Image Trends - About Us

Team Bios

	Daniel J. Sullivan (President & CEO) - Prior to forming Image Trends, Inc., Mr. Sullivan served as ASF President and Chief Executive Officer from July 2000 to May 2003 when the company assets were sold to Eastman Kodak. He was the General Manager of the Kodak Austin Development Center until January of 2005. Prior to ASF, Mr. Sullivan was employed by IBM for 25 years where he served in various Sales, Marketing, Strategy, Intellectual Property and Product Development positions, including, most recently, as Vice President, Asia Pacific Technical Operations. Mr. Sullivan is Chairman of the board of the Austin Technology Council and on the Central Texas board of the Emerging Technology Fund of the State of Texas. He holds a B.A. from Hanover College and an M.S. in Systems Management from the University of Southern California.

	Dr. Albert Edgar (CTO) - Prior to joining Image Trends, Inc., Dr. Edgar was a founder of ASF and has served as CTO and Director. Before ASF, Dr. Edgar was employed by IBM as a senior engineer and scientist where he engaged in various scientific and engineering projects including display, printer and microprocessor design. He is a leading wedding photographer where he employs leading edge imaging technology to reveal beauty in all lighting conditions. Dr. Edgar holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Physics from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Edgar is the named inventor on over 100 patents and received the PMDA Technologist of the Year Award in 2002.

	Dave Cavena (Vice President of Sales and Marketing) - Prior to joining Image Trends, Inc., Mr. Cavena served as the Director of Sales, Western Region, for Espre Solutions, a Java codec company. Mr. Cavena brings over 30 years of experience in the IT industry, the last 15 in the Digital Cinema, Post-Production and content repurposing arenas. Prior to Espre, he was a Sr. Architect with Sun Microsystems and their point person to the Hollywood content community, was Director of Development for the Blu-Ray authoring system Blu-Print at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Program Manager of MovieBeam for the Walt Disney Company, and a 16-year veteran of IBM Global Services as Executive Project Manager in the Digital Media/Digital Hollywood space. He earned a BA in English from California State University, Los Angeles.

	Wayne Galella (Vice President of Engineering) – Prior to joining Image Trends, Inc., Mr. Galella was Engineering Manager and Director of the Kodak Austin Development Center and VP of Development at Applied Science Fiction (ASF). Before ASF, he was Senior Development Director of the PC Audio business and Co-General Manager of the PC Audio division for Crystal Semiconductor and Cirrus Logic. He also held various positions at IBM for 20 years including Large Systems Software, Business Systems Hardware and Software, and managed IBM’s Multi-Media Hardware and Software development teams that brought IBM into Multi-Media and developed many of the technologies that became ASF. Mr. Galella holds a BE in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Vanderbilt University.

	George Halloran (Vice President of Operations) – Prior to joining Image Trends, Inc., Mr. Halloran was Director of Operations for Kodak’s Austin Development Center and previously was Vice-President of Operations for Applied Science Fiction (ASF). Having spent over 30 years with IBM, Mr. Halloran has extensive experience in IBM’s Corporate Headquarters and was responsible for the development and deployment of their worldwide administrative support system. In addition, Mr. Halloran was responsible for the introduction and support of IBM’s new products and offerings in the Asia Pacific Countries. He has worked extensively in IBM’s World Trade organization, as well as their US based operations and has broad management experience. George has experience living and working internationally and in managing international operations. Mr. Halloran holds a BA from St. Bonaventure University.

	Dr. Darryl Polk (Senior Programmer) – Prior to joining Image Trends, Inc., Dr. Polk had over 30 years of engineering management and advanced algorithm development. While at ASF and Kodak Dr. Polk was responsible for the Digital ICE algorithm development, tuning and testing. Prior to ASF Dr. Polk spent over 30 years at IBM in a variety of product development and management positions. He was also the lead analyst on several missile systems for the IBM Federal Systems Division. Dr. Polk holds a BS and a MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Arkansas and a PhD in Computer Science from Southern Methodist University.

	Martin Potucek (Senior Engineer) – Prior to joining Image Trends, Inc., Mr. Potucek brought over 30 years experience in mechanical, electrical and optical design. Mr. Potucek worked for Kodak prior to ASF and has extensive experience in printer and film scanner design and embedded controller programming. While at ASF and Kodak Austin, Mr. Potucek was responsible for all OEM scanner hardware and firmware assessment and helped advise scanner makers on ways to improve their components to support Digital ICE. He was also on the Motion Picture team. Mr. Potucek holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri and a BS in Electrical Engineering Integrated Circuit Design from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

	Michael Wilder (Senior Engineer) – Prior to joining Image Trends, Inc., Mr. Wilder was the senior customer relations engineer and team leader bringing over 25 years of experiences to Image Trends. While at ASF and Kodak he was responsible for algorithm development, noise reduction technologies, frame segmentation and registration methods. He spent 18 years with Raytheon and Texas instruments in advanced electro-optical systems including target tracking and guidance systems for airborne, sea and land applications. Mr. Wilder was a Member of Technical Staff at Raytheon and is a Professional Engineer with IEEE. Mr. Wilder holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota an MS in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University and an MS in Computer Science from the National Technical University.

	Mike Wilkes (Senior Programmer) - Prior to joining Image Trends, Inc., Mr. Wilkes was a founder of ASF and brings over 25 years of experience in software engineering and project management. While at ASF and Kodak, Mike was responsible for the development of imaging applications and managed the Photo Kiosk and e-Commerce projects. Prior to ASF, Mike spent 16 years with IBM where he developed and managed projects for office applications, audio and image signal processing, speech recognition, and distributed file systems. Mike is the holder of eight patents and has a BA in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.

	Takemasa Kambara – Mr. Kambara is President of Image Trends Japan handling Intellectual Property & Licensing, and responsible for the customer relationships and intellectual property issues in Asia. Prior to joining Image Trends, Inc., he was an IP consultant to Kodak Japan and previous to that he was President of Applied Science Fiction, Japan. He spent over 35 years with IBM in various intellectual property licensing positions and represented the IBM Corporation in the Asian region. He is also active in the Japan Photographic Society and the Japan Intellectual Property Association. Mr. Kambara holds a BS in Applied Physics from Konan University.

	Sheppard Parker (Senior Programmer) - Prior to joining Image Trends, Inc., Mr. Parker was a founder of ASF and later a member of the development team at NetQoS and brings over 20 years of experience in software engineering. At NetQoS, Sheppard was a member of the development team responsible for network traffic reporting tools utilizing Cisco (NetFlow), InMon (sFlow) and MySQL (custom storage engine) technologies. During his 10 years at ASF/Kodak, Sheppard was responsible for the early stage development of image algorithms such as Digital ICE, ROC, and GEM as well as the subsequent development of applications utilizing those technologies. Prior to ASF, Sheppard spent 7 years with IBM where he participated in the development of various audio and imaging related technologies and products. Sheppard has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Auburn University.

	Amanda Cook (Marketing Associate and Staff Photographer) - Ms. Cook is a professional photographer with her own studio - Amanda Cook Photography, and had previously gained experience with several other studios. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Ms. Cook is skilled in Photoshop, Bridge, and other image processing software supported by Image Trends, Inc., on both MAC and Windows platforms.