Christopher LaPlante: Chris has developed a well known reputation in the calibration and sales arenas of the test and measurement industry. His experiences include many successes in both the military and private sector. Chris attended the University of Maryland and majored in Business. He also achieved the rank of Sergeant while serving in the United States Marine Corps where he received three meritorious promotions, was an honors graduate from the All Services PMEL school with meritorious promotion, and became an Eagle Scout at the early age of 13. Before Excalibur, Chris worked at various calibration labs such as the US Navy’s Primary Cal Lab, McDonnell-Douglas and Southern California Edison. In his spare time, Chris enjoys various activities such as Hockey, Golf, Sailing, Bullfighting, and Base Jumping. He currently holds the world’s record for the highest Base Jump without a parachute but can only remember the first everal seconds of this feat as he blacked out prior to impact.

Melissa Georgiades, General Manager: Melissa has an extensive background in accounting and management. She graduated from the University of Redlands with a degree in management. While attending college and after graduating from college, Melissa was the controller for two truck tire companies in addition to managing a manufacturing facility, where she was chosen as Employee of the Year barely beating out the company’s only other employee. Melissa joined Excalibur Engineering in 1998 as the General Manager and Accounting Guru and spends her days as the resident in house air traffic controller, scheduling calibration on-sites as well as managing the in-house work flow. Melissa is so dedicated to ensuring that all of our customer’s requirements are met, that some employees suspect that she secretly lives at the office. We have confirmed this by installing a webcam in her office and will soon be providing a link to view it from our home page. Memberships start at only $19.95 per month. In her spare time Melissa enjoys solving complex accounting journal entries and doing bank reconciliations.

Galina Melnik, Senior Buyer / European Sales and Marketing Director: Galina has more worldly experiences than many of us can dream of! She was born and raised in Russia before moving to the US in 2001. She holds a degree in Economics and Sociology from Novosibirsk State University in Russia but since none of us can pronounce the name of the university, we just pretend she went to UCLA. Before coming to Excalibur, Galina worked in several different sales roles but found none of them as exciting as the glamour and panache of test equipment. During her free time she enjoys horseback riding, skiing and tennis – sometimes all at the same time. She is considering giving up tennis however as her horse is a much better player than she is.

Kurtis Doerfler, Director of Service Sales : Kurtis oversees all of Excalibur’s calibration and repair sales. As a soccer hooligan (West Ham United) , he brings a unique ability to beat technicians to get what he and his customers need. Bottle breaking, sticks and rocks, whatever’s needed to “Stand My Ground”(its soccer stuff). The rest of us are American, we don’t care. Kurtis has been the national salesmanager for a major biomedical company and spent a few happy years in the USMC as a brig rat since he refused to shave his purple mohawk for months after attending a Sex Pistols concert. Neat and clean now, he understands that taking a bus of his mates to close contracts, just doesn’t play well here.

Jim Tavanier, Lab Manager: Jim started in metrology as a block checker on the Egyptian pyramids under Ramses II, and has loved the profession ever since. Past President of the PMA Society, He has been chair person for the Equipment Management FORUM for NCSL for four years. Stints at both Aerojet and JPL as laboratory manager, and setting up the first automated calibration station ever at Hughes Aircraft, retired Navy Chief, (that one from the Roman era of Caligula) make him a true find for Excalibur. In his off time, he likes fishing, and being an expert witness for the History Channel.

Mike LaRue, Warehouse Manager: Mike comes to Excalibur with a wealth of experience in public warehouse managing and distribution center layout and design. He tried being a suit, but he likes the outdoors too much and insisted on warehouse management, which in Southern California is always with the doors wide open. His contract includes free space to work on his motorcycles, as he figures that jumping the Grand Canyon is much safer than operating the foam-in place machine. He keeps begging us to open a Fiji Islands office so he can swim with the sea turtles, but hasn’t convinced upper management that sea turtles are good test equipment users yet.

Christina Anthony, Administrator: Unlike normal people, Christina refers to herself using many different names; including “Christina”, “Xtina”, and “X” after her favorite roman numeral. She attended both Whittier and Mirimonte High Schools where she graduated from in 2000. She wanted us to mention that she is 5’ 6” tall, has blonde hair and hazel eyes, and is an Aquarius but we politely pointed out to her that our website is not to be used as her personal dating service. She holds a certificate as a Customer Service Specialist and is also a certified Mixoligist. In her spare time, she enjoys music, dancing, working out, making coffee and expressing herself through artistic projects. She is currently working on developing a synthetic rock-like substance to perform rhinoplasty on the noses of the Presidents on Mt. Rushmore prior to the release of the South Dakota state quarter.

Dave Carpenter, Senior Metrologist / Technical Lead: Dave has had many worldly experiences both in his career and personal life. He was majoring in Electronics in college when the Vietnam war caused a drastic change in his plans. Entering the Navy in 1969, he naturally went into electronics and graduated at the top of his class. (It took a few firemen to get him off of the roof.) He then went on to Lowery AFB, and went through the US Air Force PMEL course. From there he went on to a variety of assignments before leaving the Navy in 1978. His first post-military job was with Tektronix where he worked until 1993 when his position was eliminated due to the closure of their Irvine Service Center. It was at that time when he started with Excalibur Engineering as a Senior Metrologist. He primarily works in the laboratory, specializing in the repair of a wide variety of Test and Measurement equipment, but has been known to take extended vacations to sit around the house and listen to his AM radio. In his spare time, Dave enjoys working entire weekends and salsa dancing.

Richie Bertea, Laboratory Engineer: Richie comes to us from Powerwave, Inc where he was their internal RF Test Engineer and in charge of all ATE test stations at all eleven facilities across the world. He was the Halloween costume champion seven years running. (Richie Longstockings was retired after three years, as it was impossible to compete with, ask Richie for a digital pics). A honor graduate of ITT Institute for electronic engineering, he has wealth of experience in Wideband CDMA, and automated test station design and programming. he is currently developing all Excalibur’s high end automated calibration procedures. He’s a diehard LA Kings fan, and we try not hold this against him, however he always hates review time.

Olga Kwiecinska, Administration Support Manager: Olga is homegrown Excalibur talent. Having started as an administrative assistant, over the past several years, her prior supervisors have been poisoned, bludgeoned or have vanished, leaving her as the clear victor of the admin support team. She’s considered very safe in her job now, although senior managers employ bodyguards now. She overseas the entire administrative support section, her “bevy of beauties”, as one customer opined. We can’t tell you her very favorite things to do, you’ll have to ask her after work hours...