Brian R. Carlisle

Biography

Mr. Carlisle is President and Managing Director of Precise Automation, a new robotics company he co-founded with Dr. Bruce Shimano in January of 2004. Precise is developing a new vision-guided motion control architecture for robotic applications and will offer components for miniature assembly automation and material handling.

Prior to founding Precise, Mr. Carlisle and Dr. Shimano founded Adept Technology in 1983, where Mr. Carlisle was Chief Executive Officer. Adept focused on assembly automation for electronics, automotive and telecommunications products and grew to sales of over $100 million.

Carlisle and Shimano also led the development of the PUMA robot at Unimation in the late 1970s. The PUMA, developed in conjunction with General Motors, was the first assembly robot in the world, grew to sales of over $40 million in a few years, and was recently recognized by GM and the Smithsonian as a landmark design in the development of robotics.

Mr. Carlisle is currently on the Board of the National Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing (NACFAM), and has served on the Boards of the National Center for Manufacturing Science (NCMS), the Automation Forum of NEMA, is a founding member of the National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI), was General Chairman of the IEEE ICRA 2000 Robotics and Automation Conference, and served as President of United States Robotic Industries Association for 3 years.

Mr. Carlisle holds BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. He has been elected a Fellow of the IEEE.