Arthur Pyster1

Arthur Pyster,PhD

11061 Tottenham LaneReston, VA20194

703-717-8110 

Summary

Dr. Pyster has more than thirty years of experience as a successful senior executive, researcher, engineer, educator, and program and project manager in government, industry, and academia. He has created, delivered, and operated numerous leading edge systems and technologies in telecommunications, aerospace, defense, air traffic control, and information technology domains. Currently a Distinguished Research Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology and the Stevens Director of the Applied Systems Thinking Institute, he lectures and conducts research on systems engineering, software engineering, and process improvement. Dr. Pyster is also the principal of Pyster Associates LLC, through which he consults with government and corporate clients on systems engineering, software engineering, program management, and development governance. In January 2008, he will become the Chairman of Corporate Advisory Board of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE)and a member of the INCOSE Board of Directors.

Most recently, he was the Senior Vice President and Director of Systems Engineering and Integration for SAIC. Previously, Dr. Pyster was the Deputy Chief Information Officer and the Chief Scientist for Software Engineering at the Federal Aviation Administration, Chief Technical Officer at the Software Productivity Consortium, a Director at Digital Sound Corporation, Manager of Systems Engineering at TRW, and an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Among his accomplishments are establishing and operating the Federal Aviation Administration’s information security program; directing the creation and application of three Capability Maturity Models – the FAA integrated CMM, Integrated Product Development CMM, and the Systems Engineering CMM; architecting TRW’s first integrated digital environment; prototyping the first version of the spiral process for software development; and directing the creation and application of advanced methods to design real-time systems, reuse software, and specify real-time requirements. Dr. Pyster has a Ph.D. in Computer and Information Sciences from OhioStateUniversity, is a distinguished Alumnus of the Engineering College of Ohio State University, and has authored two editions of the book Compiler Design and Construction.

Additional personal info: Born in Chicago, Illinois, he is married and has three children. Currently he holds a TS/SCI security clearance.

Curriculum Vita

Education

November 1975The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
PhD in Computer and Information Sciences
Dissertation: “Semantic-Syntax-Directed Translation of Formal Languages”

June 1973The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

MS in Computer and Information Sciences

June 1971University of Illinois, Urbana, IL
BS in Mathematics

Awards

2006SAIC CEO award for excellent performance and high potential

2004SAIC CEO award for excellent performance

2004Department of Transportation Award for Advancing Information Systems Security

2003FAA Leadership in Process Improvement Award

1998Distinguished Alumnus of OhioStateUniversityCollege of Engineering

Publications

2007Richard W. Selby, editor, Software Engineering: Barry W. Boehm's Lifetime Contributions to Software Development, Management, and Research, Wiley, June 2007. A. Pyster wrote the introduction to the Chapter on Software Tools.

2005A. Pyster and R. Thayer, “Guest Editorial: Software Engineering Project Management 20 Years Later”, IEEE Software, September-October 2005. This paper introduces a special issue on Software Engineering Project Management that was originally published in 1984 and articulates progress made in the past 20 years and anticipates the future.

2005A. Pyster, “What Beyond CMMI is Needed for Program Success”, Software Productivity Workshop, Beijing, China, May 25-27, 2005. Also published in Unifying the Software Process Spectrum by Springer-Verlag in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3840. This paper analyzes weakness in the CMM Integrated and how the Department of Defense has misunderstood the CMM Integrated. Its recommendations on how to address those weaknesses and misunderstandings influenced actions by the Department of Defense and changes in the CMM Integrated model.

2004L. Ibrahim and A. Pyster, “A Single Model for Process Improvement: Lessons Learned at the US Federal Aviation Administration”, IEEE IT Professional, May-June, 2004. This paper summarizes the use of the iCMM at the FAA between 1997 and 2004.

2000 R. Anderson, T. Bollinger, D. Brown, E. Draier, P. Machanick, G. McGraw, N. Mead, A. Pyster, H. Schmidt, and T. Shimeall, “Roundtable on Information Security Policy”, IEEE Software, 17(5), 2000. This is an edited report from a discussion among information security professionals on the key issues and challenges facing the community.

1993ADARTS Guidebook, SPC-91104-MC, Software Productivity Consortium, Herndon, Virginia, 1993. The Software Productivity Consortium produced ADARTS, which, at the time, was one of the most advanced real-time design methods. As Chief Technical Officer, Dr. Pyster oversaw the creation of ADARTS, which was used by many Consortium’s member companies.

1991Synthesis Guidebook, SPC-91122-MC. Software Productivity Consortium, Herndon, Virginia, 1991. The Software Productivity Consortium produced “Synthesis”, which, at the time, was one of the most advanced reuse and product-line methods. As Chief Technical Officer, Dr. Pyster oversaw the creation of ADARTS, which was used by many Consortium’s member companies.

1989A. Pyster, “’Synthesis’ – A Reuse/Prototyping Process for Software Development”, IFIP Congress, 1989, pp. 977-980. Synthesis was an advanced process for reusing software based on the earlier work of Dave Parnas and information hiding.

