The early years; After residing in several countries in Europe, Middle East and North Africa, Hal moved to Washington DC in 1972 during his father’s Diplomatic assignment to the United States.

After completing his education in aircraft technology (aircraft airframe-and-powerplant) he started his career in the aviation and telecom industries in Northern Virginia in 1977. He moved to Illinois in 1983, to pursue a career with a Fortune 500 global telecom equipment manufacturer and supplier, first as their R&D Engineer and later as their New Product Development Manager. He later provided support to the firm as an Internal Consultant for various departments and on several large scale international projects. He was instrumental during the internal re-organization of the firm from 1984 to 1986. He was the key team leader in the new product and re-design “modularization programs” of the company-wide new product line development which resulted in cost savings of 45% in less than a year.

He left corporate life in 1993 to start T Square Telecom (T2, Inc.) in Indiana. As a co-founder, he held several key positions as general manager, product design manager, and operating officer. The company designed and produced satellite earth station communication equipment which sold to over 50 countries across the globe. He exited T Square between 2001-2002 and focused on developing a business and venture development advisory firm engaged in providing specialized engineering, cost reduction, product design and development, strategic planning, assistance in mergers & acquisitions, and market entry solutions to domestic and international firms.

Corporate background:

TOBB TRADE CENTER – CHICAGO · Sept 2019 – Mar 2023 

Sr Advisor Business and Trade Development, company start up and launch.

TOBB TTC is a trade center set up to launch Turkish companies in the US. This organization is supported and partially funded by its parent company TOBB and the Turkish ministry of commerce.

What I did for TOBB Trade Center:
I was literally involved at each and every steps of the US entity’s formation and launch. After being selected to run the business start up operations in the US, I was intimately involved in all the aspects of forming and launching the company from location selection, building internal office and warehouse design, IT and Security selection and setup, operations process selection and setup, HR processes set up, creating third party service provider relationships.

Day to day direct involvement in the general management, business strategy, digital marketing, planning and organization, marketing and branding, legal advice and support, managing third party service providers, finance and accounting, risk mitigation and management, interaction with member customers, support to all the business departments, to name few of the activities I successfully accomplished during my involvement with TOBB TC.

Beside the internal company management tasks and duties, I also intimately mentored and supported the launch of nearly a hundred TOBB TC member companies. From forming their companies to creating their US marketing identity, adapting their brand to the US market (digital brand identity, website adaptation), educating them about the US business culture, helping them adapt their product and/or services to the US market needs (market fit), and many other cross-functional support for their adaptation to the US.

In fact there are many other functions I supported during my involvement with TOBB Trade Center, too many to list here.

T Square, Inc., Glen Park, Indiana

Founding Partner, Operations Manager: 1993 to 2001

Earth station satellite communication equipment manufacturer. Instrumental in the company start-up from product design and development to selection and acquisition of manufacturing equipment, administration and implementation of production processes.  Successfully designed, manufactured and sold a large array of earth station satellite antennas and related telecom electro-mechanical components. Products were sold to over 50 countries worldwide.

• Founding partner of start-up satellite antenna design and manufacturing company.
• Designed an entirely new product line of Earth Station antennas (3.7m to 9m in diameter)
• Intimately involved in the daily operational business activities of the company, including administration, management, design & manufacturing, marketing and sales.
• Increased sales volume by 250% in 3 years. Satellite communication products (Earth Station Antenna systems) were sold to domestic TV stations and resellers in over 50 countries Internationally in Latin America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Andrew Corporation, Orland Park, Illinois

New Product Development Manager; 1984 to 1993

Global Telecom systems & equipment manufacturer. Held various positions, primarily responsible for providing new product development expertise as well re-engineering and product cost reduction strategies; built strong project teams as well as establishing clearly defined lean manufacturing and marketing plans. Intimately involved in company-wide restructuring and cost reduction across many disciplines, product lines and company divisions.

• Held multi-functional engineering and management positions with increasingly larger field of responsibilities in R&D, Special Project Leader (During the restructuring period), General Manager for the cost reduction and modularization of entire antenna product line, New Product Manager and finally as an internal consultant to the Corporate Management Team.
• Instrumental in implementing new production methods resulting in over 45% cost reduction in less than a year.
• Played a key role in the quality improvement of the entire antenna product line.
• Designed and produced one of the first field-deployable 1.8 m VSAT flyaway antenna now used with most TV Media companies.
• Obtained patent # 4,819,007 for antenna support structure and helped numerous Andrew engineers and staff with patent design.
• Although stationed at the Orland Park, Illinois headquarters traveled extensively between all the Andrew facilities in Texas, California, Canada, England, Brazil and Australia.
• Left company in 1993 to start a private business.
• Was re-hired as an independent consultant to investigate possible domestic and international mergers and acquisition.
• (Andrew Corporation was partially acquired by CommScope and General Dynamics)
• Implemented several leading edge technologies to improve product performance while reducing production costs.

Radiation Systems, Inc., Sterling, Virginia

Lead project Engineer; 1979 to 1984

Microwave Communication antenna manufacturer. Worked in quality control, assurance and improvement later promoted to technical and project engineering positions. Assigned to re-engineering, re-design and large scale production projects on numerous commercial and military Satellite Communication programs.

• Held technical and project management positions in quality control, design and production.
• Worked on numerous commercial and military Satcom projects, such as Tropo-Scater, QRC and mobile tactical milspec antennas, Planar Arrays, FAA Dipole air traffic control antennas and the NexRad (next generation radar) project.
• Was intimately involved in improving product quality, product reverse engineering, and tooling design and production cost reduction.
• (RSI was acquired by COMSAT, later merged with Vertex Communications and General Dynamics/Satcom)

Dowty-Rotol, Inc., Sterling, Virginia

Quality control and test engineer; 1977 to 1979

• Started and an intern during the last year of college and held technical positions in the testing and certification of aircraft landing gear systems and propellers used on commercial aircrafts. (holder of F.A.A. Airframe and Powerplant license)
• Improved maintenance process of aircraft landing gear and propeller blade overhaul according to FAA rules and manufacturer’s specs and regulations.