Director of the Empower Innovation team, BAE Systems
John is the Director of the Empower Innovation team within the Electronic Systems sector. His team of professional technology scouts focuses on creating, supporting, and transitioning technology-based disruptive adjacent market opportunities into the ES product lines. Inspiration for their new market opportunities primarily comes from the ideas, creativity, and concepts of ES’ workforce, as well as monitoring technology trends in academia, private-equity start-ups, technology incubators, defense competitors (largely in the DARPA and service lab ecosystems), ES’ Technology Solutions LOB, and various innovation forums. This year the team is making significant investments in Augmented & Virtual Reality (for 3D factory layout, 3D guided assembly instructions, preliminary/critical design reviews, and virtual trade show displays), Digital Combat Optics, Additive Manufacturing (special antennas, low-cost optical scan mirrors), and Laser-based Sensing applications among others. Prior to his current role, John held several positions within ES including Director of ISR’s Target
Development Lab, Director Strategic Development of Technology Solutions, and Director of Advanced ISR Applications. He joined BAE Systems in 2003 as a systems engineer on the Compass Call program. Prior to joining BAE Systems, John held various systems engineering positions at the Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC), and was a senior intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency. John holds a BS Industrial Engineering from Northeastern University, and an MS Systems Engineering from the George Washington University.