1988A. Pyster and B. Barnes, “The Software Productivity Consortium Reuse Program”, COMPCON 1988, pp. 242-249. The Consortium has a major software reuse program that was some of the earliest work on software product lines.

1984R. Thayer and A. Pyster, “Guest Editorial: Software Engineering Project Management:, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 10(1), pp. 2-3, January 1984. This is a collection of seminal papers articulating the state of software engineering project management.

1984B. Boehm, M. Penedo, D. Stuckle, R. Williams, and A. Pyster, “A Software Development Environment”, IEEE Computer, 17(6), June 1986.

1982B. Boehm, J. Elwell, A. Pyster, E. Stuckle, and R. Williams, “The TRW Software Productivity System”, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 148-156, IEEE Computer Society Press, September 1982. This is the definitive paper describing the TRW Software Productivity System, and was awarded best paper for the conference. The subsequent paper (B. Boehm, M. Penedo, E. Stuckle, R. Williams, and A. Pyster, “A Software Development Environment for Improving Productivity”, IEEE Computer, 17(6), pp. 30-44, June 1984) described progress during the subsequent two years.

1982B. Boehm and A. Pyster, “The Impact of Rapid Prototyping on Software Development Standards – A Position Paper”, ACM SIGSOFT Second Software Engineering Symposium, Columbia, MD, April 1982.

1982R. Thayer, A. Pyster, and R. Wood, “Validating Solutions to Major Problems in Software Engineering Project Management”, IEEE Computer, 15(8), 1982, pp. 65-77.

1981R. Thayer, A. Pyster, and R. Wood, “The Challenge in Software Engineering Project Management, Computer, IEEE Computer Society, August 1980. (Reprinted in the Tutorial: Software Management, Second Edition, edited by Donald Reifer, IEEE Computer Society, 1981).

1981R. Thayer, A. Pyster and R. Wood, “Major Issues in Software Engineering Project Management”, IEEE Transaction on Software Engineering, 7(4), 1981, pp. 333-342. The results of a large-scale data collection effort to understand major issues in software engineering project management.

1980A. Pyster, Compiler Design and Construction, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1980. (Second edition published in 1987). A popular textbook in the 1980s, it sold 25,000 copies and was novel at the time for using incremental design and construction of a single compiler as a case study to illustrate its points.

1980R. Krishnaswamy and A. Pyster, “On the Correctness of Semantic-Syntax-Directed Translations”, Journal of the ACM, 27(2), pp. 338-355, April 1980. The correctness of semantic-syntax-directed translators is examined. They are a generalization of syntax-directed translators in which semantic information is employed to partially direct the translator.

1979A. Pyster, C. Dana, and R. Wood, “Modeling the Binding Policies of Programming Languages”, Proceedings of the 1979 Annual Conference of the ACM, pp. 193-202.

1979R. Meeson and A. Pyster, “Overhead in FORTRAN Preprocessors”, Software Practice and Experience, 9(12), 1979, pp. 987-999.

1978A. Pyster and W. Buttelman, “Semantic-syntax-directed translation”, Information and Control, 36(3), pp. 320-361, March 1978. Introduces the notion of semantic-syntax-directed translation, which is a generalization of syntax-directed translators.

1978A. Pyster, “Context-Dependent Tree Automata”, Information and Control, 38(1), 1978, pp. 81-102.

1978A. Pyster and A. Dutta, “Error-Checking Compilers and Portability”, Software Practice and Experience, 8(1), 1978, pp. 99-108.

Professional Activities

International Council on Systems Engineering

  • Chair-Elect of Corporate Advisory Board and Member-Elect of Board of Directors since January 2007
  • President of Washington Metropolitan Area Chapter, 1995-1996. Pyster initiated a program of monthly meetings that doubled chapter membership in two years from 200 to 400 members, making it the largest in the Council.

Enterprise Process Improvement Collaboration

  • Chairman of collaboration from 1994-1996 involving the Software Engineering Institute, Department of Defense, and numerous companies. Created the Systems Engineering Capability Maturity Model and the Integrated Product Development Capability Maturity Model.

Stevens Institute of Technology

  • Member of Advisory Board of the System Design and Operational Effectiveness Program of the College of Engineering from 2004 through early 2007. The Board offers strategic advice to the Dean of the EngineeringCollege and the Program Director.

National Defense Industrial Association

  • Member of Systems Engineering Division Steering Committee 2004-2007. Pyster represented SAIC on the steering committee that provides advice to the U.S. Department of Defense and provides oversight to the CMM Integrated project.

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

  • Senior Member since 1988

OhioStateUniversity

  • Member and Past Chairman of Visiting Committee of the Computer and Information Sciences Department from 1995-2005.

National Software Summit, 1995

  • Summit Chairman. An event that called together leading industrial, government, and academic visionaries to propose an agenda to advance the cause of software for the United States. Keynote speakers included Dr. Arati Prabhakar, then Director of the National Institute of Technology, and Steve Case, then Chairman of America Online.

