Rainforest Automation makes hardware and software products that extend the emerging electrical Smart Grid into the home to enable real-time monitoring and optimization of energy consumption.
Rainforest Automation is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.
Our management team includes:
Chris Tumpach, President
As part of his role as president, Chris is responsible for working with strategic vendors and customers to enable Rainforest Automation to create leading-edge products.
Prior to co-founding Rainforest Automation, Chris was a senior design engineer at PMC-Sierra where he architected communications ICs that power the Internet. In addition, he has held product design positions at Raytheon Systems, Alcatel, and Mindspeed Technologies. His experience in the areas of Hardware Engineering, Integrated Circuit Engineering, Software Engineering, and Web Design put him in a unique position to lead a company that integrate these various disciplines seamlessly.
Chris received his Bachelor of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia.
Dave Gagne, CTO
Dave has over 15 years of management experience with startups and established industry leading companies.
Dave was one of the founders of West Bay Semiconductor, a company focused on chips for the telecommunications market. Since then, Intel has acquired West Bay Semiconductor.
Along with founding West Bay and now Rainforest Automation, Dave has had extensive experience as a leader and senior designer in the HDTV, cellular, and communications industries. He was instrumental in creating the Vancouver Design Centre of Mindspeed Technologies (formerly Conexant Systems) as well as establishing the chip development team at Holley Communications Canada. In addition, Dave held an influential role at a local startup, UBVideo and has many years of design experience at PMC-Sierra.
Dave has a Bachelors of Applied Science and a Masters of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia. He is also a registered Professional Engineer with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC.
Lance Kujala, VP of Software, Treasurer
Lance is responsible for the system architecture and for software design
and development.
In addition to co-founding Rainforest Automation, Lance has been active in the computer industry in British Columbia since 1988. He has extensive experience in systems development, integration, and support; having worked on projects for The Loewen Group (Alderwoods), Prince Rupert Grain, Vancouver Community Centers, Daishowa-Marubeni, and North American Shipowners Insurance Services. Lance has experience with both 24x7 process control systems and enterprise scale systems.
Lance has an MBA from Simon Fraser University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Alberta.
Jacques Farges, VP of Operations, Corporate Secretary
In addition to being a co-founder, Jacques is the Algorithms Specialist at Rainforest Automation.
Jacques also founded Silicon Vision Ltd. in Vancouver in 1991, which has been designing and implementing leading edge camera scanning systems for the wood products industry. From 1997 to 2000, Jacques worked as purchaser then operations manager for Western Canada at Far-Met Importers Ltd., a member of the Qualifirst Group of companies. Jacques has also worked as an IC verification designer at Icron Technologies in Burnaby, and has worked for Holley Communications and Mindspeed Technologies.
Jacques received his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics at Uvic, and his diploma in Robotics and Automation at BCIT.
Bill Richardson, VP of Sales and Marketing
Bill has over 20 years of Sales, Marketing and Engineering experience in the high tech market.
Bill was one of the founders of PMC-Sierra, and was part of the team that led them from a startup to a global leader in the telecommunications semiconductor market. He has also held engineering and marketing positions at MPR Teltech and Sydney Development. Leveraging his engineering background in software and chip design, Bill's specialty is distilling detailed technical characteristics into a concise, commercial value proposition appropriate for our customers.
Bill has a Bachelors of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia. He is also a registered Professional Engineer with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC.
