Since the 1990's the US Department of Defense has been pioneering the development of more coherent approaches to improve the coordination of complex technologies, program, policies, and institutions.  Among the most significant and influential of these new approaches is Systems of Systems, which is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on organizing independent stand-alone components into more integrated solutions.

As one of the developers of this concept, Bill will draw on his expertise to review the history of this emerging field, summarize its major scientific and practical features, describe examples of its application in DoD and other arenas, and explore its relevance to a variety of technical and non-technical issues affecting security concerns.

Bill Reckmeyer is Professor of Leadership and Systems at San José State University, Faculty Chair of the International Study Program on Global Citizenship at the Salzburg Global Seminar, and a Visiting Professor at CISAC.  A systems scientist/cybernetician whose work emphasizes collaborative approaches to problematic organizational, national, and global issues, his research and consulting have focused on leading multi-year strategic planning efforts in diverse institutional settings and conducting senior-level policy studies on national strategy for the US Department of Defense.

During the 1990s Bill co-authored several studies on Revitalizing America for OSD's Office of Net Assessment, which originated the ideas for systems of systems approaches to address hyper-complex concerns whose resolution require the integration of independent complex systems.  From 2003-2006 he served as Chief Systems Scientist for the Systems of Systems Center of Excellence, which was established by Congress and funded by DoD to lead national efforts at developing more integrative solutions to interconnected challenges affecting defense acquisition and logistics, national security, homeland security, and international affairs.

Prior to joining Stanford Bill also held posts as a Visiting Professor or a Senior Fellow at Harvard, Southern California, Maryland, Stockholm, St. Gallen, Aveiro, and several other major universities in the United States and Europe.  He currently serves as Strategic Advisor to the California Levees Roundtable and as a Core Faculty member in the CA Agricultural Leadership Program.

A former President of the American Society for Cybernetics in 1983-1985, Bill was a Kellogg National Leadership Fellow in 1988-1992 and a Salzburg Global Fellow on five occasions from 1995-2004.  He earned his PhD in Russian Studies at American University in 1982 and completed several advanced leadership programs at Harvard University from 1990-1995.

Representing the United States Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel John Vitacca is a national defense fellow for 2009-2010 at CISAC. 

John holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing from Texas A&M University, a Master of Business Administration degree in Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Master of Arts degree in Military Operational Art and Science from Air Command and Staff College, Air University, Alabama.  He is a command pilot with over 3,400 flight hours in the B-2 and B-52, qualified as both an instructor and evaluator pilot.  Prior to coming to CISAC, John served in various assignments including a tour at the Pentagon as the Chief of the Global Persistent Attack Branch and the B-2/Next Generation Bomber subject matter expert.   Most recently, he was the Commander of the 393d Bomb Squadron at Whiteman Air Force Base, one of only two operational B-2 stealth bomber squadrons in the USAF.  His research at CISAC will focus on nuclear weapons policy issues.

Dr. Stephen Flynn served as a senior policy advisor on homeland security during the Obama campaign and during the presidential transition. Since May 2009, he has been supporting the Department of Homeland Security in drafting of the first Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) that will be presented to Congress by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano in Jan 2010. In addition, he has been assisting the newly created National Security Council Directorate for Resilience Policy on integrating the concept of resilience into presidential guidance on national preparedness. He will discuss how the homeland security mission is being recalibrated by the Obama Administration to place greater emphasis on building national capacity to withstand, quickly recover from, and adapt to man-made and natural disasters.

About the speaker:

In December 2009, Dr. Stephen Flynn becomes the fifth President of the Center for National Policy (www.cnponline.org), founded in 1981.  Prior to being selected to lead CNP, he spent a decade as a senior fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.  Following the election of President Barack Obama, he served as the lead policy advisor on homeland security for the presidential transition team.  He is a member of the bipartisan National Security Preparedness Group, co-chaired by former 9/11 commissioners, Governor Tom Kean and Congressman Lee Hamilton.

Dr. Flynn is the author of the critically acclaimed The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation (Random House, 2007), and the national bestseller, America the Vulnerable (HarperCollins 2004).  He is a Consulting Professor at the Center of International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Wharton School's Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania.  Since 9/11 he has provided testimony on twenty-two occasions on Capitol Hill.  Dr. Flynn is also a member of the Marine Board of the National Research Council. Prior to September 11, 2001, he served as an expert advisor to U.S. Commission on National Security (Hart-Rudman Commission), and following the 9/11 attacks he was the principle advisor to the bipartisan Congressional Port Security Caucus, and advised the Bush Administration on maritime and homeland security issues. 

He is a frequent media commentator and has appeared on Meet the Press, 60 Minutes, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The Today Show, the Charlie Rose Show, CNN and on National Public Radio.  Four of his articles have been published in the prestigious journal, Foreign Affairs.  Excerpts of his books have been featured in Time, as the cover story for U.S. News & World Report, and as the subject of two CNN documentaries.

