Welcome to EXB Solutions, Inc.

EXB Management Team

We provide EXperience Based Solutions™ through the leadership of our management team that has an average of over 22 years professional experience in the industries we serve. This experience, gained through a wide variety of leadership roles at small and large corporations plus as lead entrepreneurs in numerous startups, has taught us the value of detailed financial management and adherence to well designed product/engineering development processes in addition to knowing how to quickly adjust to market changes and customer requirements.

The EXB management team provides the strategic vision for dynamic growth and customer satisfaction. In addition, the management team is responsible for attracting and retaining talented professionals and for providing the leadership that creates a rewarding work environment for all associates.

Bios for the EXB management team are provided below.

Don Hughes
President and Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Hughes has over 30 years experience managing projects and programs plus developing new business and products for the Internet security industry. Most recently, Mr. Hughes was Vice President and General Manager for Secure Computing Corporation, an international, Internet security company. Mr. Hughes was successful in building a strong Internet security product development team in Toronto, Ontario, Waterloo, Ontario, and Roseville, MN while at Secure Computing. Prior to this, Mr. Hughes spent 20 years leading and managing software projects for Honeywell, Inc. He was responsible for managing numerous flight critical commercial avionics projects and military test equipment projects. Mr. Hughes was successful in obtaining FAA certification for the software portion of Honeywell’s Fuel Quantity Indication System (FQIS), Inertial Reference and Navigation Systems for Boeing’s 757 & 767 aircrafts, and Honeywell’s SAARU program for Boeing’s 777 aircraft. In addition, he obtained JAA certification for Honeywell’s ADIRU software for Aerospatiale’s A320, A330/A340 aircrafts.

Mr. Hughes has a BS in Mathematics, from the University of Alabama. He also has extensive continuing education including post graduate computer science courses and numerous management development courses. Mr. Hughes is a veteran of the United States armed forces, having served as Captain in the U.S. Army with an honorable discharge.

Jeff Thielen
Chief Operating Officer and
Vice President of Business Development

Mr. Thielen has over 20 years experience managing projects and programs, consulting, and developing new business at engineering organizations. At EXB he has developed company focus and plans through the business plan process, lead efforts to build the company’s infrastructure with use of the latest technology to ensure delivery of cost effective solutions, added over a dozen new customers, managed numerous projects to successful completion both from internal and customer perspectives, and provided leadership for customer relations programs. Prior to EXB, Mr. Thielen founded an Internet-based company providing content to the environmental engineering industry. He was also a Manager and Senior Project Manager at International Technology Corporation, one of the largest diversified global engineering firms in the world. He was responsible for securing and managing contracts with a total value of approximately $20 million, with $10 million of this contract value from repeat competitive selection by customers based on 5 years of successful project execution. While at the Department of Defense, Mr. Thielen was the Lead Project Manager on a $100 million contract. He also has experience in research and development at EDS, a leading technology services firm.

Mr. Thielen has an MBA in Venture Management, from the University of St. Thomas, John M. Morrison Center for Entrepreneurship, and a BS in Engineering, from the University of Minnesota, Institute of Technology. He also has extensive continuing education including a Mini Master of Software Design & Development, and Mini Master of Information Technology & Information Systems, both from the University of St. Thomas. Mr. Thielen is a Licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.).

Jeff Square
Chief Technology Officer

Mr. Square has over 20 years experience in software and hardware engineering, from real-time embedded systems to Windows applications. Mr. Square has extensive full life cycle experience in both military and commercial applications. He has contributed to and provided technical leadership on large-scale projects, such as the US Navy F/A-18 Test Program Set development and various Navy torpedo test applications, which are currently in use and providing support for these weapon systems. Mr. Square designed and implemented an improved control interface for the US military forces SINCGARS radio, which increased the reliability and added new capabilities for management of Information Technologies for the next generation battlefield. He has performed embedded software design and implementation of various avionics products that are used in aircraft that range from commuter size to commercial airliners. These products require the highest level of reliability and have been put through rigorous testing to satisfy FAA and JAA (European) requirements for flight worthiness and reliability. Mr. Square has used object-oriented design methodologies to increase the reliability of software applications and decrease the maintenance costs associated with their life cycle.

Mr. Square has a BSEET (Bachelor of Science in Electronics Engineering Technology) from the Ohio Institute of Technology.

