Beginnings
Inspiration through Motion
The founders wanted to create a company that engineers would love to work for and that would do much good in the world. Inspiration for the company came from many sources. One of these was Dean Kamen and his success with the FIRST Robotics Competition. Another was National Instruments who have built an impressive culture of innovation, engineering excellence, and a spirit of giving back to the community.
Sisu Devices is committed to serving their customers through a company built on these and other solid principles.
Founders
Marc Christenson: Previous to founding Sisu Devices, Marc was the motion control specialist in the Systems Engineering Group at National Instruments. He provided consultation and proof of concept demos involving NI motion control hardware and software for a wide variety of applications. In this position he also designed and built multiple NI-Week keynote motion demos. Marc has supported motion opportunities all over the world and traveled everywhere from Taiwan to Texas. He is a graduate of Mechanical Engineering at Brigham Young University and a Certified LabVIEW Developer.
In the tradition of Sisu and the founders' interest in motorsports, Marc's favorite car is the Tesla Roadster. He admires the combination of electrical and mechanical systems working together in a performance machine that's just a bit more fun than a Prius.
Russell Aldridge: Before founding Sisu Devices, Russell worked at National Instruments. He provided the mechanical design for NI's rugged and reliable line of CompactRIO Controllers. His background is in industrial automation including panel layout, wiring, and machine building. He is a Certified LabVIEW Associate Developer and a Mechanical Engineering graduate of Brigham Young University. As the engineer in charge of tire selection for the BYU Formula SAE race car team, he designed and built a race car tire testing machine and won first place at the national level (ASME Old Guard Competition) for its design and presentation.
Russell's favorite car is the Corvette ZR1. The engineering extends beyond performance parts to create a car that is "Enzo fast" at 1/10 the price. The car can be used as a daily driver and is just more fun.
Note: The founders own neither of these cars.