Our Team

Brett Wendler is the Vice President of Design and Development at Daktronics and is responsible for Global Product Development activities. Wendler has been employed at Daktronics since 1992, starting as a student working in customer service and design engineering. After graduating in 1994 with an Electrical Engineering Degree from South Dakota State University, he began building his career developing electronic technology to support large scale outdoor and indoor LED display systems. With the advancements of InGaN blue and green LED technology in the mid-1990s, his focus was directed toward leveraging these technologies into large scale LED video display systems. Wendler continues these efforts today as he leads the engineering teams in the United States, Canada, Ireland and China, to develop large-scale LED display and control solutions for applications across the world. Daktronics’ solutions can scale from the largest LED systems found in stadiums and arenas to the LED display systems we might find in corporate lobbies and conference rooms. Daktronics designs, manufactures, markets and services display systems for customers around the world in four domestic business units: Live Events, Commercial, High School Park and Recreation and Transportation, and one International business unit.

Chris Pickett is currently the CEO of Digilens. Recently, Chris was the CEO of Pelican Imaging, a company that licensed hardware and software in the areas of computation photography and depth sensing. Pelican was purchased by Tessera Technologies (Xperi) in 2016. Prior to that, Chris was the SVP for Global Licensing at Rambus, raising Rambus’ revenue from $200M to $300M in 2 years. He was also the President of Global Lighting Technologies, which provided light guides and licensed such technologies to display and lighting markets. Global Lighting was purchased by Rambus in 2009. Chris started his career at Tessera Technologies where, over his 13-year tenure, he built and implemented successful technology licensing strategies in the chip scale packaging area, providing Tessera with a public valuation of approximately $2.25B in 2007.

Professor John A. Rogers obtained BA and BS degrees in chemistry and in physics from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1989. From MIT, he received SM degrees in physics and in chemistry in 1992 and a PhD degree in physical chemistry in 1995. From 1995 to 1997, Rogers was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard University Society of Fellows. He joined Bell Laboratories as a Member of Technical Staff in the Condensed Matter Physics Research Department in 1997, and he served as Director of this department from later part of 2000 until 2002. He then spent 13 years at the faculty of University of Illinois, most recently as the Swanlund Chair Professor and Director of the Seitz Materials Research Laboratory. In the fall of 2016, he joined Northwestern University as the Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Medicine, with affiliate appointments in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Chemistry, where he is also Director of the recently endowed Center for Bio-Integrated Electronics. Prof. Rogers has published more than 700 papers, is a co-inventor on more than 100 patents, and has co-founded several successful technology companies. His research has been recognized by many awards, including the MacArthur Fellowship (2009), the Lemelson-MIT Prize (2011), the Smithsonian Award for American Ingenuity in the Physical Sciences (2013), the MRS Medal (2018), and most recently the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Franklin Institute (2019). He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Mike Krames is a recognized world authority on visible-spectrum LEDs and their applications for lighting and displays. He is an IEEE Fellow and Chair of the SPIE Photonics West Conference on Light-Emitting Diodes, and has interests in a broad range of topics involving wide bandgap semiconductors, including light-emitting diodes, laser diodes, luminescent materials, photonic integrated circuits, photovoltaics, power and radio-frequency electronics, and their applications including lighting, displays, power generation, conversion, and conditioning. Currently President of Arkesso LLC, a Silicon Valley based consulting firm, Dr. Krames spent 25 years in the compound semiconductor industry in both startup and large research and development organizations. He led programs across diverse domains, including: optoelectronic device design and fabrication; metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) epitaxy; luminescent materials synthesis; bulk growth technology; light-emitting diode (LED) product development; LED lighting; simulation of complex compound semiconductor device physics; liquid-crystal display (LCD) and projection display applications; and visual and color science and applications. Dr. Krames was Chief Technology Officer at Soraa, Inc., an LED product company founded by Nobel Prize winner Shuji Nakamura. Previously, he was Executive Vice President at Philips Lumileds, where he ran the Advanced Laboratories and pioneered programs in LED and related materials, devices, and systems for applications to lighting and displays. He has served on numerous roundtables and panels for the U.S. Department of Energy and Basic Energy Sciences, and has over 80 peer-reviewed publications and more than 100 granted U.S. patents.

Sri Peruvemba is the CEO of Marketer International Inc., in California. Peruvemba was previously Chief Marketing Officer for E Ink Holdings, where he played a major role in transforming the startup to a $1B+ global company. With over 30 years of experience in the technology industry, Peruvemba has been an influential advocate in the advancement of electronic hardware technologies. He is an acknowledged expert on sensors, electronic displays, haptics, touch screens, electronic materials and related technologies; and consults, writes, and presents on those subjects globally. Peruvemba has also held senior level positions at Sharp Corp, Cambrios, TFS Inc., Planar Systems, and Suntronic Technology. Based in Silicon Valley, Peruvemba advises high tech firms in the U.S., Canada, and Europe as well as serves on the boards of Visionect and The Society for Information Display (SID). He has BS and MBA degrees and a post-graduate diploma in management.