Ralph D. Cope

Ralph received his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Delaware in 1978. A year later he earned his Master in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the same department. His Master’s thesis focused on the design of the spar wingskin joint in high performance aircraft. In 1986 he received his Doctorate in mechanical engineering from The Ohio State University. His dissertation focused on the mechanical modeling of the human leg. While working on his doctoral degree, he spent 2 years with Hewlett Packard at HP Labs developing automation technology. After completion of his doctoral work, he returned to the University of Delaware as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. During the next 8 years, he taught all of the design courses and was a cofounder of the Orthopedic and Biomechanics Engineering Center. In 1993, he left the University to start his own consulting company, EPOCH. In 1995, EPOCH merged with WTC to form Accudyne Systems, Inc. Since its formation, Ralph has served as a Senior Partner and President of Accudyne. His areas of expertise include creative problem solving, automation, biomechanics, composites, and system integration. He has been the lead engineer for the development of over 60 machines ranging from biological pipettors to window manufacturing equipment to a variety of machines for fabricating thermoplastic and thermoset composite parts.

Mark B. Gruber

Mark joined DuPont Composites in 1981 after receiving a BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Delaware. He held assignments in Kevlar® fiber process and equipment development for the manufacture of thermoplastic composite parts. This included the development of thermoplastic filament winding and thermoplastic tape placement. In 1997 Mark joined Accudyne Systems Inc. (ASI) as a Senior Partner responsible for the composite programs at ASI. He has been the program manager for multiple composite programs involved in the manufacture of equipment for the production of thermoset and thermoplastic parts. Mark is also the holder of 9 patents for processing equipment for the manufacture of composite parts and has published more than 25 papers in the field of composites processing.

Ross K. Hutter

Ross is a Senior Partner at Accudyne Systems and has 22 years experience in various engineering and business management roles. Ross spent much of his career manufacturing and developing processes for unique materials. He holds two patents for novel, high temperature fluoropolymers and has 10 years experience with thermoset and ceramic matrix composites. Ross has been business manager for several industrial and aerospace products, and is currently involved in marketing and equipment development programs at Accudyne.

Steven Cope

Steve came to Accudyne Systems after 30 years experience with DuPont Engineering as a Senior Consultant in machine and process development. He holds 7 patents ranging from water desalinization to high speed textile windups and has co-authored two papers. A graduate of the University of Delaware, Steve has expertise in design of high speed rotating machines, composite material processing and equipment development, and high speed automated parts manufacturing.

Steven B. Funck

Steve has fifteen years experience in composite process manufacturing equipment. Steve graduated from a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Enginering from the University of Delaware. Over the course of his career, he has participated in a number of equipment development programs in the material processing area focusing on electrical systems engineering and materials process development. This included several assignments in the DuPont tow impregnation facilities. Steve was the principal investigator for in situ tow and tape placement on the DARPA RAPTECH-PMC and RAPTECH-ACM programs. In the NASA High Speed Research Program, he developed the processes to manufacture in situ consolidated skin stringer, honeycomb, and TiGr thermoplastic laminates. Steve joined Accudyne Systems, Inc in 1997, working on TIF and APC-2 line upgrades, redesign, and startup. Steve is the lead process engineer for the SBIR II Conformable Compaction System program.

Michael J. Case

Mike has 10 years experience designing controls systems for automation. He graduated from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 2001 with a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering. After graduation, he designed controls for materials handling systems across the United States. Since starting with Accudyne in 2005, he has handled electrical and software design for numerous programs including factory automation, thermoplastic processing, web handling, and thermoset tape placement machines. Recently much of Mike's efforts concentrated on design and software for Accudyne's cut-on-the-fly fiber placement machine and developing the offline programming environment for programming plies. Mike’s programming experience includes a variety of Allen-Bradley, Siemens, and other PLC’s, Panelview and CMore HMI’s, Siemens 840D CNC, Matlab, Fortran, C# and Visual Basic.

Sandy Cope

Sandy joined the DuPont Company in 1973 after receiving her BS in Chemistry from Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, then her MS and PhD in Organic Chemistry from Princeton University. She held many different assignments in DuPont involving research, laboratory analysis and manufacturing, both as a chemist and as a manager in the areas of organic chemicals, dyes, elastomers, such as EPDM and Kalrez® , hazardous gases, polymers such as nylon and engineering plastics, and environmental control.

Sandy serves as Principal Chemist for both Accudyne Systems, Inc and Dynasep, LLC and has utilized her varied background to develop customers’ processes for such things as extraction of organic materials from both organic and inorganic substances, choosing optimal solvents, removal of impurities or contaminants, and analytical techniques for measuring components. She has also developed safety, occupational health and environmental programs and procedures.

Nan Gopez

Nan graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering, with a concentration in robotics and controls, from the Pennsylvania State University. She has eight years experience working with Accudyne Systems designing and implementing control systems for custom equipment used in such industries as factory automation and composites processing. Her work focuses on the implementation of online sensing systems, motion control apparatus, closed loop process control systems, and high speed data acquisition, and statistical process control (SPC) monitoring systems.

JimGargel

Jim is a Controls Engineer for Accudyne Systems Inc. responsible for designing, programming and implementing control systems for custom equipment used in factory automation, machine and process control. Since graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the College of New Jersey in 1986, he has been developing industrial automation software solutions for end-users and original equipment manufacturers. Prior to joining Accudyne, Jim worked as a Project Engineer for Tamglass Inc. – a manufacturer of glass heat-treating equipment; and as an Applications Engineer for Entivity Inc. – the leading manufacturer of PC-Based Control software.