Meet Paul Littleton - Our New CTO
Paul Littleton
Paul Littleton was fascinated with radio and a little curious when he first learned about GBS’ pioneering technologies. He had been working at the National Public Radio Laboratories in a building near Washington, DC, and was assigned to help the company test its mappings for ZoneCasting™ technology.
In those labs, he realized the potential capabilities of ZoneCasting while learning about the development of the technology, and he envisioned some of the answers to questions the company had at the time.
Paul has come a long way since growing up in the Republic of Congo to an American Peace Corp volunteer father and a Congolese mother. In his youth, he aspired to become a priest and attended a seminary. In his late teens, he decided to go to college in Kinshasa (Congo’s capital) and study telecommunications. After receiving a degree at Congo’s Institute of Applied Technology he wanted to continue his education and moved to the U.S. when he was 25.
In America for the first time, Paul settled in Cambridge, MD, and worked at an Italian restaurant with the hopes that he could soon find a position in telecom and enroll in college. It was at the restaurant where he was introduced by a friend to Mike Starling, then executive director of NPR Labs, and was eventually offered an opportunity to apply for an NPR internship. After two months of his internship, he was offered the position of technical research associate under John Kean, NPR’s senior technologist, whom he worked with from 2008-2014. Among Paul’s tasks was to help work on a project for the Public Broadcasting System to help them improve their radio station coverage. While at NPR, Paul went to A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland where he obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Telecommunications.
In 2013 Paul married his wife, Cynthia, also a native of the Republic of Congo. The couple now lives in Silver Spring, MD with their young daughter, Laure, who just started kindergarten. On weekends the family enjoys playing soccer together. During the week, Laure enjoys swimming and helping her mother cook native Congolese traditional meals.