John Leonard

John Leonard received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UConn in 1989, and his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Arizona State University, as precursors to his career managing product development, engineering, and production.  

He started his career in a corporate leadership program and has worked in large and mid-sized companies as an engineer, manager, director, vice president, and COO. He has managed teams of more than 150 technical and production employees, and his leadership purview has included mechanical, electrical, optical, and software product development engineers.  

Leonard’s specialty is product development, covering the entire product-development process from market need to production. He enjoys mentoring engineers and specializes in modernizing product-development processes to increase speed-to-market. He gravitates towards complex technology products requiring multi-disciplinary collaboration. His technology experience includes software, signal processing, wireless networks, LED lighting, power supplies, complex control systems, data analysis, optics, and AI. His teams have delivered 40 major new products. He currently is director of Instruments Engineering for Zygo, which provides tailored metrology, optical solutions, and world-class expertise to solve the most complex optical challenges.  

Leonard is married to a fellow UConn graduate, Eileen Casey. They lived in Arizona and Boston before returning to Connecticut, where they raised two children. Most weekends and evenings find him cycling, mountain biking, jet skiing, boating, or tinkering with vintage cars.