The AET Team

The AET technical staff consists of both full-time employees as well as consultants and contract employees. AET has been organized around a team-based structure to effectively manage the three major activities of the company; research and development, business development, and business administration. The team concept allows AET to utilize the vast experience of senior members of our Board of Directors, the superior talents and education of our technical management and staff, and the unique knowledge of university faculty from the Florida Institute of Technology.

Thomas J. Sanders, PhD

Dr. Sanders is the president of AET, Inc. (Advanced Engineering Technologies), a small engineering and software business in Melbourne,Florida.  AET’s expertise lies in the areas of radiation effects of semiconductors and modeling of infrared sensors.  Dr. Sanders recently left Florida Institute of Technology after 15 years of service.  Previously, he worked for Harris Semiconductor for 20 years.

Dr. Sanders received a Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1969.  He immediately joined Harris Semiconductor as a device engineer and has held several engineering management positions, including a Vice President for Research and Development with responsibilities for process and product design.  At Florida Tech he was Professor and Department Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering.  His research programs have involved modeling of advanced semiconductor devices, statistical simulation of integrated circuits, and development of electronics for tolerance to space and nuclear radiation.   Dr. Sanders is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Clyde Combs

Mr. Combs leads the technical marketing activity at AET, Inc.  He has over 40 years experience in the semiconductor industry where his background includes strong technical and program management in new product commercialization and major military program pursuits.

His experience at Harris Semiconductor included various assignments from Vice-President of the Strategic Product Line, Director of Materials, Project Manager of Major Missile Controls and Manager of Research and Development of Semiconductor Process and Product Design.  While holding these job responsibilities, Harris positioned itself to be the #1 supplier of semiconductor circuits to the strategic market place.  Prior to Harris, Mr. Combs was employed at Texas Instruments.  Mr. Combs obtained a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University (SMU) in 1960.

Nick van Vonno

Mr. van Vonno received his Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Florida in 1966. He joined Harris Semiconductor (then Radiation, Incorporated) as a reliability engineer and later transferred to a device engineering group, where he was responsible for device design, process development and design/layout support.

In the position of device engineer and supervisor, representative projects included MOS hardness issues, radiation testing in the total gamma dose, neutron and transient gamma environments, the development of a broad range of analog parts for the Trident II SLBM program, and the development of a series of hardened analog signal processing circuits for the MX (Peacekeeper) program.

Joe Wiles

Mr. Wiles has been a consultant providing analog design services to the semiconductor industry since 1994. Prior to becoming a consultant, Mr. Wiles was employed by Harris Semiconductor, TRW Financial Systems, and Harris Electronic Systems.

Mr. Wiles received a BSEE degree with High Honors from North Carolina State University in 1968. At Harris, Mr. Wiles was responsible for analog design and technical marketing and was promoted to the position of Senior Scientist. In 1994, Mr. Wiles formed Innovative Design Solutions (IDS) and remained there as president until 2001. IDS provides analog design services to several customers and grew to have a total of fourteen (14) employees. In 2001, Analog Design Partners was formed by Mr. Wiles and he currently serves as its president. While there, he has designed several high sensitivity light and color sensors.

Glenn T. Hess, PhD

Dr. Hess serves as Chief Technical Officer with AET, Inc. He is responsible for AET’s technology and software development as well as managing AET’s research contracts with the Florida Institute of Technology, where he was also a part time teacher.

His technical background is in semiconductor device physics, semiconductor process and device simulation, and statistics.  He holds BS, MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering.

Tom Sanders Jr., MBA

Tom Sanders, Jr. was one of the original co-founders of AET, Inc.  He currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer.  Mr. Sanders handles the accounting, human resources and contract administration for this small business.  He has negotiated over $6.5 million in government contracts for AET since 1995.

Mr. Sanders holds a Bachelors Degree in Marketing from the University of Florida (’93) and an MBA from Florida Tech (’95).