Deseret UAS Staff

 

Muriel Xochimitl

Communications Director

Muriel Xochimitl is the President and Founder of X-Factor Strategic Communications. Prior to founding X-Factor, Muriel served as the Communications and Government Affairs Director for the Wasatch Front Regional Council and as the communications manager for the Utah Department of Transportation. Muriel has also worked as a Project Manager for The Langdon Group. Before moving to Utah, Muriel served in Congress as a staffer for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and worked as a legislative consultant in the travel and tourism industry. Muriel is a contributing writer to Utah Policy and has served as a Planning Commissioner for Eagle Mountain City. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Brigham Young University and a Master of Arts in International Development Economics from the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

  

Jill Brown

Finance Director

Ms. Jill Brown serves as Deseret UAS finance director. She began her career working for multiple small businesses performing strategic accounting and business operations. Ms Brown brings Deseret UAS 14 years of non-profit and governmental accounting, budgeting, and reporting experience. Ms Brown holds a B.S. for the University of Utah. She was a Dean’s List Academic All-American student athlete at the University of Utah.

 

Jeremiah Riley

Outside Counsel

Mr. Jeremiah Riley is Deseret UAS’ outside counsel. He founded Premise Law in 2015 to advise businesses that work closely with state and federal government. Over the prior decade, he was a part owner of a federal prime contractor and represented company interests before the U.S. Congress. He has been an advisor to several Utah UAS projects, including Box Elders build out of the Northrop Grumman UAS flight test range. Mr. Rieley holds a J.D. from the University of Utah, SJ Quinney College of Law, and a B.S. from Utah State University, Huntsman School of Business, Logan, Utah

 

Dr. Cal Coopmans

AggieAir head Operations, Deseret UAS

Dr. Coopmans is AggieAir head researcher and systems engineer.He oversees AggieAir platform, payloads, sensors, avionics development, as well as full system integration and testing. He has expertise in aerial and ground robotics, unmanned systems, embedded/real time systems, digital and analog controls, DSP, Linux kernels and Unix operating systems, networking (TCP/IP, UDP, etc.) all levels of software development (assembly, C/C++/C#, Perl, Python, Java, etc.), mechatronics, electrical hardware design and implementation, mechanical design and materials. Dr. Coopmans holds a Masters and Ph.D of Electrical Engineering from Utah State University.