Russ Brennan

Education and Certifications

University of Illinois

MS, BS Electrical Engineering: Focus on Wireless Communications and Digital Signal Processing

Red Hat Inc.

Red Hat Certified Engineer and System Administrator (RHCE, RHCSA)

Crete-Monee High School

Valedictorian: National Honor Society, Eagle Scout (BSA), Jazz Band, Wrestling Team Captain, Math Team Captain & MVP, etc.

Employment

Google, Inc. 2014-

TSE-SWE - Tech Lead: Crafter of fine tools in software and in your mind.

Northrop Grumman, Intelligence Systems Division 2005-2014

SWE - Software Defined Radio (SDR): TL for efforts culminating in full-stack isolated-cloud Web Apps used SIGINT technology visualization.

Custom Speech USA (Internship) 2005

Software Tester: Created unit tests, benchmarked, and tracked metrics for Natural Language Processing workflow software.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2001-2004

Senior Network Technician: Fixed lots of user issues and enforced fair network usage.

All Service Plumbing 1996-2004

Windows System Administrator: Managed and maintained family-owned small business network.

Professional Skills

Software

Python
C/C++
Etcetera

Engineering

Machine Learning
Communication Systems
Wi-Fi/RF Design & Implementation
Coherent RF Receivers and Acquisition
Systems Engineering and Integration

Other

Technical Leadership
HTML/CSS
JavaScript & JQuery
Map Stacks
Object Oriented and Loosely Coupled Design
Much, much more.

Extracurriculars

Home Improvement

I like to *try* to do everything myself at least once, and fortunately (?) my home provides me with plenty of opportunities. I picked up a lot of know-how working with my dad; I started helping him out as his "apprentice" when I was 7 or so. So far I have replaced my windows and some doors, remodeled my bathrooms, repaired several rotten floor joists, replaced an HVAC system, and made an awesome raised-bed garden among other things. I have no idea what I will do when I run out of things to work on.

It works!

Homemade compost bins

We grew these cool purple carrots in the garden

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Automotive R&R

I have these old vehicles (a '68 Chevelle and a '68 Chevy longbed truck) that I am restoring. I'm making them handle like new sports cars, and have a crazy plan of Autocrossing my truck -- I've never seen a longbed at the track so I'm hoping it's a first! I'm using machine learning coupled with air-activated springs and height sensors to dynamically control suspension stiffness on all four corners. That's the plan at least :)

All this to change an A/C blend door motor.

Thanks for the good times, GM!

Doubles as trick or treating transportation!

I need to teach them how to use sandpaper...

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Guitars

I am way better at collecting and repairing guitars than I am at playing them. Still, after 20+ years playing I can at least impress my kids' friends! For now...

I could have used a 3/4 scale in retrospect.

But, that was a really great guitar!

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Modding Things

I like to mod things -- to improve or expand upon their capabilities as produced. Aside from my cars, a recent venture is an off-site backup solution utilizing a cheap Pogoplug unit, an old router, and an external hard drive. There is a nice Arch Linux distro that will run on the pogoplug! You can set the pogoplug up to run 'rsync' periodically, and with the right combination of flags it can emulate Apple's Time Machine; each backup is incremental and consumes only a little over the filesystem delta. I took notes -- let me know if you'd like them.