Business, Media and Culture 2019

While Mississippians excel culturally in interpersonal communications, Gary Butler is perfecting the science of machines talking to each other.  And while many top tech CEOs heed the siren call of Silicon Valley, Butler is right at home in Mississippi.

Gary Butler is the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Camgian Microsystems. From its early work in building advanced sensor technologies and solutions for organizations such as DARPA, he has lead Camgian’s evolution into a multi-million dollar revenue business and a leading company in the Internet of Things (IoT) market. During this period, Camgian has been named by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in the US; Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the most entrepreneurial companies in America; The Silicon Review as one of the top 50 fastest growing technology companies; CIO Review as one of the top 50 most promising companies in IoT; and Compass Intelligence as one of the world’s top companies in IoT innovation and execution. 

Prior to founding Camgian, Dr. Butler was a division engineer in the Washington, DC office of Internet pioneer BBN Technologies with a technical focus in the areas of artificial intelligence, machine learning and wavelets and their application to real-time signal processing systems. At BBN, he worked on the development of feature extraction algorithms, neural networks and genetic algorithms that supported automated, in-situ training of advanced military sensing platforms. He was an engineer on the Army’s Future Combat Systems program and led several DARPA funded efforts focused in the area of advanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technologies. Dr. Butler was appointed by BBN’s president and chief scientists to membership in the Science Development Program, a technical rank reserved for the company’s most exceptional scientists and engineers. He was also elected as a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and holds four patents in areas related to artificial intelligence, signal processing, low-power ultrawideband radar, and IoT.

Dr. Butler earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in engineering where he was a member of Churchill College and studied dynamics and the application of wavelets to signal analysis. He earned his M.S. in mechanical engineering from Vanderbilt University and B.S. in mechanical engineering from Tulane University. Additionally, he received the executive certificate in strategy and innovation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. He recently served as chair of the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering Board of Visitors and is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and Oxford and Cambridge Club in London.