Tom Myers
Chief Information Officer

Mr. Myers has over 25 years experience in software engineering, from real-time embedded engineering systems at companies such as Honeywell, Inc. and The Boeing Company, to information technologies and large database applications at companies such as Anderson Windows. He has extensive full life cycle experience in military, commercial, and custom applications. At other companies, such as Aggregate Computing, Inc., Digital Biometrics, Inc. (now called Identix, Inc.), and Terago, Inc., he combined both engineering, networking technologies, and information technologies together on multi platform and operating system cluster distribution systems.

Mr. Myers has spent time at a help desk, hearing customer complaints and providing the necessary help to solve their problems. This experience gives new meaning to “how to design and write graphical user interfaces, help systems, and documentation”. Mr. Myers has used object-oriented design methodologies to increase the reliability of software applications and decrease the maintenance costs associated with their life cycle. He has studied SEI, Agile, and Extreme Programming methodologies. Mr. Myers enjoys programming in a dozen different languages on Unix, Apple, and Windows systems both in business and as a hobby.

Mr. Myers has contributed to and provided technical leadership on large-scale projects, such as the US Navy MK644 System Test Set development and various Navy torpedo test applications, which are currently in use and providing support for these weapon systems. These systems were designed to military standards. He was the lead architect for torpedo test equipment software for use in the factory. Mr. Myers has performed embedded software design, implementation, and testing of various critical avionics products such as navigation systems that are used in aircraft that range from commuter size to commercial airliners. These products require the highest level of reliability and have been put through rigorous testing to satisfy FAA and JAA (European) requirements for flight worthiness and reliability. He wrote requirements, requiring interfacing with customers and auditors.

Mr. Myers has a BSEE (Bachelor of Science in Electronics Engineering) from Iowa State University. He has taken an eleven-week software retraining course sponsored by The Boeing Company immediately following college.

Charles McClary
Director of Systems Engineering

Mr. McClary has over 40 years experience developing safety critical, avionics systems and software. He has provided technical guidance for several full life cycle developments to DO178B and DO254 standards through the phases of concept development, prototype development, full-scale development and transition to production and field support. The programs cover the range of man-rated spacecraft, supersonic fighter, military helicopter, military air transport, commercial regional jets and commercial airliners. He has provided program direction and technical leadership on programs ranging up to $50M development funding and over 150 engineers.

Mr. McClary has provided development specifications and application engineering for state-of-the-art sensors such as Ring Laser gyros, Quartz rate and acceleration sensors and MEMS sensors. He holds a patent in the area of MEMS inertial sensors.

Mr. McClary has participated in the development and application of DO178B processes to software development for levels up to Level A. He has provided technical leadership for avionics development for every major new commercial airplane development in the past 25 years, developing the inertial and flight control sensor architecture in commercial air transport aircraft, including Boeing 757/767, Airbus A320, Boeing 777, Airbus A380 and Boeing 787.

He has developed redundant fault-tolerant architectures for commercial aviation applications for a wide range of air transport aircraft. Mr. McClary also holds two patents in the area of redundant system architectures.

Mr. McClary has participated in avionics industry standards development through participation in ARINC and Military standards development in the areas of Inertial Reference Systems and Data Bus standards. He has produced several papers in the areas of fault-tolerant avionics and data bus architectures and presented them at industry symposiums.

He graduated from the University of Minnesota and holds a BSEE (Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering). He is a Licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.).

Paul Carpenter
Director of Engineering

Mr. Carpenter has more than 24 years experience with systems/software engineering productivity improvement including process, development, and test in Aerospace, Defense, and Commercial industries using FAA, DoD, and IEEE standards. Prior to EXB, Mr. Carpenter was an Engineering Fellow on contract with Honeywell International. Mr. Carpenter was the lead verification engineer for the Flight Control System on the Pilatus PC-12 Airplane. He also conducted verification testing on Gulfstream, Dassault, Embraer Airplanes, and the Agusta AB-139 Helicopter. Additionally, he has tested radio and electronic display systems. As a Principal Consultant at Aonix, Mr. Carpenter developed tools that automated the generation of test cases from test-ready UML Models for companies such as The Boeing Company, Sikorsky Aircraft Company, Lockheed-Martin, General Dynamics, and the Air Naval Weapons Center. Prior to that, Mr. Carpenter was a Staff Engineer in the Electronics Display Systems Department at Honeywell International, where he automated the software testing for the Engine and Crew Alerting System for the Boeing 777 Airplane. Mr. Carpenter has trained more than 2500 engineers on systems/software engineering methodologies and specification-based testing.

Mr. Carpenter has a Master of Science Degree in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota at Moorhead, and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education, with a major in Mathematics, from Montana State University at Billings. Mr. Carpenter is a Vietnam Era Veteran of the United States Army.