Erlend Olson | Erlend Olson Consulting

Olson began his technical career working internships for various New Mexico State University contracts (where he earned his BSEE with high honors), including summers for IBM designing signal processing hardware to detect voids in printer castings (based on the spectral ...response of the casting to an impulse), as well as at White Sands Missile Range, designing signal processing hardware to enable cameras to automatically track missiles in flight.

Olson next worked at Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 15 years, holding various positions in senior technical staff. He designed several custom signal processing integrated circuits for various JPL projects, including spacecraft, and what remains today the only full custom mixed signal CMOS chip ever to fly on a NASA unmanned mission (a circuit which converted spacecraft sensor output data into an analog modulation signal, which directly modulated the data downlink to earth). He also spent several years in charge of parts of the signal processing hardware for NASA's planetary RADAR program, which was tasked with bouncing RADAR off of other planets and asteroids to determine their constitution, shape, and other parameters.

After JPL, Olson started and sold a small consulting group which designed advanced signal processing semiconductors for various implantable medical, industrial and military applications. The group's focus was mixed signal semiconductors - essentially signal processing circuits which interfaced "real world" analog signals to digital signal processors.

After selling the consulting group, Olson founded, ran (as CTO) and subsequently sold Pivotal Technologies to Broadcom Corp for (at closing) over $600M. The company went from zero to $600M value in under 18 months and at sale had revenues of several million dollars per quarter, multiple patents and 4 major semiconductor mixed signal products in initial purchase orders from various household name consumer electronics multi-nationals.

Olson has designed solely, or in conjunction with others, over 45 application specific semiconductor products which have implemented advanced signal processing functions, and have gone into production in different fields including implantable medical devices, professional audio, military and navigation, wire-line and wireless communications, satellite and planetary probe sensor systems processing and consumer products. He is the Author/Holder of 21 patents and patents pending and is a recognized expert in combining complex signal processing functions from varied disciplines with market requirements to yield new products and whole companies.

After Broadcom, Olson began a research project approaching identification of underground water resources for charitable purposes. This project ultimately led to a new approach to mapping underground water and hydrocarbons, based on new signal processing algorithms and geophysical concepts. Olson then raised significant funds from various household-name institutional investors to explore and develop hydrocarbons projects world-wide, employing his technology as a key disruptive advantage. Prior to Olson's departure from this E&P; entity, he had, as CEO, overseen a 378% year-on-year value growth for 4 years straight.

Olson holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from New Mexico State University and University of Southern California, respectively. Read More