Our Story
Building a great team takes time. In our case, more than 15 years! The core of our group came together while working at a giant multinational corporation that made everything from electronic components to nuclear reactors. They even made tens of millions of televisions right here in middle Tennessee and our team made the firmware that made them work.
As time went by, the market changed and the local factory closed down. However, having high quality firmware in the digital television era became more important than ever. The aforementioned giant multinational corporation recognized the team's abilities and expanded their responsibilities worldwide.
The next decade or so would see the team continue to grow in size and experience. New models and new product lines would come and go with ever-increasing development schedules and all of the complexity you might expect from developing firmware that would span the globe.
All good things must come to an end and this product company was no exception. The worldwide television market had changed so dramatically that the corporation could no longer successfully compete and bowed out gracefully. Oddly enough, they didn't totally mothball the team for quite a while afterward. There was discussion of other opportunities and there seemed to be a genuine recognition of how difficult assembling such a team had been and of how valuable the group was as a whole. Still, it is hard to justify a multi-million dollar annual budget for a team that was no longer shipping product and eventually they pulled the plug.
Some of the team retired or left the area, but several wanted to stay in middle Tennessee and they kept in touch as they found new jobs. Those new jobs made them appreciate how special their time together was and how great the team had become. A couple of the core members of the original group left their jobs and began lucrative and successful consulting businesses.
Solo consulting is great, but it definitely has its drawbacks for both the client and the contractor. Those facts were not lost on David Starling, and that led him to found Sturnus, Inc. Since its inception, opportunity has grown and several members of the original team have joined forces again through Sturnus.
What this means for clients is that they can benefit from the abilities of a team that took decades to build, without having to wait decades. The team also has been growing organically by mentoring new talent in the traditions that made the original group one of the finest embedded system design teams in the world.
As time went by, the market changed and the local factory closed down. However, having high quality firmware in the digital television era became more important than ever. The aforementioned giant multinational corporation recognized the team's abilities and expanded their responsibilities worldwide.
The next decade or so would see the team continue to grow in size and experience. New models and new product lines would come and go with ever-increasing development schedules and all of the complexity you might expect from developing firmware that would span the globe.
All good things must come to an end and this product company was no exception. The worldwide television market had changed so dramatically that the corporation could no longer successfully compete and bowed out gracefully. Oddly enough, they didn't totally mothball the team for quite a while afterward. There was discussion of other opportunities and there seemed to be a genuine recognition of how difficult assembling such a team had been and of how valuable the group was as a whole. Still, it is hard to justify a multi-million dollar annual budget for a team that was no longer shipping product and eventually they pulled the plug.
Some of the team retired or left the area, but several wanted to stay in middle Tennessee and they kept in touch as they found new jobs. Those new jobs made them appreciate how special their time together was and how great the team had become. A couple of the core members of the original group left their jobs and began lucrative and successful consulting businesses.
Solo consulting is great, but it definitely has its drawbacks for both the client and the contractor. Those facts were not lost on David Starling, and that led him to found Sturnus, Inc. Since its inception, opportunity has grown and several members of the original team have joined forces again through Sturnus.
What this means for clients is that they can benefit from the abilities of a team that took decades to build, without having to wait decades. The team also has been growing organically by mentoring new talent in the traditions that made the original group one of the finest embedded system design teams in the world.