2007 Issue 3 - Raytheon

Getting to Know Your Raytheon Certified Architects
Mike Beauford
Senior Principal Systems
Engineer, NCS IRAD
While working a proposal
in 1999, Mike
Beauford ran across a
requirement in the
Statement of Work to
produce an architecture
using the C4ISR
Architecture Framework. This led to research
into architecture, frameworks, tools and notations.
Eventually Mike supported John
McDonald and Rolf Seigers in developing the
Raytheon Enterprise Architecture Process
(REAP). He was then assigned to the architecture
development team for a large data management
program, which used System
Architect to develop their architecture.
Rolf, who was presenting REAP across the
company, would often receive phone calls for
support. Sometimes the teams would request
tool support and Rolf would refer them to
Mike, who supported the Next Generation Air
Transportation System (NGATS) and helped
them select tools and methods. The C4ISR
Architecture Framework was adopted across the
Department of Defense (DoD) and became the
DoDAF (DoD Architecture Framework). A funded
study required DoDAF and specified using
System Architect. During this activity, Mike needed
additional training and was certified by the
Federal Enterprise Architecture Certification
Institute as an enterprise architect in 2004.
In 2005, Mike participated in the Network
Centric Systems (NCS) Architecture Tool Trade
Study. He has formal training (or significant
on-the-job training) with several architecture
tools, including System Architect, TAU,
Provision, METIS and Rhapsody. Also in 2005,
he joined the Future Combat System (FCS)
Ground Sensor Developer Architecture Team
for the Multi-Function RF System (MFRFS),
and became the NCS North Texas Common
Process Architecture (CPA) subject matter
expert for “Architecture & System Design.”
In 2006, Mike completed his RCAP courses
and passed the RCAP certification board in
2007. He has taught architecture in the Systems
Engineering Technical Development Program
and worked on the development of RLI courses
for Architecture Methods and DoDAF.
He is now a senior principal systems engineer
working on architecture activities at the Spring
Creek campus in Plano, Texas. He is currently
developing an Information Management
Reference Architecture (IMRA) with a focus on
information fusion, knowledge management
and knowledge discovery. The IMRA is being
used as the foundation for the Common
Reference Architecture Model, which includes
reference architectures for Command and
Control, Information Assurance,
Communications and Netted Sensors.
Mike is an active member in the Net Centric
Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC)
and is the vice chair for the Net Centric
Assessment Functional Team.
In his 26 years as a Raytheon systems engineer,
Mike’s most enjoyable assignment was spending
eight years in Alice Springs, Australia.
Prior to joining the company in 1981, Mike
served six years as a U.S. Army Signal Officer.
Mike holds a master’s degree in systems management
from U.S.C. and a bachelor’s degree in
electronics engineering technology from
Northwestern State University.
Mark Munkacsy
Sr. Engineering
Fellow, Advanced
FNC Programs
While serving on a
submarine in the
Navy years ago, Mark
Munkacsy experienced
a complete failure
of the sub’s command
and control computers during a particularly
sensitive moment of a submerged tactical
operation. “I can still taste the mixture of fear
and frustration I felt as we realized it was unsafe
to continue and had to abort the operation.”
People
The Raytheon Certified Architect Program (RCAP) is the culmination of Raytheon’s systems architecting
learning curriculum. RCAP focuses on providing our customers with the expertise needed to support their
long-term transformational goals. In recognition of their certification, we continue to highlight our
Raytheon certified architects.
That event continues to influence Mark’s work
even today — as a certified architect at
Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems (IDS).
“As I develop the architectures of the Navy’s
next generation of systems, I keep playing
devil’s advocate, searching for things that could
trip up tomorrow’s warfighter. We have an
obligation to never let ourselves be satisfied, to
keep searching for deeper understandings of
how our systems will behave when presented
with situations we’ve never dreamed of.”
Mark entered the RCAP after four years as the
chief system architect on the Zumwalt program.
RCAP uses a number of outside experts
to teach many of its key classroom modules. “It
was really exciting to compare notes with these
folks. They brought experience with architectural
development for both government and
private industry. Add to that the diverse backgrounds
of the RCAP students from all across
Raytheon and we had the perfect environment
for learning from each other.”
Since then, Mark has been involved in the
development of training materials for a new
offering in Raytheon’s training pipeline for
architects: the Architecting Methods course. By
his own admission, he’s learned as much teaching
that course as he did as a student in RCAP.
Mark believes there’s much left to discover
about the process of architecting. “We haven’t
really figured out the right relationships among
architecting, systems engineering and top-level
design,” said Mark. “They aren’t distinctly separate,
nor are they the same thing. We’ve been
doing all three for centuries, but not necessarily
calling them by today’s popular names.
Some people see design and architecting as
subsets of systems engineering; others argue
vehemently that systems engineers shouldn’t be
‘doing design.’ Some see a role for creativity
and artistry in all three; others see only engineering
and numbers instead. Once we figure
this out, our project teams’ efficiencies will
improve and we’ll be even more confident in
the level of Mission Assurance architected into
our systems.”
RAYTHEON TECHNOLOGY TODAY 2007 ISSUE 3 21