About Berkshire Technology Management

Joe Massery

Berkshire Technology Management was founded on the premise that product development and engineering success can only come when R&D practices are driven by sound business principles, as well as innovation, technology fundamentals, and effective processes.

Joe Massery, founder of Berkshire Technology Management and its principal consultant, brings over three decades of executive and engineering management experience to the table, gained through in-the-trenches management of engineering teams, large and small.

In his corporate positions, he established a track record of engineering leadership, delivering innovative, high quality products on time against aggressive schedules; introducing new technologies and efficient engineering processes; motivating diverse teams; and working with the executive management team to define and carry out corporate business objectives and strategies. At Berkshire Technology Management, he is using those skills to help technology companies achieve excellence from their engineering organizations. Here are the details of his accomplishments and experience.

Berkshire Technology Management – President

Principal and founder of management consulting practice specializing in R&D organizational development, project management, process streamlining, and engineering productivity improvement. Clients/accomplishments include:

For a billion-dollar communications equipment company, analyzed organization and staffing levels of all engineering support activities across software, hardware, mechanical, and regulatory compliance groups. Benchmarked staffing levels; recommended and justified realignments, re-staffing, and other cost savings amounting to a $2M annual R&D expense improvement (on a $110M budget) in areas of product testing, factory interface, development tools, engineering IT, and management overhead/span-of-control.
For a large international law firm, supported their defense of a technology patent.
For a software start-up, was retained to determine causes of product development team's poor track record on meeting schedules and to help solve their attrition problem. Identified, recommended, then implemented remedial steps, which included engineering process streamlining and improvement, as well as management coaching for the engineering VP. The company's revenues blossomed in the following years, and the VP eventually became CEO.
For a small equipment OEM, was interim engineering VP during its six-month acquisition process. Keeping the core of the engineering team intact during the transition period, while maintaining development schedules, was crucial to the success of the acquisition. Successfully accomplished both goals.

Fujitsu Network Communications – Sr. VP of Product Development

Led an 800-engineer organization based in three US cities, with development partners in five different countries on three continents. Responsible for all engineering disciplines, including hardware, software, ASIC/FPGA, physical/mechanical design, system test, regulatory compliance, program management, engineering IT/PLM, factory interface, and QA. R&D budget over $100M.
Launched and drove an ongoing cost-reduction program that improved margins from the low 30's to over 60% in three years (including price erosion). Aggregate profit improvement netted the company $6M+ in new savings every year, with a 4x ROI.
Delivered steady stream of new products for telecom, cable, and enterprise markets.
Promoted ongoing process/quality improvement programs, reporting directly to me. Measured annual savings of multiple millions of R&D dollars were achieved, while simultaneously speeding average time-to-market.
Oversaw creation of 200-engineer development center in India; achieved measured productivity savings of 25-50% by second year.

DataPower Technology – VP of Products

Led product development and product management for this early-stage start-up (employee number five). Created a new class of networking appliance.
Built engineering development strategy (HW, SW, mechanical, customer docs) for initial version of the product; personally handled all hardware and mechanical engineering work. Created from scratch the infrastructure for document control, ECO, product release, etc.
Successfully delivered first product to customers for evaluation and beta testing.

Promptus Communications – VP of Operations

Responsible for product development, manufacturing, procurement, quality assurance, and MIS for $20M+ telecommunications equipment company.
Delivered next generation communications controller for videoconferencing applications. Instituted new engineering processes that shortened software development time by half, and reduced the cost-of-goods by two-thirds, compared to the previous product generation.
Launched new line of PC board-level products for OEM customers, with major new features and a dramatically reduced cost of goods. Opened and staffed a remote development center for better access to the engineering talent needed to staff and deliver these products.

Bytex Corp. – VP of Engineering

Led a multi-location engineering team responsible for product development of a family of sophisticated per-port switched, intelligent data hub products. Technical disciplines included digital and analog hardware, embedded software, network management software, in-house CAD, CASE, regulatory compliance, mechanical and physical design, and system test.
Led a team of engineers, along with specialists from Manufacturing, Service, Materials, Regulatory Compliance, and QA, in developing the Bytex 7700 switching LAN hub, the industry's first intelligent switching hub product.
Championed the introduction of concurrent engineering within the company, cutting months off time-to-market. Introduced object-oriented software engineering.
Awarded patent for port switching capability.

Interspeed, Inc. – VP of Engineering

Led R&D team in US and India responsible for line of DSL access products.
Built a culture around a set of core values: meeting commitments, teamwork, and innovation, while preserving the spirit and energy that had served this start-up well.

AT&T, Bell Labs – various roles as Member of Technical Staff and in management

Led Engineering and cross-corporation team that delivered company's first enterprise network management system, on schedule.
Developed long-term telecommunications plan for government agency, proposing broadband-ISDN-like approach; initial proposal was adopted by customer.
Developed hybrid data network architecture for large auto company; consisted of an integrated satellite network, in-house mainframe network, and large X.25 data network.
As product manager of $25M joint venture, developed a financial services network with bank partner. Responsible for managing two-company development program and jointly managing the business with counterpart in the bank.
Developed and tested hardware and real-time software for several Bell System electronic switching systems.
Developed new CASE and automated testing tools (paper published in Bell Laboratories Technical Journal).