I studied Telecoms Engineering at the Escuela Tecnica Superior de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación (ETSIT) in Madrid, specializing in electronics. However, my diploma was in the field of wireless communications. At the time of its delivery, I was also working in the very new area of real-time computers for process control. They were used in supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA) for power utilities. In 1974 I moved to the R&D headquarters of AEG-Telefunken in Germany, where I worked in the process automation field for around 9 years. In this context, I started programming microprocessors (in Assembler, PLM and Pascal) and worked in developments of mathematical software (in FORTRAN) for computing and controlling the power flow of electric grids. I believe that I became a well-known expert in the area and wrote the chapter covering the subject in the Huette engineer´s reference handbook.
I moved to a German bank and worked on R&D in cryptography, applied to Hardware Security Modules. I designed and implemented one of them, microcontroller based and programmed in C. I also designed and developed the IBM Series 1 system to handle the HSM (in Assembler). I also worked in some SNA projects.</>I next moved to Visa Card Services in Frankfurt, being responsible for setting up the online autorization system, using Stratus fault-tolerant systems. As head of the telecoms division, I managed directly a team of 25 engineers, 10 of them devoted to R&D in security issues.
My next interest was the emerging world of smart cards for identity and payment purposes. I worked at Solaic, Schlumberger, Axalto and Gemalto in this area, until the fall of 2016.
The mayor activity was in the mobile communications area, introducing java card SIM applications, 3G SIMs with public key cryptography and contactless (NFC) SIMs
I majorly acted as team manager, product manager and program manager, coordinating several interdisciplinary teams spread out throughout the world.
As far as I could and needs arose, I did some further software development myself, mainly in python, ruby and R. However, my focus was rather on the management amd coaching of the different R&D teams assigned to me, located in different countries of the world (Finland, Singapore, China, Canada, France...).