Our Team

The CoTs Team
Powering Our Vision

Get to know the talented individuals who bring passion, expertise, and innovation to everything we do

Todd Patten

Founder & President, U.S. Navy Veteran

As a member of the United States Navy, Mr. Patten served on the USS Flying Fish (SSN673), USS Parche (SSN 683), and Naval Research Laboratories (NRL). He has 20+ years designing, engineering, integrating, and operating submerged mobility systems including AUVs, payload systems, and towbodies. Over a 14-year period, he performed 50+ operational missions with submerged mobility systems effectively conducting applied research in real-world scenarios. During this period, he assisted in developing and implementing hundreds of undersea vehicle behaviors related to search and survey, obstacle avoidance, collision avoidance, homing and docking, autonomous ballast and trim systems, target acquisition, and fault management. Mr. Patten specializes in leading project execution, developing mission Concept of Operations (CONOPS), design and implementing system architectures and software systems including subsea and autonomous applications such AUV and AUV Payload systems. Mr. Patten holds multiple patents related to undersea systems. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science and M.S. in Software Engineering.

20+

Years Of Experience

Email

todd.patten@cots-inc.com

Donna Taylor

Chief Executive Officer

Ms. Taylor has 40+ years of experience designing, implementing, testing, and managing the development of large-scale, autonomous maritime systems. She has underwater domain knowledge and a demonstrated expertise in leadership, organization, setting strategic vision, budget planning, and program execution. She served as Chief Engineer and Program Manager for a large aerospace company on multiple $100M+ US government contracts where she was responsible for cost, technical, and schedule execution. She supported and led several government proposals, defined program budgets, integrated master schedules, directed daily program operations, managed subcontractors, and reported directly to customers and internal senior management. Ms. Taylor holds a B.S in Electrical Engineering.

39+

Years Of Experience

Email

donna.taylor@cots-inc.com

Ken Watkinson

Senior Technical Fellow – Control Systems

Mr. Watkinson is responsible for the technology and engineering vision at CoTs. He also oversees engineering product quality and deliverables. Mr. Watkinson founded a hydrodynamics company in 1993, building a highly successful organization delivering technology before exiting in 2007. Mr. Watkinson has 40+ years designing, integrating, and testing control systems for Submerged Mobility Systems, manned and autonomous unmanned systems. Mr. Watkinson’s experience extends to designing 6-degrees of freedom (DoF) simulators with subsea forces effect and integrating hydrodynamic analysis of submerged mobility systems. Mr. Watkinson holds a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

40+

Years Of Experience

Email

ken.watkinson@cots-inc.com

Neill Smith, PhD

Senior Technical Fellow – Hydrodynamics

Dr. Smith specializes in the development of methods for predicting the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic characteristics of marine and airborne vehicles and implementation of these methods into computerized analysis and design tools. Over the past thirty-five years, Dr. Smith has modeled a variety of vehicles including submarines, torpedoes, anti-torpedo devices, towed countermeasures vehicles (air and undersea), Navy Seal delivery vehicles, surface vessels, aircraft and missiles. Dr. Smith also specializes in the modeling of the dynamics of both free-running vehicles and towed systems. Dr. Smith holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering.

10+

Years Of Experience

Email

neill.smith@cots-inc.com

John S. Stambaugh

Subject Matter Expert (SME) – Inertial Systems, Guidance, Navigation, and Controls (GNC)

Mr. Stambaugh has 50 years designing and analyzing inertial navigation systems starting with Kearfott in the late 1960’s until retiring from Boeing, Ocean Systems Division in 2005. Since 2005, Mr. Stambaugh has provided engineering consultation in underwater guidance and navigation systems and system architecture analysis. He is credited with one of the first UUV navigation architectures published c. 1992, receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award in Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) Navigation form the United States Navy, and (3) time Engineer of the year award at Rockwell International and Boeing.

40+

Years Of Experience

Email

john.stambaugh@cots-inc.com

Advisory Board Members

David Duryea RDML USN (Ret.)

Board Member

As a Rear Admiral, responsible for the day-to-day operations of the U.S. Navy’s 6500 person, $1.6B premier research, development, test and evaluation engineering, and Fleet Support Center for submarine warfare systems. Oversaw infrastructure, facilities, security, and personnel in 15 locations across the United States and overseas. Significant experience working with Congress, unions, law enforcement, commercial and university research and development organizations. Served as Chairman of the Warfare Center Board of Directors providing oversight to all 11 NAVSEA Warfare Centers. Also served as the United States Submarine Force Chief Technology Officer and Director of Undersea Technology. Currently Mr. Duryea is the Vice President of Sea, Land, and Air Division at Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc.

40+

Years Of Experience

Email

info@cots-inc.com

David Adams Captain USN (Ret.)

Board Member

Mr. Adams served more than three decades in the U.S. Navy, commanding two submarines and a provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan. When not at sea, he led innovative teams to improve warfighting effectiveness to deter or defeat the adversary through critical innovative thinking that unleash creative solutions to the most difficult U.S. security challenges. Through commander directed experimentation, warfighting analysis, assessments, readiness evaluation, and studies, his team identified gaps in the war plans and brings a network of naval and defense agencies, academic, scientific, industry collaborators, naval and national laboratories, and warfare centers to generate practical, near to medium term operational, tactical, and technical solutions. These solutions are prioritized and evaluated through war gaming, exercises, and experiments reinforced by intellectually honest analysis and assessments. Mr. Adams has consulted at the highest levels of the Navy, DoD, Congress, and White House for his unique expertise in deployed undersea operations and war-fighting readiness.

15+

Years Of Experience

Email

info@cots-inc.com

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