Our Subject Matter Experts

Jeff Gray

Jeff graduated from Kansas State University and began his professional career at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, as a member of the Fast Transient Plasma Physics group. There he participated in the design, development and deployment of a variety of high-speed data acquisition and processing platforms involving complex integrated hardware and software systems for the underground weapons testing program and other national security programs. When Jeff returned to Kansas, he served as the Engineering Manager for the Automated Test Equipment (ATE) Engineering group at BF Goodrich JcAir Test Systems where he successfully managed new product development in: communication, navigation, flight controls, cabin controls, and inertial navigation. Mr. Gray was the primary technical liaison for avionics OEMs (Honeywell, Rockwell Collins, Boeing CAS, Hamilton-Sundstrand, Allied Signal, etc.) and air frame manufacturers Boeing and Airbus.

Jeff is currently the CEO of CertTech LLC.

Dan Barbour

Dan’s career started as an officer in the United States Navy where he worked in Washington, D.C. on the Naval Reactors (NR) program at the Naval Sea Systems Command. His focus was on the Nuclear Reactor Instrumentation and Control Systems installed in submarines. During this period, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover led the NR program and there Dan honed his skills for attention to detail and leadership from the lessons Admiral Rickover instilled. Dan completed a postgraduate-level education in Nuclear Engineering through the Bettis Reactor Engineering School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

Following his career in the U.S. Navy, Dan worked at the Allied Signal Nuclear Weapons Complex developing large complex automated test systems. After four years at Allied Signal, Dan then transitioned to BF Goodrich JcAIR where he expanded his experience in automated test equipment design for commercial avionics systems. Dan led the Test Equipment Design Group in creating the test system for the avionics installed in the Boeing 777 series aircraft.

Dan was a founding partner in CertTech LLC and is currently Chief Technical Officer of the company.

John Stanley

John is the Director of Product Development at CertTech LLC. He has extensive experience in leading V&V projects for major OEM’s across multiple industries including medical, energy, aerospace, transportation and weapons systems. His project management experience in safety and mission-critical applications provides a unique background and insight solving automated test and product design challenges. During his career, John has managed projects that have created a broad spectrum of products including; instrument landing systems, cockpit and weapon systems controls, global positioning systems and many others. John is a Partner at CertTech and a Professional Engineer. He holds both BSEE and MSEE degrees from the University of Missouri.

Sam Jarrell (Retired)

Sam founded CertTech, L.L.C., based on a vision of building a staff of highly-talented and experienced engineers focused on providing leading edge Verification and Validation solutions for the avionics market to leverage automated test technologies to reduce costs and improve time-to-market across the entire product life cycle.

Prior to the inception of CertTech, Sam developed test systems and test automation tools for avionics systems in the general aviation and air transport aviation sectors. Sam initiated the development of the quality management system and ISO certification at CertTech LLC. He authorized the use of CertTech staff time and resources for the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) efforts to produce DO-178 guidelines and served on the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) Software Standards Committee. Sam has a BSEE degree from the University of Missouri–Columbia College of Engineering, is a Certified Software Quality Engineer (CSQE) and is the original instructor of the V&V course. Sam currently holds a seat on the company’s Board of Advisors.

Tom Roth

After graduating with a B.S. in electrical engineering from Christian Brothers University, Tom began his career at Northrup and Leeds as a deputy project manager. He then spent several years with the Honeywell Process Control division before moving on to become a group engineer working on military radar at Emerson’s Electronics and Space division. In 1988, Tom migrated back to Honeywell where he spent the next 17 years as a group engineer, lead on SQA, SCM, DER and during 2002-2005, was the APEX certification coordinator. In late 2005 Tom moved to L-3 Communications and functioned as a certification liaison officer, a role he held until 2010. He currently works as an independent consultant in the aviation and aerospace industry working on DO-178B/C and DO-254 certification. Below is a partial list of his accomplishments;

• Member in RTCA SC-167 involved in the writing of DO-178B, a member of working group 5 on SCM and SQA topics in 1990 and 1991.
• Presented “The Physiology of a DER” at the first Software DER Conference in Long Beach, CA in 1999.
• Attended the first Object-Oriented Technology in Aviation workshop in 2002 sponsored by NASA on behalf of the FAA.
• Presented “The Evolution of a Tool Qualification” at the Software Tools Workshop sponsored by the FAA and ERU in May 2004.
• Supported the Software NRS in various activities during Leanna Rierson’s tenure in that position.
• Attended the RTCA Ad Hoc committee meeting in September 2004, to discuss the need for DO-178C Software Guidance and helped prepare the Terms of Reference for SC-205.
• Attended RTCA Special Committee 205 to address Software Considerations in Aeronautical Systems and write DO-178C. Accepted the role of Secretary of the Product Integration subcommittee (SG1) of RTCA SC-205