A 1982 graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Dr. Flynn served in the Coast Guard on active duty for 20 years, including two tours as commanding officer at sea, received several professional awards including the Legion of Merit, and retired at the rank of Commander.  As a Coast Guard officer, he served in the White House Military Office during the George H.W. Bush administration and as a director for Global Issues on the National Security Council staff during the Clinton administration. 

Dr. Flynn received the M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. degrees in International Politics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, in 1990 and 1991.  He was a Guest Scholar in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution from 1991-92, and in 1993-94 he was an Annenberg Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania.   He has been a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations since 1999.

Dr. Flynn is the principal for Stephen E. Flynn Associates LLC, where he provides independent advisory services on improving enterprise resiliency and critical infrastructure protection, and transportation and maritime security.

Born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1960, Dr. Flynn lives in Connecticut with his wife JoAnn and their daughter Christina.

Prior to coming to CISAC, Joe was the project director and leader for the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s team in the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) design feasibility study.  He will share his experiences and knowledge from over 25 years at Los Alamos and multiple projects related to nuclear weapons design and maintenance, plutonium storage and disposition, stockpile life extension and plutonium aging.  Following a slide show, he will be available for a question and answer session.
 
This is the second in a series of informal gatherings aimed at providing first hand, in-depth information on a variety of topics.  Different from more a formal research seminar, these informal discussions will provide first hand information and Q&A opportunities to facilitate wider understanding and to catalyze potential unrealized research opportunities.

Dr. Joseph C. Martz is a 25 year employee of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in which he has served in a variety of research, leadership, and management positions.  His career has focused on nuclear weapons and materials, and he has lead and participated on a variety of projects related to nuclear weapon design and maintenance, plutonium storage and disposition, stockpile life extension and plutonium aging.  His early work led to a nationwide evaluation and repackaging of stored nuclear materials, and he was a co-developer of the ARIES system, a means to dismantle and safely recover plutonium from excess nuclear weapons.  Dr. Martz technical focus has been on plutonium surface chemistry and metallurgy, including oxidation, dispersal mechanisms, and plutonium aging.  He is a long-time contributor to the Enhanced Surveillance Program for the stockpile, including the evaluation and predictive assessment of aging effects in stockpile materials and components.   Most recently, Dr. Martz was the project director and leader for the New Mexico team in the recent Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) design feasibility study.  Dr. Martz is the author of over 50 papers and invited presentations in these areas.  He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

David Hamburg is president emeritus at Carnegie Corporation of New York, where he served as the Corporation's eleventh president from 1982 to 1997. Under his leadership the work of the Corporation focused on education and healthy development of children and youth, human resources in developing countries and international security issues. He established a number of task forces on education and preventing conflict which produced seminal research and policy analysis and which will continue to influence the work in these fields in the future.

A medical doctor, Hamburg had a long history of leadership in the research, medical and psychiatric fields before his transition from a trustee of Carnegie to its president. He was chief, adult psychiatry branch, National Institutes of Health, from 1958 to 1961; professor and chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University from 1961 to 1972; Reed-Hodgson Professor of Human Biology at Stanford University from 1972 to 1976; president of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, 1975-1980; and director of the division of health policy research and education and John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy at Harvard University, 1980-1983. He served as president and then chairman of the board (1984-1986) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Hamburg was a member of the United States Defense Policy Board with Secretary of Defense William Perry and cochair with former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict. He is a member of President Clinton's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology and a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School's department of social medicine. He was the founder of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government.

Hamburg received both his A.B. and M.D. degrees from Indiana University. He has received numerous honorary degrees during his career as well as the American Psychiatric Association's Distinguished Service Award in 1991, the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in 1996, the International Peace Academy's 25th Anniversary Special Award in 1996, the Achievement in Children and Public Policy Award from the Society for Research in Child Development in 1997, and the National Academy of Sciences' Public Welfare Medal in 1998.

Achilles Zaluar is Minister-Counselor of Political Affairs at the Brazilian Embassy to the United States in Washington, D.C. From 2008-09 Zaluar served as Minister-Counselor of Multilateral and International Security Affairs at the Brazilian Embassy to the United States. Zaluar has previously held positions as Deputy Head of the Division for United Nations Affairs (DNU), 2003-06, and assistant at the Theory of International Relations Chair of the Rio Branco Institute, 2002-03. From 1997-98 Zaluar served as a member of the team that drafted the position papers and presidential message for Brazil’s accession to the NPT. Zaluar has held posts at the Brazilian Embassy to the U.S, Washington, 2006-present; Brazilian Mission to the United Nations, New York, 1995-98; and the Brazilian Embassy to Paraguay, Asuncion, 1998-2001. In 1993 Zaluar served as secretary of the interagency group that drafted Brazil’s export control law. From 1991 to 1994, he worked on non-proliferation and export control, including Brazil’s relations with the MTCR and NSG control regimes, and US-Brazil issues. Zaluar received a Bachelor in Mathematics at Rio Catholic University in 1985, graduated in Diplomacy from the Rio Branco Institute, Brazil’s diplomatic academy, in 1991, and received a Master in Public Administration (MPA/MC) at the Harvard Kennedy School, in 2002.