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Smith Businesses to Watch For
Zero Bugs…Period
 When someone asks
Michael Barr, MBA ’06, what he does for a living, he tells
them, “I’m an embedded systems expert—whatever that means.” Barr is the owner
and founder of Netrino, which was recently named Baltimore’s second-fastest
growing company by the Baltimore Business Journal. He knows exactly what
embedded systems are: “they are computers, hidden away inside a product.”
Barr says his classic example of an embedded system is a microwave oven, with
its own internal computer and software. This example has become somewhat
archaic, however, as customers become more tech-savvy and better understand the
computing components of their products. In the digital age, our lives are
increasingly dependent on embedded systems in products like pacemakers and
antilock brake systems. So Barr and his company aren’t just putting computers
into products: they’re putting perfect computers into products. “Zero
bugs…period” is the watchword for all Netrino’s services.
Netrino’s first phase began in 1999, when Barr broke away from the
engineering consulting firm where he was working and began his own business. He
had already written the industry’s first book on programming for embedded
systems. During Netrino’s first phase, where Barr was the sole employee, he
consulted with clients while concurrently serving as editor-in-chief for an
industry publication for several years. “After six years,” Barr says, “Netrino
had grown larger than my ability to grow it.” He chose to come to business
school to learn how to scale up services and be an efficient manager of
employees.
After graduating from EMBA Cohort 5, Barr launched “Netrino 2” in January
2007, now with a complete business plan and a concept of how to grow the
company. “My Executive MBA provided me with a specialization in generalizing,”
says Barr. “Every day, I am doing or managing different parts of the business.
As an entrepreneur, I have to know all of these things.”
Netrino, which currently has ten employees, is housed in the Howard County
Technology Incubator, where the company is allowed flexibility as it grows. The
firm sells expertise and time in four major areas: training, consulting, product
development, and expert witness.
How did a computer engineer get to be in the court room? “It started
inadvertently during the Netrino 1 phase,” Barr explains. “I received a phone
call from a lawyer. He asked, ‘Do you know anyone who could be an expert witness
on embedded systems?’ I said, ‘Yes. Me’.” Since then, Netrino has been involved
in over 25,000 product lawsuits, examining over 125 embedded system devices.
But, at the core, Barr is focused on teaching others his zero bug
methodology. “The biggest challenge facing the embedded systems industry,” says
Barr, “is a lack of qualified people who really understand embedded systems and
the unique challenges. You get someone who doesn’t understand what they’re doing
and makes an early poor design decision—that can have long-range impacts on the
product.” He shares his knowledge and best practices with individual engineers
at public trainings and consults with large engineering companies, helping all
of them to change their software development process by implementing
“overlapping layers of easy-to-do things.”
What keeps an embedded systems expert awake at night? For Barr, it’s concerns
over the safety of medical equipment and automobile control systems. He recounts
incidents of pacemakers with defective software, requiring patients to undergo
another surgery to install updated software. In products with such critical
embedded systems, there is high risk and the potential for disastrous results.
“I could help to change that,” says Barr. --TL
STS International
Dave Morgan, MBA ’08, always planned on a career in medicine, and he
eventually got it, as part of his family business. In 1993, when Morgan was
deciding between a career in academia or medical practice, his father offered
him another option: going into the defense contracting business. One of the
lines of business would include medical simulations and training modules.
Sensing a good opportunity, Morgan joined his father, an Army veteran, and
brother as the founders of STS International, a contractor offering integrated
solutions for military and other clients.
The company grew quickly, but now intentionally keeps its size at 60
employees, in order to remain agile in meeting market needs. Morgan, who earned
a BS in Physiology from the University of Maryland, came back to College Park to
be part of the seventh Executive MBA cohort at the Smith School. “We already
were implementing concepts of disruptive technologies and blue ocean strategy,”
he says, “But we didn’t know their names. In the EMBA program, I learned the
names, as well as best practices, of those frameworks.” Morgan was also pleased
with the opportunity to meet with other students working on military contracts
to “understand different points of view of the same problems, in a
noncompetitive way.”
Morgan has given up the medical school plans, but has helped STS
International grow its integrated VITA medical training systems, which have
reached 15,000 students, mostly combat medics, across the world. He also
enthusiastically touts the benefits his company’s products and services bring to
soldiers serving abroad. “We have people from the company in Iraq and
Afghanistan,” he says, “who are serving the country on the front. We make their
lives easier at the user level.” -- TL
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