Rick Wilson

Rick Wilson has a long and varied work history, beginning in 2003 as a Contract Software Engineer at IBM (through iCentris). Rick then worked as a Contract Software Engineer, Architect, and Technical Lead at iCentris until 2004, when they moved to USANA Health Sciences as Director of Software Engineering and Software Contributor. In 2014, they became Director of Software Engineering at ExpertVoice, and in 2016 they held two positions simultaneously: Head of Software Engineering at Route and Instructor (Enterprise Java, Spring, Hibernate, AWS, and Android) and Advisory Board Member at The Iron Yard. In 2017, they joined Fortem Technologies as Director of Dronehunter (Autonomous Attack Drone) and Principal Software Engineer, where they hired and led an Agile team of Software, Autonomy, and Drone Engineers, and contributed to the design, development, and implementation of the core software and hardware on the first six revisions of DroneHunter including combat-ready variants used by the US and EUA militaries. In 2019, they moved to Uber Advanced Technologies Group as Engineering Manager II, Core Motion Planning and Infrastructure, and in 2021 they took on the same role at Aurora. As of 2022, they are Vice President of Engineering at Merlin Labs.

Rick Wilson has a diverse educational background. Rick obtained an Aviation Electronics degree from the US NAVY in 1993. Rick then attended Colorado Technical University, where they earned a Bachelor of Computer Science in Software Systems Engineering in 2011 and a Master of Computer Science in Software Engineering in 2012. Wilson has also obtained numerous certifications, including an ASA 104, Bareboat Cruising certification from the American Sailing Association in 2021, an ASA 103, Basic Coastal Cruising certification from the American Sailing Association in 2021, an ASA 101, Basic Keelboat Sailing certification from the American Sailing Association in 2020, a Certified Software Engineering Instructor certification from The Iron Yard in 2016, a Swift for iOS certification from Big Nerd Ranch in 2015, a Splunk certification from Splunk Inc. in 2012, a Server Java Programming certification from Colorado Technical University in 2010, a Network Plus certification from Colorado Technical University in 2010, a UNIX Network certification from Colorado Technical University in 2010, a Client Java Programming certification from Colorado Technical University in 2009, a SAP Developer certification from Dolphin Enterprise Solutions in 2003, and a Toastmaster certification from Toastmasters International.