SAMUEL E. RIFFLE

856 Hope ST#3       (401) 861-5219       (401) 323-2091  cell
Providence, RI  02906-3743

sRiffle@cox.net               

STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGY  ANALYSIS/PLANNING
MARKET RESEARCH...STRATEGIES...R&D LIAISON

A strategist who conceptualizes alternative responses to enterprise wide problems and opportunities, providing business leaders with a range of appropriate actions.   A visionary, utilizing a big picture approach to recognizing, leveraging or developing internal capabilities and external relationships to pro-actively address the changing external business environment.   A proven, innovative, technically competent, systems-level situation analyst able to quickly identify, prioritize and be specific about evolving technology impacts on business operations and opportunity development.   A capable liaison/ leader of creative individuals, able to delegate and negotiate co-operation within and among business and technical hierarchies, while focusing on systems level conceptual analysis.

 

SELECTED ACCOMPLISHMENTS

PROBLEM DEFINITION...ANALYSIS...ASSESSMENT

Analyzed total information flow among advanced prototyping, R&D, manufacturing, sales and marketing for manufacturing company. Advised how improved software, systems engineering, communication environments and practices would result in production/maintenance cost reduction, increased quality and more efficient use of staff.

Provided comparative analysis on methodologies and tool-sets for real-time systems. Established selection/ integration criteria and assessed impact analysis on engineering operations for five multi-nationals on a NATO project.  Advised real-time software vendors of beta products capabilities relative to market needs. Provided joint venture -alliance strategies to emerging technology companies, one of which grew to be the world leader.

Assessed, architected, defined implementation models, lead teams, designed and contributed to pioneering advanced technology efforts in: communications protocols; distributed network systems software; software and systems engineering environments; smart sensors, instrumentation subsystems, VLSI control computer interfaces; and chemical oceanography automation.  Assessed pioneering object oriented systems technologies for fault tolerant controls. Results lead to major management re-direction of multi-year, multi-million dollar R&D efforts.

Evaluated risk, cost, technology trade-off's, work refinement estimates; assessed sub-contractors and reviewed systems integration plans and requirements consistency checks; identified and resolved missing or ill-defined operational, logistics and fail-safe requirements; provided strategies for negotiations among multiple, multi-national, technical OEMs on several major software/systems projects in excess of 42M$.  Recommendations reduced uncertainty, resulting in on time/on budget.

Researched and monitored microsystems/ nanotechnology advances at both scientific and technology levels with respect to fabrication on mass scale and the integration of convergent multi-disciplinary emergent capabilities as they relate to specific application domains. Determined technical barriers and approaches.  Determined systems engineering and enterprise requirements to maximally leverage potential of these emergent and converging developments.  Developed implicit needs for specific client domain applications.

 

 

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT - TECHNICAL MARKET PLANNING

Researched business potentials, planned scenarios, and advised ventures of technology risks and opportunities in entering or expansion into the following markets:   weather impacted information systems; international transportation logistics; geographical information systems; speech telephony; document assimilation/imaging; disk drive testing; cryptographics; high vacuum systems integrator; environmental analysis labs.  Several start-ups grew to 2M$ sales in two years.

Provided marketing liaison defining new systems capabilities and leading software teams designing distributed instrumentation subsystems, advanced graphics and rapid prototypes for marketing evaluation, resulting in innovative, extensible, new product lines, reducing cost by up to 5X, and opening new market segments.

Assisted, represented and advised client management in strategic  business meetings with cabinet level foreign ministers, chief technical  officers, and negotiations with the US Department of Energy.

Developed regional sales/marketing capabilities, screened senior sales  marketing candidates, and advised on business strategic direction.  Defined information tools, uses and strategy for field sales automation.

Evaluated market and technology barriers associated with microsystems and nanotechnology.  Determined direction and scope for advanced R&D and basic capabilities planning.  Identified markets and value chain impact implications and strategies.  Researched what could be done, with precedents and what likely advances would and could be and where and when they would occur.  Suggested academic/ industry/ government/ industry interaction strategy for each of those domains of activity.  Presented impact analysis of basic paradigm shifts within those domains based on scientific and technical work, and how these would radically alter the way future R&D, academic and government and industrial strategic and operational planning would be impacted.  Evaluated opportunities and players over local, regional and international scopes.

 

PROFESSIONAL

MISCELLANEOUS

Invited lecturer        Northeastern University, Topic theme: “Software/Systems Design Considerations for:"

1) ‘Analytical Instrumentation’ and

2) ‘Process Control Systems’ “

 

Invited as Section Chairman, “Automating Design of Control  Software”,  Control Expo’86

Various Memberships:   IEEE-CS, ACS, MRS ...

