RS21, a data and analytics firm based in Downtown Albuquerque, has promoted a former company director as its new chief technology officer.
Brady Key, a 2024 Albuquerque Business First 40 Under 40 honoree, took over as RS21's CTO on Sept. 1. The company announced the promotion Sept. 5.
Key started with the Downtown data firm in April 2022 following a decade-long professional career at Sandia National Laboratories. His first role with RS21 was senior software developer, a job he held for one year until he took over as director of software development for the company, where he oversaw RS21's software development team.
RS21's software development team is one of the company's five "cross-functional domains," Key explained, alongside design, data engineering, data science and data analytics domains.
"That shift was really cool," Key said of his move to software development director. "I was able to cultivate something that I loved, which was being a player-coach — I was still contributing from an individual contribution standpoint as a software developer on projects, but I also got to open up my view to the other sides of the business as a director."
That "technical purview" has now expanded further with the C-suite promotion, he said, across all five domains instead of just the company's software development team. In a statement, Key said he is "excited to help shape [RS21's] strategy, knowing our work has a real impact on people."
"Our team isn't just about deploying technology; it's about understanding the problems we're solving and working closely with our customers to deliver practical, innovative and meaningful solutions," Key's statement continued.
Part of his focus as CTO will involve growing the "cross pollination" of RS21's technical teams, he said.
One technological offering Key expressed particular excitement about is called "Prequip," an artificial intelligence-backed tool.
The product uses machine learning to give insights into complex systems via "predictive maintenance and anomaly detection," Key explained. It involves outlier detection — flagging out-of-the-ordinary system operations — and "enhanced" system analysis, or being able to explain the "root cause" of a flagged outlier.
Prequip also incorporates event prediction, he added, which involves training AI models to pinpoint the possibility of when specific events, either positive and negative, could occur.
The predictive maintenance and anomaly detection product spawned from a satellite industry-specific tool, called the Space Prognostic AI Custodian Ecosystem, or SPAICE — RS21 deployed with customers like the U.S. Space Force to help keep satellites safe.
RS21 evolved that tool to be deployable to a range of other markets besides space, including energy systems, electrical grids and building automation. Key called the product "platform agnostic," meaning it could apply to various sorts of complex systems, he explained.
Charles Rath, RS21's president and CEO, told New Mexico Inno this summer rolling out Prequip could contribute to increased revenue for the company. Rath, in early June, projected revenue between $12 million and $15 million in fiscal year 2024.
That was around the same time RS21 promoted Katie Webster, Ph.D., the company's previous director of data analytics, to its C-suite as chief solutions architect.
RS21's CTO position had been vacant after Jamie Ter Beest, the previous CTO hired in October 2023, separated from the company in June, at the same time Matthew Ennis, RS21's former chief product and strategy officer, also departed. Kameron Baumgardner, who had served as CTO since 2015, vacated the role in March 2023, prior to Ter Beest's hiring.
Key joins an executive suite that includes Rath, Webster, Chief Operations Officer Missi Rogers and Chief Financial Officer Michael Ladd. Kurt Kuntzelman, who RS21 hired as chief defense and space officer in December 2023, left the company in July.
RS21 currently employs around 70 people.
Rath, in a statement, said Key's "passion for continuous learning and adaptability makes him the ideal choice to guide our technology vision and deliver groundbreaking solutions that harness the power of data, AI and machine learning."
