Some decades ago I arrived in Portland to relaunch an engineering career after a short, mistaken move to Westchester County, New York.  One of my first actions getting set up in Oregon was to build my own desk.  There was no money to buy one because I had just returned money for moving expenses to my previous employer.

This desk is still my “daily driver” at Cascade Stream HQ.  It is a constant in a professional evolution full of challenges, accomplishments, and setbacks too, like anyone’s career.  Another constant is my enjoyment of the practice of engineering development, creating solutions from innovation, or at least concentrated time sitting at that desk working to make a design as simple as it can be to get the job done.

Cascade Stream is now six months old, according to state business registration records.  But its real origin dates back to the mid 2000’s as some readers will recall: we talked about this.  We launched last year (and not 7 or 10 years ago) because it was a moment when two clients were open to working with a new company.  They are

• A leading company in test and measurement
• A semiconductor manufacturer who has redefined low power, high performance computing with a massively parallel processor architecture

These relationships have allowed us to flex our capabilities in the video domain and accomplish some interesting objectives.

The last six months have also included time spent at the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Portland State University learning about software development for web applications.  This is another tool in the toolbox to enable cloud-based solutions for video streaming applications.

I’m in school again now, this time at the Portland Community College Small Business Development Center, working on this business.

The next six months will bring new clients and new projects. I will make another trip to the NAB convention in April after countless past visits, but the first for Cascade Stream.  The drive for interesting new projects in video keeps it fresh and alive.

Thanks for reading, and thank you for your support.

-Mike