

North Wind Enterprises, 2004 - Present
Since 2004, I have been the owner of NorthWind Enterprises. NorthWind is a
storage integrator and systems engineering consulting organization.
LightSand Communications, 2001 - 2004
I joined LightSand as the Director of Product Management. As often happens at
start-up companies, I performed many roles including product management,
system design, customer architecture, and product marketing. LightSand's product
family was designed to provide extension of Fibre Channel storage protocols
across wide area and metro area networks. While at LightSand, I gave many
presentations at storage industry conferences and authored many white papers
and articles addressing technical aspects of implementing distributed storage
networks.
ESL/TRW (now part of Northrop Grumman), 1984 - 2000
I joined ESL in 1984 designing ultra-high speed signal processing systems.
These systems utilized acousto-optic, digital, and image signal processing
technologies to achieve performance that wasn't possible using conventional DSP
techniques. Through my 16+ year career with ESL, I held a variety of positions of
increasing responsibility. For the last three years of my time with ESL, I was the
Chief Engineer of the largest business area within the Silicon Valley Division. ESL
is now part of the Intelligence Systems Division of Northrop Grumman Mission
Systems.
Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI), 1980 - 1983
I joined Walt Disney Imagineering as part of the design team for EPCOT Center.
EPCOT is one of four Disney theme parks on the Walt Disney World property in
Orlando, Florida. My specialty was loudspeaker design and electro-acoustic
analysis. I was one of the pioneering users of time delay spectrometry--a novel
technique that allows anechoic analysis of loudspeakers in non-anechoic spaces.
In particular, I designed the audio systems for the Canada Pavilion Circlevision
theatre, the France Pavilion theatre, the China Pavilion Circlevision theatre, as well
as numerous set piece speakers and other smaller systems.
One of the most innovative audio systems that I designed was the twin OMNIMAX
theatres that were a part of the Horizons ride. The ride was closed in 1999 but
each OMNIMAX theatre contained a 5 channel, 4 way sound system that had no
differential delay for all seating positions in the theatres.
Look here for details about Walt Disney Imagineering. This is an un-official
website for WDI but the Imagineering arm of Disney keeps a very low profile. The
closest thing that Disney has to an official website can be found here.
Altec Lansing
During my college summers, I worked at Altec Lansing designing loudspeakers for
professional and consumer applications.
Education
I attended the University of California, Irvine and graduated with a Bachelor of
Science degree in Electrical Engineering (BSEE). I was a Regent's Scholar.
Resume
This page describes my
professional experience
since graduating from the
University of California at
Irvine in 1980.
Andy Helland