About Syncom
Syncom brings together specialists from a variety of technical disciplines to assist clients in planning projects, developing funding proposals, conducting analytical and field studies, and preparing reports and presentations.
Founded in 2002, Syncom has helped clients in fields as diverse as renewable energy, fisheries, environmental assessment, wireless commuication and greenhouse experimentation.
Syncom Mission Statement
To promote sustainable, economic development
for the benefit of local communities.
Paul Patterson is the founding owner of Syncom. Before his retirement from Cape Breton University, he held the Chair in the Management of Technological Change in the School of Business. Prior to returning to his native Cape Breton, he had served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. Before that, he had conducted research and development of spacecraft instruments for the United States space program, as a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at Ball Aerospace.
During the Apollo and Skylab programs, he trained astronauts in solar and ultraviolet observations, and served as an advisor on future technology and advanced mission planning for NASA's Office of Manned Space Flight and Office of Space Science. Before that, he was a Principal Investigator for rocket-borne, ultraviolet astronomy observations at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. He earned Masters Degrees in Physics at Dalhousie and Yale Universities, a Ph.D. in Astronomy at Yale University, and a J.D. at the University of Virginia.
A major benefit of Dr. Patterson's involvement in the Technology Advisory Group, while at Cape Breton University, was the development of personal relationships with many experts in the high-technology sector of Nova Scotia with whom he maintains contact as prospective consulting associates. For his early work in promoting universal Internet access across Atlantic Canada, he has been recognized with the Canadian National I-Way Award and the IT Hero Award. He is co-author (with historian Susan Biaggi) of the 2003 book, The Loom of Change; Weaving a New Economy on Cape Breton Island.