From the shoes we wear on our feet to the high definition televisions in our living room, wearable devices, the sports universe is a breeding ground for technology. Writer and Photographer Rick Limpert will examine this each week on The Tech of Sports – With guests which include athletes, inventors and journalists that cover the intersection of sports and technology.
Rick is joined by PGA Tour’s Justin Thomas this week.
Justin is known for his ball striking and his play along with his attire, on and off the course as he represents Ralph Lauren.
A former World No. 1 and one of the most popular players on the PGA Tour. In 2017, Thomas experienced a breakout year, winning five PGA Tour events, including the PGA Championship, his maiden major championship, and also winning the FedEx Cup championship. In May 2018, Thomas became the 21st player to top the Official World Golf Ranking.
Each week, golf fans wonder what Justin will be wearing as he drives, chips and putts. Rick talks about he love for fashion and more this week on Tech of Sports.
Rick is joined by the fantastic duo from Pocket Radar, Christ Stewart and Steve Goody.
Chris Stewart is Pocket Radar’s President and COO. He has an extensive engineering and inventor background holding five patents. He is a volunteer professor at Sonoma State University where he lectures in electrical engineering and business entrepreneurship.
Steve Goody is Pocket Radar’s CEO. He has an inventor and architectural background and is the inventor/ co-inventor on seventeen patents. He holds a BSEE from the University of California, Davis.
Based in Santa Rosa, California, Pocket Radar was founded on the principle that radar-gun technology should be affordable and user-friendly. Their goal was to create an accurate product line that can be use by anyone from professionals to everyday consumers. Pocket Radar’s product line is trusted by teams like the San Diego Padres, the Colorado Rockies, the Milwaukee Brewers, Georgia Tech Baseball Team, the University of Missouri Baseball Team, and many more.
Prior to being a co-founder and President/COO of Pocket Radar Inc. Chris was the Business Manager of the Agilent Technologies Radio Test business. He had P&L responsibility for the entire operation, with direct responsibility for global product development teams, marketing teams and manufacturing teams. Previously, Chris served in a series of Agilent R&D leadership positions moving from project manager to section manager to lab manager. Before the formation of Agilent, he was an R&D project manager for Hewlett Packard in their Test and Measurement business. During this time, Chris held multiple intrepreneurial positions where he successfully helped start up several new businesses and integrate multiple company acquisitions.
Chris has extensive experience building strong development teams and leading new product introductions. Before moving into management, he spent 10 years as a Microwave, RF, and Analog design engineer at Hewlett Packard gaining experience in R&D, Marketing, and Manufacturing. As an engineer, Chris designed products for the test system that is used to calibrate every Radar system in the US Navy. He has also done substantial consulting in the areas of design, new product development, and strategic business planning. He has published multiple papers and technical articles and holds 5 granted patents with more pending. Chris is also a volunteer professor at Sonoma State University where he lectures in Electrical Engineering and Business Entrepreneurship. He also serves as chairman of the External Advisory Board for the SSU Makerspace and Lead Industry Advisor for the Electrical Engineering Department.
A true inventor at heart, Chris built his first radio transmitter when he was 8 years old and has been inventing ever since. At age 16 he invented a novel radio-controlled switching system that won first place in a state-wide electronics competition. This led directly to his first job as a radio engineer at WATH/WXTQ Radio. He earned his First Class Commercial FCC License and was promoted to Chief Engineer at age 18. He put himself through college working as an engineer at WNCI Radio where he developed new audio processing and synchronous timing systems.
Before being a co-founder and CEO of Pocket Radar Inc. Steve was a co-founder and HW system architect at Caymas Systems where he helped create an award winning line of identity driven NAC Appliances. Prior to that, he was a key member of the early start-up engineering team at Cerent Corp. (acquired by Cisco Systems). He was senior HW designer and architect of Ethernet products for the industry leading Cisco ONS15454.
Before Cerent, Steve worked for Next Level Communications where he was a HW designer and architect on various telecommunications and networking products. Steve has many years of experience in HW design and architecture with extensive experience in Ethernet switching, SONET, timing, ASICs, FPGAs, Embedded FW, and DSP. Steve spent over 12 years of his professional career at Hewlett Packard as a hardware designer and principal engineer/scientist, responsible for a variety of networking product designs and architectures, including hubs, switches and network adapters.
Steve is named an inventor/co-inventor on 17 patents and holds a BSEE from the University of California, Davis. He has been a passionate inventor from a very early age and still loves the challenge of taking abstract ideas and turning them into reality.
New from Pocket Radar is Smart Coach Radar.
The Smart Coach Radar™ is the first affordable, complete speed and video training system that empowers the modern athlete and coach in many sports with the ability to create and share a digital record of their progress. By providing actionable insights into important metrics like hitting exit velocity, serve speed and pitch speed, coaches and athletes can now optimize their techniques and methods to get better results in the new era of athletic training.
A great discussion this week on Pocket Radar, sports technology and more!
Tennis Resorts Online’s founder and editor-in-chief Roger Cox has spent more than 30 years writing about tennis travel. That long stint included a 17-year stretch for Tennis magazine, during which he visited more than 300 tennis resorts on five continents and personally participated in over 50 tennis camps—several of them more than once. His informed perspective on the entire tennis resort and tennis camp landscape underpins this website.
No resort paid to be surveyed here. These are not ads but informed descriptions based on Cox’s broad, firsthand knowledge and on the wisdom of the Tennis Resorts Online visitors, who are invited to comment about their own vacation experiences. The point of it all is to help you make better choices about where to take your next tennis vacation.
