About Us
Our company began by developing a patented digital voice checklist system that allowed pilots to fly “heads up” and look out of the cockpit. Since 1985, we have enlisted our collective expertise, creativity and technology to bring innovation to the aircraft, its pilots and trusting passengers.
We dream about carrying on the tradition we learned in the development of our first product: flying heads up - looking forward and outward - to explore new and better ways of providing aviation solutions.
Leadership
Renée Rump
CEO
As CEO Renée brings diverse multi-industry expertise in leading the vision and strategic direction of the company, and maximizing efficiency while controlling costs, leveraging data to drive intelligent business decisions, and building high-performance operations based on a culture of teamwork.
Renée holds a Bachelor of Science in Financial Management from Purdue University and an MBA in Technology Management from the University of Utah. Renée has over 10+ years experience working as a CFO, and over 23 years experience in financial systems. Prior to joining Heads Up, Renée was CEO & CFO of Circuitronics, an electrical manufacturing firm, for 4 years, and CFO of two additional companies. She also worked for the International Olympic Committee for 9 years in Finance Systems and Operations, and was a volunteer for the Special Olympics for 4 years.
Renée is the wife of a retired Air Force Officer. She has moved over 19 times, lived in 13 different states and a foreign country, and now currently resides in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
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Bryan Shupe
CFO
As Chief Financial Officer, Bryan is responsible for the financial and IT strategies that support corporate development, asset integration, and value creation activities.
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Previously, Bryan was the founder and CEO of OverlayAnalytics, leading product development to build software designed to drive value for leading private equity firms. This platform provided platform consolidation and critical insights into customer and product profitability, enabling better production and resource allocation decisions. OverlayAnalytics was sold in 2022.
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In addition, Bryan was a vice president in Deloitte's corporate restructuring group and a European-based VC firm focused on early-stage industrial projects.
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Bryan holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and Accounting from Dalhousie University and is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CA).
Scott Sweet
VP of Sales & Marketing
As Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Scott brings over 20 years of aviation-specific experience in developing product road maps, forming and managing strategic OEM customer relationships, developing sales and promotional strategies, to drive revenue growth in highly successful companies. Scott collaborates with the other senior leaders to promote an empowered and innovative organizational culture.
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Scott earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Marion University in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. He was formerly Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Aerosonic Corporation based in Clearwater, Florida. Prior to Aerosonic, he was Market Development Director for Inmarsat, a global leader in satellite connectivity. Scott began his aviation sales and marketing career with EMTEQ, Inc., which was ultimately acquired by BE Aerospace.
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Scott is married and the father of 2 children. He enjoys baseball and getting outside to exercise.
Bob Higgins
VP of Operations
As Vice President of Operations, Bob is responsible for manufacturing, materials handling, procurement facilities, and equipment. His main goal is to satisfy our customers with on time delivery with zero defects through our data driven process improvement.
Prior to joining Heads up, Bob was Vice President of Operations for Aerosonic. Prior to that, he served for over 15 years at Emerson Automation Solutions in various leadership roles through Director of Operations.
Bob received his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Iowa, and his MBA with a focus on Logistics, Materials, and Supply Chain Management from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Tony Eggers
VP of Engineering
As VP of Engineering, Tony brings more than 20 years of engineering leadership experience from multiple industries developing complex hardware and software products for consumer, industrial, and medical device markets.
For the last 5 years, Tony was the VP of Engineering for E4D Technologies, a dental 3D scanning device manufacturing company. Prior to E4D, he was a Director of Design and Engineering at Flex, a global contract manufacturing firm, and Sr. Director of Global Engineering at AMX, an audio/video control systems company.
Tony earned his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Christian Brothers University and his MBA with a focus in international business and global leadership from the University of Texas at Dallas. Tony enjoys learning new things, traveling, classic car restoration, and helping his two children as they start their careers.
Engineering
All of Heads Up’s products are designed completely in-house, giving us an unparalleled level of control of our engineering data over the entire product life cycle. Analog and Digital electronic design, schematic capture, PWB layout, simulation, mechanical engineering, 3D modeling, thermal analysis, software development, system engineering, industrial design, and production engineering are just some of the engineering skills you will find at Heads Up.
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Manufacturing
Our products are manufactured at our Addison, Texas facility, which houses our PWA assembly, automated conformal coating, wire harness assembly, CNC and laser machining centers, automated test equipment, environmental stress screening, procurement, inventory management, and production planning operations.
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Testing
Our dedicated Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) capabilities ensure mature product reliability. In-house DO160 Environmental test lab provides schedule flexibility and guaranteed performance.
Certification
All our products are compliant with RTCA DO-160, DO-178 and DO-254. Heads Up holds numerous STC’s, PMA’s and is an FAA- approved manufacturing and repair facility.
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Product Support
Heads Up’s commitment to exceptional product support provides 24/7 assistance to our customers to quickly resolve installation and trouble-shooting issues.
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Prototyping
Multiple 3D printers, a captive CNC machine shop, laser machining and etching centers, and soft tooling capabilities allow rapid prototyping.
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