TheBoohers.org

Leader | Engineer | Hacker | Dad

About

I am an engineer, analyst and executive currently working as Vice President, Autonomy at Boeing where I lead the development and execution of autonomous systems strategy across the global Boeing company. My responsibilities include overseeing all autonomous systems across commercial and defense, managing a global team of engineers focused on delivering next-generation autonomous solutions (including manufacturing, subsurface, airborne and ground-based systems), driving strategic partnerships to advance autonomous systems in aerospace, and ensuring Boeing remains the premier leader in the development and deployment of safe, reliable, and ethical autonomous systems. I lead the full spectrum of technologies underpinning autonomous systems development, including perception, robotics, certification, trust and navigation.

Previously, I was Vice President, Strategy & Corporate Development Strategic Initiatives at Boeing where I had the opportunity to lead the Corporate Strategy team which addressed key business questions on a global scale, managed the annual corporate strategy, shaped enterprise portfolio decisions, oversaw functional excellence for market analysis, market forecasting and competitive intelligence, and built strategy muscle across the enterprise.

I’m enjoying this journey with Chrissy, my wife of 20+ years, and four awesome kids, aged 18 to 12 years. I have the amazing opportunity to take an iconic company to the next level of digital-enabled performance. My vision is to amp up performance to a degree that attracts the top talent in our society back into the department of defense.

Before my current roles at Boeing, I was Vice President of Engineering with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Fort Worth, Texas where I was responsible for the design, development, delivery, and sustainment of systems enabling effective combat and mission effectiveness for all Lockheed Aeronautics platforms. Before coming to Lockheed, I was a managing director of HSBC Bank where I was Chief Technology Officer and Chief Security Architect. Prior to HSBC, I was VP of Global Analytics, Chief Information Security Officer and VP of Enterprise Architecture at Colgate-Palmolive where I had the opportunity to transform their ability to use data to drive significant business impact at scale for over half of the world’s population.

Before working in industry, I had a 20 year career of government service, ending as a program manager at DARPA where I led a research portfolio that pushed the state of the art in the hardware/software interface, complex systems, formal methods, stochastic modeling, quantitative risk assessment, computational probability, simulation and modeling, and vulnerability discovery (both formal and probabilistic). I continue to serve as a reservist and on two National Academy of Science Panels (The Forum on Cyber Resilience and Enhancing the Assurance and Nimbleness of Large-Scale Integrated Software-Based Systems) in addition to the steering committee of the DARPA Information Science and Technology (ISAT) Study Group.

In a the past, I’ve had the opportunity to design toy gliders for Nerf, advise the secretary of defense, and start and transition several companies. I was CTO and co-founder of Polco and the National Engagement Center and have built the core software stack of several other startups. I previously was on several advisory boards (Google Security, Team8, Forgepoint, Glilot Capital) and was a director of Tangram Flex. I served as a judge for the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE.

Want to have a passionate conversation? Get me talking about family, global health (vaccination), philosophy/theology, political participation (e-gov), new programming languages, CrossFit, digital fabrication, sketching, or rock climbing. In the past, I’ve been focused on Triathlon, competition chess, German, tennis, sport climbing, piano, ultra running, woodworking, economics, quant investing, and aerodynamics. I competed in Tennis, Crew and Track (Pole Vault and 5K) in College. I’ve been an active CrossFit participant since 2007 and completed 10 marathons. I like to lift heavy stuff. I love traveling to new places and getting to know the core ideas that span across cultures.

I like books. I love to wrestle around with my kids and be outside. The free time I do have I try to spend with my wife and kids. My steady state is an all cylinders firing, all out sprint that comes from a recognition of the brevity of life and an innate desire to serve. My allegiance is to my faith, family, and national security. In that order. My passion is to push the state of technology as far as possible to advance each of those as far as I can.

My undergraduate degree is in Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering from MIT with a minor in German. After that, I received a masters in Operations Research from AFIT where my adviser was Dr. Jeff Kharoufeh for my thesis and publications related to determination of the optimal periodic inspection interval for systems subject to stochastic degradation. I also have certificates from Georgetown (Finance), University of Florida (Computer Science), University of West Florida (Database design/optimization), Carnegie Mellon (Computer Security), and Reformed Theological Seminary (Divinity).

7 thoughts on “About

  1. Tim,

    Nice to read about what’s going on in your life these days. I see you have not slowed down at all. I hope to make a trip to DC soon and would like to see you again if we can work it out. I hope all is well with you, Chrissy and your four children.

    Blessings in Christ,
    J.P. Kharoufeh

    P.S. Please pass on your congratulations to Dr. John Flory who successfully defended his dissertation and graduated this summer.

  2. Just happened to be looking for papers and materials to include in a course on Integer Programming and came across this site and your post. Thought the name sounded familiar. I remember that guy!

    Regards,
    J. Chrissis

  3. At zero? Try coffee. My first visit here. Ohhhhh boy, I’m going to have fun exploring some theology with you, since you say you’re up to it. More to say about Roundtables some time – what’s the strongest academic school near enough to you where you could get to a Roundtable and be back home to sleep in your own bed?

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