About Steve and Mind the Gap
Stephen Hannon, Principal and Founder of Mind the Gap, LLC, is a business and technical executive with over 20 years of experience leading, shaping, and advising small businesses in their pursuit of growth initiatives. Steve offers a unique blend of top-notch technical skills coupled with an authentic leadership style that simultaneously builds credibility and trust within those he leads and advises.
Dr. Hannon played various critical and strategic roles with laser radar touchstone Coherent Technologies, Inc., extending from early days of a dozen employees to its 15x growth to nearly 200 employees at the time of its acquisition in 2005 by Lockheed Martin. Steve developed the WindTracer® pulsed Doppler lidar and spearheaded its commercialization and global marketing and sales initiatives, yielding first-of-their-kind installations at airports and other public and private sector facilities around the world. He has also served as site executive, functional leader of groups of more than 100 employees and Business Unit Director with P&L responsibility. Steve is a recognized expert in lidar, laser radar, optical remote sensing, and signal processing and readily applies this expertise to other sensing technologies and scenarios.
To pursue his passion for successfully transitioning disruptive technologies to sustainable products and businesses, Steve departed Lockheed Martin in 2011 to found Mind the Gap, LLC. He now advises startups and small businesses across multiple dimensions in business plan development and execution including market and competitive analysis and positioning, technical feasibility/evaluation, product roadmap development, and financial modeling and assessment. He also supports funding organizations in their evaluation and due diligence of prospective investments.
Steve earned his B.S. Electrical Engineering degree with highest honors and prestigious Bronze Tablet distinction from the University of Illinois and Masters and Ph.D. Electrical Engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has completed several business, financial, and leadership development programs.
Steve is a University of Colorado nLab mentor, an Innovation Center of the Rockies Advisor, and a member of the Joint Council on Applications for CLEO: Application & Technology. He is also a Board Member and Treasurer of the Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking.
Dr. Hannon played various critical and strategic roles with laser radar touchstone Coherent Technologies, Inc., extending from early days of a dozen employees to its 15x growth to nearly 200 employees at the time of its acquisition in 2005 by Lockheed Martin. Steve developed the WindTracer® pulsed Doppler lidar and spearheaded its commercialization and global marketing and sales initiatives, yielding first-of-their-kind installations at airports and other public and private sector facilities around the world. He has also served as site executive, functional leader of groups of more than 100 employees and Business Unit Director with P&L responsibility. Steve is a recognized expert in lidar, laser radar, optical remote sensing, and signal processing and readily applies this expertise to other sensing technologies and scenarios.
To pursue his passion for successfully transitioning disruptive technologies to sustainable products and businesses, Steve departed Lockheed Martin in 2011 to found Mind the Gap, LLC. He now advises startups and small businesses across multiple dimensions in business plan development and execution including market and competitive analysis and positioning, technical feasibility/evaluation, product roadmap development, and financial modeling and assessment. He also supports funding organizations in their evaluation and due diligence of prospective investments.
Steve earned his B.S. Electrical Engineering degree with highest honors and prestigious Bronze Tablet distinction from the University of Illinois and Masters and Ph.D. Electrical Engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has completed several business, financial, and leadership development programs.
Steve is a University of Colorado nLab mentor, an Innovation Center of the Rockies Advisor, and a member of the Joint Council on Applications for CLEO: Application & Technology. He is also a Board Member and Treasurer of the Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking.
