New Senior Level leader looks to make concepts work

  • Published
  • By Chuck Paone
  • 66th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
HANSCOM AFB, Mass. --  Electronic Systems Center Commander Lt. Gen. Ted Bowlds officially presented the Senior Level certificate and flag to Dr. Tim Rudolph March 7, in a first-of-its-kind ceremony here.

Dr. Rudolph, who is now serving as technical advisor for system of systems networking and interoperability within the 653rd Electronic Systems Wing, has become the first SL in the center's history. An SL position is equivalent to a Senior Executive Service position, but incumbents are allowed to focus on specific technical or organizational challenges rather than executive-level management responsibilities.

"We get the benefits without any of the bad stuff," Dr. Rudolph said with a chuckle during a recent interview session.

"Tim brings a tremendous amount of broad-based experience to this new position," said Bruce Hevey, director of the 653 ELSW. "He also brings a very dynamic, forward-looking approach to creating net-centric solutions for ESC's operational customers."

Having co-founded his own company, Paradigm Technologies Inc., in 1994, which he managed up until its sale last year, Dr. Rudolph well understands the time commitments of management. Having also been involved with ESC for most of the past 15 years, he's very familiar with the technical issues the center has been grappling with too.

Now he's pleased to be focused more exclusively on those issues, and specifically on the effort to tie disparate programs together to maximize their collective utility. Although he works with the Engineering Directorate and within the 653 ELSW, his job is to work across all of ESC's wings and, in fact, with partners beyond the center.

"By collaborating, we all do better," he said. "Program managers, of course, have to worry about their individual programs, but at the same time, we have to stay focused on the enterprise perspective. Everybody has to give up a little - hopefully not too much - but what we gain, in the end, is a lot more than what anyone loses."

That gain comes from having systems that are not just harmoniously integrated but which are rather part of a planned 'federation.' The federation concept is in many respects simpler than initial integration forays have been.

"Integrating systems has often been arduous," Dr. Rudolph said. "We had a lot of point-to-point exchanges, and specific software packages had to be created to make each connection work." Federation, by contrast, is based on providing essential mission services leveraging common mechanisms, so that data is more easily exposed.

"If data is visible and accessible, operators will always find new and creative ways to use it," he said.

Nevertheless, this really is a very different way of doing business, Dr. Rudolph notes, and change of this magnitude is always hard at first.

We can't run away from "disruptive technologies," he said, using a term that "sounds bad but is actually good." Those are the technological advances so big and so transformational that they basically destroy, or render obsolete, the old way of doing things. Such technologies always come with huge "humps," as well as major expenses up front, but tend to prove their worth and be more economical over time.

One of the original founders of ESC's Enterprise Integration Team, Dr. Rudolph further contends that cross-program integration rewards are often delivered sooner than later.

"By making sure we get the full re-use potential out of whatever we're developing, program managers can avoid duplicating or replicating existing program efforts," he said. This not only enhances the net-centric enterprise, by increasing its multi-functional value, but it saves time and money.

Dr. Rudolph currently chairs the Chief Technical Officers Team at ESC. In that role, he works with the senior technical representatives from each of the other acquisition wings and representatives from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition and the Air Force's Warfighting Integration and Chief Information Officer.

"My job is to make sure we all get on the same page," he said.

Asked if all parties presently are, he says they're generally pretty close, while admitting that the effort is constant. Some of the center's external colleagues believe "we should use even more commercial sources, more non-traditional solutions, that we need to get more out of what industry is doing."

The center, like much of the government, has moved in those directions, he said. But the bottom line for everyone involved is finding the balance that provides the most effective solution for the warfighter, period.

"At ESC, at least from an infrastructure perspective, things are best when we're not noticed, when everything works the way it's supposed to and operators are happy," he said.

Dr. Rudolph sees his new assignment as presenting him with a chance to help make that a constant state, saying he took this job to make a difference.

"It's important to do my part for the nation," he said. "I'm very excited about the opportunity to do that and to support new concepts, and to make them work for the operationally relevant benefit of the warfighters."