Apart from his stories for Tennis, Cox has written hundreds of additional articles—mostly about travel and occasionally illustrated with his own photos—which have variously appeared in Budget Travel, Continental Magazine, New York Magazine, Travel & Leisure, Esquire, Money, Working Woman, GQ, Tennis magazine, Tennis Life Magazine, USTA Magazine, Diversion, Men’s Fitness, Men’s Journal, The Robb Report, New Choices, New England Tennis, Bridal Guide, and For the Bride, among numerous others. He has also written two books—The World’s Best Tennis Vacations (Stephen Greene Press/Viking Penguin, 1990) and The Best Places to Stay in the Rockies (Houghton Mifflin, 1992 and 1994)— as well as the Melbourne (Australia) chapter to the Wall Street Journal Business Guide to Cities of the Pacific Rim (Fodor’s Travel Guides, 1991). He is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and a past president of the New York Travel Writers Association. He joins Rick for a great discussion this week!
Rick is joined by a great guest this week, Tracey Ellis, CEO, Leadous.
Leadous helps organizations grow their pipeline by improving Marketo Strategies.
Marketo Marketing Automation is the latest innovation in marketing and drives real value if implemented and used correctly; that’s where Leadous comes in. We work with those that are looking to improve their marketing outcomes by adopting and leveraging Marketo, those that have established marketing initiatives but no marketing automation and those that have Marketo and are looking to further leverage it.
Leadous focuses on companies looking to define their lead generation strategy, implement Marketo and drive growth for sales.
Twin Cities Based
Experienced
Services Offerings
Marketo Focused
Certified Bench
Happy Clients
Partner Support
Everyone is ready for us to lead them
Ellis says that Leadous has been deeply involved in sports marketing.
She guides the team with over 20 years of sales and marketing experience and provides a solid understanding of how businesses can grow their sales pipeline through the power of marketing automation. Prior to founding Leadous, Tracey held Vice President and Director roles in Sales & Marketing, with technology corporations like Clockwork Solutions, Descartes (formerly Airclic), IBM (formerly Cognos/Adaytum) and Forsythe Technology. She even successfully owned and operated her own consulting agency for 7 years. Talk about a POWERHOUSE!
Leadous came from very small beginnings and now work with some of the very top brands.
“We built a Center of Excellence in our office to foster the Digital Experience community, its pretty great to see how businesses and people grow when you take a different approach.”
See how Leadous is impacting the world of sports as Ellis talks with Rick.
Rick is joined this week, but Chad Willis, the President of Racing Electronics in Concord, NC.
Racing Electronics is a fixture at major motorsports events across the country. From the ubiquitous “RE Red” headsets worn by thousands of race fans to the Racing Electronics equipment used on pit road, in the car, and on the spotter stand, Racing Electronics produces and sells the most popular motorsports communication equipment available today.
Racing Electronics offers trackside services to ensure race fans are prepared and race ready!
Accessories sold at the track: splitters, hearing protection and ear-plugs, frequency sheets, custom ear molds shot trackside, and FanVision battery swap (at NASCAR events only).
Devices programmed at the track: RE3000, RE1000, Trackscan, Uniden SC230, and FanVision activations and software updates (at NASCAR events only).
Racing Electronics is a fixture in the racing industry. Fans and those that make their living in the industry appreciate their products and how they innovate.
Chad is an analytics-driven marketer who enjoys tackling the difficult challenges, designing innovative and engaging strategies and working with results-driven teams to generate revenue. A customer-centric marketing and communications professional with a knack for connecting brands and consumers, and creating opportunity by building successful relationships and partnerships.
Great to talk with Chad learning more about Racing Electronics.
Comprised of Concord, Kannapolis, Harrisburg, Midland, and Mount Pleasant, North Carolina, Cabarrus County is located just 20 minutes north of Charlotte. Known as Where Racing Lives, the area is home to 90 percent of NASCAR race team shops, iconic motorsports venues and the hometown of legendary driver, Dale Earnhardt Sr. Racing really is the main industry of Cabarrus County and they do it right!
Donna joined the Cabarrus County Convention & Visitors Bureau as President and CEO in 2009 bringing more than 14 years of experience in destination management, sales and marketing to the Bureau.
Prior to joining the Cabarrus County CVB, Donna served as the director of tourism and partnership development for five-plus years with Visit Charlotte. She was also executive director of the Stanly County Convention & Visitors Bureau, director of sports and public relations for the York County Convention & Visitors Bureau and was the executive director for the Fort Mill Chamber of Commerce.
In 2010, Donna was named one of the area’s Top Women in Business by Business Today. The same year, she became a Certified Destination Management Executive (CMDE) through Destinations International (formerly Destination Marketing Association International). She is also certified as a Tourism Marketing Professional through the Southeast Tourism Society (STS).
Donna currently serves on the following boards:
600 Festival
Cabarrus Economic Development Council
Cabarrus Regional Chamber of Commerce
Destinations International Foundation
NC Travel and Tourism
NC Travel and Tourism Coalition
Southeast Tourism Society Executive Board
State Employees’ Credit Union Advisory Board
UNCC Advisory Board
Donna is Past President of Destination Marketing Association of North Carolina (DMANC) and Past Chair of the Hickory Ridge High School Tourism Academy Advisory Board.
In September 2015, Donna received the Southeast Tourism Society Beacon Award, a prestigious honor recognizing an individual who best exemplifies outstanding leadership in the pursuit of excellence and who has advanced the tourism industry.
Thanks so much to Donna and her staff for a great visit and this interview. You can see more at: https://www.visitcabarrus.com.
