Kristopher Staller:
CLASS OF 1983
Northrop High SchoolClass of 1983
Ft. wayne, IN
Purdue University - EngineeringClass of 1988
West lafayette, IN
Kristopher's Story
Life
I graduated from Purdue University in 1988 with a BA in Electrical Engineering. I spent the first year on campus in Lafayette, taking all of the base engineering courses, but had to finish at IPFW when my brothers and sisters moved out of the house - causing a loss of all financial aid.
During my Junior and Senior years, I worked as a Floor Manager at the Keltsch Pharmacy in Garrett Indiana. I had the pleasure of running the cash register one night when one of our ninth-grade teachers came in to buy a pack of condoms :)
From 1988 to 2000, I worked at ITT Aerospace in Fort Wayne, initially as a Reliability Engineer on the SINCGARs radios, and then moved to the failure analyisis lab in 1990 performing failure analysis of electronic components and hardware used in the SINCGARs military radios and GOES satellite imagers.
In 2000, I moved to Tempe Arizona and took a Senior Failure Analysis Engineering job with Medtronic, performing package and microcircuit-level failure analysis of pacemakers, defibrillators, neuro stimulators, and other implantable medical devices. I am an industry expert in the field of acoustic microscopy, microwave plasma package deconstruction and non-destructive imaging (X-ray, laser-injection microscopy, photoemission, etc).
In 2006, I moved to Dallas Texas, and worked for Texas Instruments, performing silicon-level failure analysis of automotive electronics as a Sr Failiure Analysis Engineer. I micro-probed microcircuit nodes in .65um technology silicon to find silicon point defects. TI was a "boot camp" that allowed me to learn and pick up these skills above and beyond what I had already learned in package and board-level failure analysis. The move was intended to get us closer to home to attend major holidays (18 hour drive from Dallas, instead of 36 from Phoenix) to own a home with acreage, and to grow our work skills. The allergies and higher cost of living prompted us to move back to the Sonoran desert in the Spring of 2008.
In June 2008, we moved to Vail Arizona, just southeast of Tucson. I transferred to TI's Tucson facility (formerly Burr Brown) and performed silicon-level failure analysis on high performance analog products. The house in Texas sold within three days on the market, thanks to the 4 acres of horse property.
I w...Expand for more
orked as a Principal Failure Analysis Engineer at the Texas Instruments lab in Tucson up through 2021, and returned back to Medtronic and now work there as a Principal Failure Analysis Engineer.
In 1992, I trained at Smith and Baer Fields and earned my wings, with a private pilot license single-engine-land rating. I also attained the top Amateur Radio license class (Extra Class) by demonstrating the ability to copy morse code at 20 words per minute (license KF7AW). Before moving to Arizona, I was involved in fast scan television and radio direction finding (RDF). During one RDF exercise, we came across a fresh crop circle in Whitley county. Several UFO nuts noted our our cars arrayed with strange looking antennas around the crop circle and reported on their web sites that we were the "men in black". Will Smith, here I come...
I kept up my Euphonium (small tuba) playing in the Fort Wayne Community Band, Mesa City Band, Tucson Concert Band, Santa Cruz Summer Winds, and Ahwatukee Foothills Concert Band. Barry Ashton made a few cameo directorial appearances with the FWCB. I have also played in church orchestras, Ft Wayne Blackhawk Baptist, Christ Central Church (Mesa), Wylie First Baptist Church (TX), Christ Community Church (Tucson), First Southern Baptist Tucson, and Rincon Baptist (Tucson) with the Euphonium. I have since upgraded to a full size Bb tuba for church playing, at Christ Community Church and El Camino Baptist (Tucson).
I met my wife, Karla, at Blackhawk Baptist church in Fort Wayne and we were married in 1993. We have three kids, one is married, one still in college.
I picked up a couple of Volkswagen beetles to restore while in Arizona, since the metal and chrome lasts forever in the arid climate. I have restored several VW beetles, including a 1978 Karmann Champagne Edition convertible, a Triple White Edition convertible made on the last day of production in Germany, a 1964 Herbie replica sedan, and a 1960 sunroof beetle that was reportedly used in the first 60 seconds of the bullfight scene in Herbie Goes Bananas.
We owned 80 acres up in the Petrified Forest National Park area of Arizona for eight years and collected colorful petrified wood and serveral dinosaur bones, including one of the first Triassic pterosaur bones found in the United States.
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