Key Personnel

APRI consists of a core of senior engineers and scientists with a supporting technical staff augmented when appropriate by key consultants who are highly qualified by education and experience. The broad experience base of APRI's engineers gives APRI strong credibility in theoretical analysis, numerical analysis, experiment design, and experiment implementation. APRI's scientists have a strong background in both managing and conducting research intensive and high technology programs, and excel in this type of environment. APRI has been working on analytical, experimental, and computational aspects of hypersonic propulsion, scramjets, detonation physics, and scramaccelerator launcher technology since APRI's inception in 1989. Research has been ongoing at APRI under several technology programs for NASA, the US Air Force and the US Navy. These efforts have focused on the physics of propulsion, detonation, implementation of detonation for propulsive applications including pulse detonation, oblique detonation, and scramaccelerator propulsion devices.

Dr. Thomas Sobota, President.
Besides formal training in engineering and technology that Dr. Sobota received through his Ph.D. study, Dr. Sobota has obtained practical experience in low volume manufacturing, aero propulsion system engineering, hypervelocity gun system engineering, computer system engineering, ground vehicle engineering, and nuclear power plant system engineering. Dr. Sobota has established a system engineering department at a start-up electric and hybrid electric vehicle manufacturer, where besides the development of vehicles, his responsibilities included the ground-up establishment of the engineering group, including the definition of engineering practices and procedures. Through various experimental programs in which he has participated, he has also received practical experience in analog and digital electronic design, programming for the digital control of machine tools and combustion systems, the manufacture of aerodynamic shapes and bodies, and the operation of ballistic, hypersonic, and acoustic test facilities. This strong formal education, together with the deep and broad practical experience in system design, engineering design, and manufacturing, provides a strong basis for APRI's continued growth.

Jane P. Sobota, JD, PE, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Counsel.
Jane Sobota has received formal training in engineering and law, and she is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of California and licensed to practice law in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Ms. Sobota has considerable experience in the management of large construction programs and served as the Chief of Contracts Administration for the Construction Branch of the Philadelphia District of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. In this role she was responsible for the administration of several multi-million dollar military, civil, and superfund construction projects. The management, contracting, negotiation and administrative skills developed in this prior employment have proven extremely beneficial to APRI.

Jay Marsh, Principal Engineer.
Mr. Marsh has been trained in the techniques of systems engineering and has applied these techniques to a variety of commercial projects since 1995. Mr. Marsh has been involved with the inception and management of a university solar vehicle project that included the development, design and procurement of a vehicle engineered to compete in a 1000 mile staged race. With this experience, Mr. Marsh was then employed by an electric vehicle manufacturing company to design, analyze and develop many of the critical electro-mechanical systems required for electrical vehicle on-road use. These systems included drivetrain simulation and analysis, HVAC development for FMVSS certification and total systems simulation for conceptual studies and trade analysis. Mr. Marsh has also worked at Honda R&D, North America as a design engineer for mass production vehicles. His responsibilities at Honda included final designs for a low production Canadian Acura and the first prototype stage of the 1999 Acura TL major redesign. His design experience was focused on the audio, navigation, and theft deterrent systems and subsystems for traction control. Since joining APRI in 1997, Mr. Marsh has been the design engineer and systems engineer for all SBIR contracts requiring component design. He has also assisted in the development and specification of the operating procedures for the design department at APRI including the procurement of Pro/ENGINEER as the standard design tool.