Paul A. Gelhausen
Proprietor and Chief Technical Officer
Paul Gelhausen has been Chief Technical Officer since he co-founded AVID LLC in 2002. With over 30 years of government and industry experience, Mr. Gelhausen is responsible for strategy, technology development, and delivery of future aerospace vehicles and simultaneously pursues new analytical tools and methods for the advancement and analysis of aerospace technologies. Under Mr. Gelhausen's guidance, AVID has created methods for the design and analysis of aircraft. While a broad range of aircraft classes are covered, AVID has an emphasis in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's). Projects have spanned to include fixed wing aircraft, ducted fan aircraft, and biomimetic vehicles. Design concepts and methodologies for low noise propellers, cooling fans, and wind turbine designs have also been developed.
Charles "Chip" Fenno, Ph.D.
Director, Software Products
Bringing over 25 years experience to AVID LLC, Chip Fenno is Director of Software Products. He is responsible for AVID's complete software suite of air vehicle design tools and aerospace analysis products—ensuring the tools integrate multidisciplinary analyses to develop the optimum solution for a set of requirements. He also leads company-wide strategic initiatives including Programming Standards and Security. Dr. Fenno joined AVID in 2011 and holds Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Aerospace Engineering from North Carolina State University, with an emphasis on Computational Fluid Dynamics. In his post-doctoral work with NASA-Langley Research Center, he developed new computational algorithms in the field of Aeroacoustics. His industry experience includes engineering process improvement and systems engineering throughout the entire software development life-cycle.