Our Experts

Richard Levy soloed in a Cessna 150 on his16th birthday and went on to earn the following certificates/ratings: Private, Commercial, Instrument, Instructor, Ground Instructor, Instrument Instructor, Multi-engine, Multi-engine Instructor, and Airline Transport Pilot. He flew C-130s for the U.S. Air Force, then began a 41-year career at American Airlines, retiring at the mandatory age of 65 as a Boeing 777 captain. He now works as a Flight Crew Training Instructor at another major airline. In his free time, he serves as an aviation expert for attorneys and appears on TV to discuss aviation news.

Dev Nag is the CEO of QueryPal. He was previously CTO/Founder at Wavefront (acquired by VMware) and a Senior Engineer at Google where he helped develop the back-end for all financial processing of Google ad revenue. He previously served as the Manager of Business Operations Strategy at PayPal where he defined requirements and helped select the financial vendors for tens of billions of dollars in annual transactions. He also launched eBay's private-label credit line in association with GE Financial.

Laine Mears is the SmartState Endowed Chair of Automotive Manufacturing and head of the Automotive Engineering Department at Clemson University. He's published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and is the recipient of numerous awards related to scientific research. Dr. Mears was recognized in 2020 by SME Smart Manufacturing Magazine as one of the "20 Most Influential Professors in Smart Manufacturing." Dr. Mears's experience spans over 10 years in the industry, having held positions with automotive suppliers in both engineering and management roles.