Job Info
Employer:
Camm Security, Inc.
Employer Home Page:
http://cam.ly
Position Type:
Research
Product Development
Job skills:
Complex problem solving
Synthesizing information
Mathematical skills
Modeling or simulation
Data analysis
Team work
Rhett Creighton's Job:
Rhett is the co-founder of Camm Security, Inc., a company which produces and supports video security cameras which can be viewed virtually anywhere--even on an iPhone.
You could think of the products that Rhett produces as cameras, but he says they're really more like computers (they run the Linux operating system). In addition to writing the open source software that runs on the cameras, Rhett's company also developed and supports a web service which interfaces with the cameras. Subscribers to Rhett's services can store their camera footage on his company's system and access the footage from anywhere--all they need is an internet connection.
"The bulk of my work is in developing a new type of product that makes it easy and cheap for people to put a video security camera anywhere, " says Rhett.
My Previous Jobs:
Before founding Camm Security, Rhett had worked on several projects while an undergraduate at MIT, including small web services and hardware projects. He even designed a robot with a fellow student that won a robotics contest with over 180 competitors!
Rhett also started a web service that converted U.S. patents from the TIFF file format to the PDF file format that lawyers preferred. Many law firms paid to use the service at the time.
Rhett attributes his success in these endeavors to his physics training. "Designing the robot required solving problems that spanned a few engineering disciplines, " he says. "This included making analog sensors, a mechanical drive system, the electrical system, and the software to control the robot. We were able to break down all of the problems and solve them with the same rigorous approach that physicists use to solve all problems."
Career Facts
Employer Type:
Industrial
Current Location:
Austin, TX 78704
Physics Degree:
Master
Educational Information
BS - Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
MS - Nuclear Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Biography:
Rhett has always been drawn to unconventional methods of problem solving. As an undergraduate at MIT, Rhett applied his technical skills to a variety of projects, designing and building everything from electronic thermometers, to award-winning robots, to web services that converted patents into formats preferred by law firms (and they paid for the service, too!).
Without a doubt, one key to Rhett's success lies in his ability to recognize opportunity. "The world is currently experiencing a revolution in recorded and streaming video information, [due to] lower costs and improvements in technology, such as that used in the booming smartphone market. My phone has 8 times the RAM of the computer I took with me to college."
However, Rhett acquired the tools he needed to make his dreams a reality through his physics training. In choosing to major in physics, he realized that he would acquire a broad base of skills which he could then apply to any task.
"I wanted to be able to invent things and solve problems without being bounded by current engineering conventions or practices. I'm always able to tackle and solve a problem using the mathematical, analytical, and software modeling tools I used in physics."
