Steve Gardner became General Manager of Enerdyne in December 2007 after serving the company as Chief Technical Officer since May of 2003. Under his technical leadership, Enerdyne has evolved from a niche video compression company to a mainstream provider of digital data links for manned and unmanned applications in Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR). Steve was the architect of the EnerLinks™II family full-duplex data link, which has been deployed on a variety of manned and unmanned aircraft and surface vessel platforms. The EnerLinks™II family includes the EnerLinks™II DVA (Digital Video over Analog FM Links) system that converts legacy analog data links to digital systems using the existing sensors and RF equipment in both the aircraft and ground system. He also architected Enerdyne’s next generation software defined data link that will support a variety waveforms to meet mission or program requirements for performance, versatility, or interoperability. Drawing on nearly 30 years of experience in the field of communication system design, he restructured Enerdyne’s engineering department to add best-in-class talent in RF hardware, modem design, signal processing and networking design, enabling Enerdyne to execute on programs that integrate every aspect of video ISR systems from the sensor feed in the air to the end user at a network client PC.

Prior to joining Enerdyne, Gardner was Director of Engineering at Conexant, where he led Conexant’s efforts on OFDM-based home networking products operating on AC power wiring, leading a future generation program to distribute video throughout the house. He served as Vice President of the HomePlug Powerline Alliance and chaired its Technical Working Group as Conexant’s representative to that industry consortium. In 1999, Conexant had acquired Istari Design, Inc., a consulting company co-founded by Gardner in 1996 to specialize in state of the art communication systems design and for whom he developed a turbo decoding core solution for the CDMA-2000 standard, a head end burst demodulation architecture for a DOCSIS chip set, and a two-way paging protocol. Previously, Gardner was a Principle Engineer or Staff Engineer for the communications companies PCSI/Cirrus Logic, Qualcomm, and Linkabit Corp where he was system architect for a wide variety of modems, FEC codecs, terminals and systems for cellular, military, and space applications. He received his BSEE (1976) and MSEE (1978) degrees with an emphasis on communication theory and digital signal processing at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Jim Petranovich joined Enerdyne as Chief Technical Officer on November 7, 2007. Jim has almost 30 years of experience in the design and development of communications systems.

Before joining Enerdyne, Jim was Vice President of Strategic Technology Development at Conexant Systems, where he led Conexant's efforts in developing chips for wireless communications. He also led the development of power line communications technology (HomePlug AV) and of phone line communications technology (HPNA 2.0). While employed by Conexant, Jim served as the chair of the PHY committee of the IEEE 802.11n Task Group and he was the Vice Chair of the WiFi Alliance.

Jim came to Conexant through its acquisition of Istari Design, a company he co-founded with Steve Gardner in 1996 that specialized in advanced communication system designs. At Istari Design, Jim was system architect for modems and FEC codecs for a wide variety of communications systems.

Like many other current Enerdyne employees, Jim also worked at PCSI/Cirrus Logic where he was Director of Communications Systems. He was the lead systems architect for the Personal Handyphone System (PHS), a low-tier cellular phone system used in Asian markets. PCSI sold millions of PHS handset chip sets based on his system design and also provided base stations. Prior to PCSI, Jim had developed modems for SATCOM applications for Linkabit in the late 1970s.

Over the years he has authored or co-authored more than 35 issued or pending patents in the field of digital communications. Organizationally, Jim assumed the CTO role from Steve Gardner, who now serves as Enerdyne’s General Manager.

Robert S. Varga, PhD is a Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Enerdyne, a wholly owned subsidiary of ViaSat Inc.

He is responsible for all marketing strategy, planning, and execution as well as USA data link business development at Enerdyne, which provides innovative video data link equipment and digital video systems for defense and intelligence markets, primarily for transmitting video from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to ground stations.

Dr. Varga is a senior executive with over 30 years experience in high technology marketing, sales, research & development, and finance. His career experience encompasses successful start-ups, venture funded businesses, acquisitions, and a corporate turnaround, in a variety of public & private companies, both in the commercial and DoD business sectors.

Most recently Dr. Varga was Vice President, L-3 Communications Advanced Products and Design Division (formerly Titan Corporation). There he was responsible for custom product development for OEMs requiring real-time video processing in mission critical applications, as well as product marketing and marketing communications. In less than a year, his team launched two major product development projects, producing detailed requirements and systems architectures. Continuing to manage core development, he outsourced engineering to domestic and international engineering services companies, enabling the same engineering team to support existing products and customers.

Prior to his promotion, Dr. Varga rose through the Business Development ranks at Titan beginning in 1994, eventually becoming VP of sales.

Mr. Varga holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida. He previously had earned a Master of Engineering there, following dual Bachelors of Science in both Electrical Engineering and Liberal Arts at the University of Notre Dame.

Mike Kulinski joined the company as Vice President Business Development in October 2003. He has over 25 years of experience in a variety of engineering, management, and business development positions with the defense and commercial telecommunications industry.

Prior to joining Enerdyne, Kulinski was the Vice President/General Manager of Radyne ComStream (San Diego, CA). In this position, he was responsible for the development, manufacture and support of High Definition video compression products for the broadcast industry as well as digital SATCOM terminals to provide IP services over satellite channels to developing countries. Previously, Kulinski was Senior VP/General Manager of the Titan Wireless Division and Vice President of Programs for M/A-COM Linkabit.

He holds a BS in Systems Engineering (University of Miami), an MS in Industrial Engineering (Texas A&M), and a MSEE in Telecommunications (University of Colorado).