborne and ground based. Zack is currently the primary UAS instructor
Jill Zande is the associate director and co-principal investigator for the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center in Monterey, California. In addition, she is president and executive director of MATE Inspiration for Innovation (MATE II), a nonprofit corporation dedicated to supporting the MATE ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicles) competition and its other programs that inspire and
Chris is a master and advanced level ASE certified technician along with numerous EPA, Subaru, Ford, Chrysler, and GM certifications and aftermarket training. Before teaching he worked as an automotive technician for a GM dealership, an independent, a retail store, and he owned his own business focusing on Hybrid Electric Vehicle diagnostics. Chris has written
Zachary Bladow has a B.S. in Computer Information Systems with nine years of experience in programming, networking and systems administration. In his previous career in the banking industry he developed various C# program and designed SQL queries and databases for report generation. Most of his experience is focused on project research to assist in finding
Anton has worked with grants for 16 years, starting in the private sector and transitioning to become Northland Community and Technical College’s Grant Support Officer for the last seven years. Most of his experience is focused on grant compliance to ensure that awards are following federal, state, and system office guidelines as well as monitoring
Jonathan Beck is the Executive Director and Principal Investigator (PI) for the National Center for Autonomous Technologies (NCAT). His career in Aerospace, Geospatial and Autonomous technologies has involved creating unmanned aircraft system programs across state and federal organizations and higher education. In 2011, he supported Northland Community and Technical College in Thief River Falls, MN