PUBLICATIONS

“Intelligent Agents: Applications in R&D” (1996), accepted for publication, TeamScience Press, R. Lysakowski, editor.
Detailed the impacts which embedded knowledge, convergent technology, miniaturization trends, and advances in science at the manipulated chemical entity level,  would have on how science and technology are done in the future, and the strategic impact on the business enterprise and economy.

 

PROFESSIONAL WORK HISTORY

Strategic Systems Resource Group   Principal
Providence, RI                                                                             1983-

Foxboro Corporation                Senior Research Engineer    Corporate Research & Development
Foxborough, MA                                                                         1981-83

Jarrell-Ash Division               Senior Software Engineer               Fisher Scientific
Waltham, MA                        Instruments                                    1980-81

Digital Equipment Corporation      Software Engineer
Maynard, MA                                 Networks                               1978-80

University of Rhode Island     Computer Research Specialist-5
Graduate School of Oceanography   Chemistry                          1976-78

FORMAL EDUCATION

University of North Carolina   PhD Studies Analytical               1970-74
Chapel Hill,NC                       Chemistry/Instrumentation

California State College          BA Chemistry                              1965-68
California, PA

CONTINUING EDUCATION (sample)

Programming Languages, Artificial Intelligence, Digital Logic/Micro design.

State-of-Art course work and consulting practice experience:

Business development, methodologies, databases, languages, analysis/ design tools, real-time systems, networks, and telecommunications.

EXPERIENCE, RESEARCH AREA INTEREST

LEADERSHIP

I have worked with, lead or inter-operated with scientists, engineers, business leaders, customers and entrepreneurs at all levels.  I have worked on government projects both domestic and foreign, on systems critical to national security or commerce.  I am independent, self motivated, and capable of leading or working among peers.  I am recognized for sharing knowledge and fostering innovative, unorthodox yet productive thinking.  Conceptual analysis and abstraction are key skills used to translate ideas into working systems.

FUNCTIONAL ROLES

·         Interim, project, program leader, individual technology contributor; R&D Marketing liaison (internal, external);

·         Technical needs market research;  Technology impact analyst;

·         Strategic direction analysis, setting and planning; Knowledge based value chain planning.

 

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY AREA INTEREST

Advanced Science &Technology

·         Architectures, design, application of intelligent sensors, actuators, instruments and systems; Advanced analytical multi- sensory VLSI, specification, systems, applications;

·         Scientific, engineering laboratory automation and instrumentation, especially convergent technology integration of sensors  into distributed intelligent adaptable systems.

·         The analytical chemistry and physics of microsystems.  Structural energetics and molecular properties engineering for advanced sensor/ actuator systems.  Analysis of biological sensing concepts toward massively parallel sensing and transduction of logarithmic environmental parameters in hostile environments.  Tools and paradigm shifts which would elevate the level of abstraction available to scientist in design, manipulation and control of experimental phenomena,  in the discovery process, and in the interpretation of results and collaborative processes.  System level design of autonomous sensing networks

Software/Systems Engineering

·         OO Modeling, OOA/OOD/OOP and next generation tools/ environments; Complex systems architectures and engineering: Architecture, operating system and process optimization and communications dialogues especially in sensing applications;

·         CORBA, Java, C++, oodb, dynamic distributed systems architectures, facilities and applications; OpenSource operating environments, RTOS, integrated analog/digital FPGA-like fabrics and advanced SOC.

Knowledge Based Systems

·         Intelligent agent systems, mutable systems, knowledge capture and dynamic systems learning; Distributed Systems;

·         Multi-paradigm tool fusion environments and systems generation via abstract specifications;

·         Ontologies, conceptual modeling/ capture (graphs) and communication, multi-agent aggregates and systems level modeling.  cf., The CYC project,  HPKB, GENOA, HLA, DIS ...;

·         Real-time, agent based JAVA applications and alternatives,  Knowledge based sensor fusion; Research evolution in agents, knowledge representation, real-time systems applications.

APPLICATION AREAS

Automated analytical chemistry applications, virtual laboratory; Design for real-time 3D sensing and high throughput analytical methods and systems;  advanced applications in environment, agronomy, chemistry impacted areas;  Science/ engineering interface.  Strong preference for interdisciplinary projects and multi-technology fusion;  Applications that define the state of art.