Association for Computing Machinery

  • Member since 1973
  • President of Santa Barbara Chapter, 1977-78

RTCA

  • Member of team that created DO-278B, the safety assurance standard for ground-based software

Professional Experience

2007-presentStevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ – Distinguished Research Professor

  • Member of leadership in the School of Systems and Enterprises under the direction of the Dean
  • Program Director for Software Engineering, responsible for curriculum development and quality, and for integrating software and systems engineering together into an interdisciplinary curriculum
  • Principal Investigator of international effort to create a model curriculum for graduate software engineering education; DOD-sponsored
  • Stevens Director of the Applied Systems Thinking Institute, a collaborative endeavor of Stevens and Analytic Services, Incorporated, focused on elevating the practice of systems thinking in the government
  • Advising numerous students developing a masters thesis or doctoral dissertation

2007-presentPyster Associates LLC, Reston, VA – Principal

  • Instructor to a government client in systems engineering
  • Consultant in systems engineering, software engineering, program management, and development governance

2004-presentScience Applications International Corporation, McLean, VA

  • Senior Vice President and Director of Systems Engineering and Integration, 2004-2007
  • Led systems engineering and integration function across SAIC
  • Created first corporate integrated toolset and first corporate systems engineering processes
  • Created corporate training on program management and systems engineering
  • Created corporate career path for program managers
  • Participated in proposal writing and program reviews for many large projects
  • Advised senior leadership on systems engineering policy and practice
  • Consulting Employee, January 2007-present
  • Support the Director of Systems and Software Engineering in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, by performing program reviews for large defense systems (ACAT 1A) and improving how software engineering is taught and performed within DOD acquisitions

1997-2004 Federal Aviation Administration, Washington, DC

  • Deputy Chief Information Officer and Deputy Assistant Administrator for Information Services, 1999-2004
  • As a senior executive, oversaw IT policy, strategy, and practice in the FAA
  • Created, architected and managed of the FAA’s information security program
  • Belonged to the FAA’s investment review board, overseeing up to $3 billion annually
  • Chaired the FAA’s Chief Information Officer Council
  • Managed the creation of the FAA’s first enterprise architecture
  • Led the FAA’s process improvement program, including the implementation of the FAA integrated Capability Maturity Model
  • Reviewed numerous large air traffic, safety, and business systems
  • Supervised more than 100 staff in the CIO’s office and managed up to $40 million annually
  • Managed operations for many FAA web sites
  • Managed FAA’s e-government program and implementation of the President’s Management Agenda
  • Managed FAA’s IT research
  • Chief Scientist for Software Engineering, 1997-1999
  • As the FAA’s seniormost software professional, responsible for advancing the practice of software engineering within the FAA
  • Advised the Assistant Administrator for Research and Acquisitions on software; he was responsible for acquiring all air traffic systems
  • Reviewed numerous large air traffic systems
  • Led the FAA’s process improvement program, including the creation of the FAA integrated Capability Maturity Model

1987-1997Software Productivity Consortium, Herndon, VA

  • Chief Technical Officer and Vice President 1989-1996
  • Directed technical operations within the Consortium as the senior officer reporting to the CEO
  • Responsible for delivery of technologies including (1) software product lines adopted at Rockwell, Lockheed Martin, and other members, (2) ADARTS, which was the most advanced method for real-time design; and (3) the Systems Engineering Capability Model and the Integrated Product Development Capability Maturity Model
  • Oversaw the creation of the annual technical plan, which was the commitment between the Consortium and its members for work to be performed
  • Regularly briefed the Board of Directors on all technical matters
  • Vice President, 1987-1989
  • Managed creation of new technologies and prototypes for all Consortium products

1984-1987Digital Sound Corporation, Santa Barbara, CA - Director

  • Created and oversaw application of rigorous configuration management, time-box development, spiral development, and daily builds years before they were common industry practice. Before its acquisition by Unisys, Digital Sound routinely delivered voice processing computers and pioneering voicemail systems products with extremely low defect rates
  • Managed development of real-time Unix operating system for all products

1981-1984 TRW, Redondo Beach, CA - Manager of Systems Engineering

  • As Chief architect of TRW's Software Productivity Environment, designed one of the earliest and most sophisticated industrial environments for software development, including tools for requirements management and software costing.
  • Supported large contract programs with the Software Productivity Environment.
  • Prototyped what became the spiral process for software development

1977-1981General Research Corporation, Santa Barbara, CA - Consultant

  • Created new releases of GRC products that supported structured development and program verification
  • Analyzed the ability of software to implement the safety systems of nuclear reactors

1976-1981 University of California, Santa Barbara, CA – Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

  • Founding member of Computer Science Department
  • Created and taught many of its early courses
  • Conducted research and supervised masters and doctoral students

1971-1977U.S. Army Reserves, Columbus, OH and Santa Barbara, CA

  • Finance analyst and software developer
  • Achieved rank of Staff Sergeant

Memberships in Professional Associations

Member of the International Council on Systems Engineering

Senior Member in the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)

Member of the Association for Computing Machinery

Member of the National Defense Industrial Association