Biography
Donald J. Reifer is one of the leading figures in the field of systems/software engineering and management with over 40 years of progressive experience. He has built businesses, steered troubled projects and served in executive postions in industry and government. His specializes in the area of metrics and measurement. From 1993 to 1995, Mr. Reifer managed the DoD Software Initiatives Office under an Intergovernmental Personnel Act assignment with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). As part of this Senior Executive Service (SES) assignment, he also served as the Director of the DoD Software Reuse Initiative and Chief of the Ada Joint Program Office and worked in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ASD/C3I).
Previously, while with TRW, Mr. Reifer served as Deputy Program Manager for their Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) efforts. While with the Aerospace Corporation, Mr. Reifer managed all of the software efforts related to the Space Transportation System (Space Shuttle). Mr. Reifer started his software career at Hughes Aircraft Company as a software engineer on the Phoenix missile project.
Currently, as President of RCI, Mr. Reifer supports executives in many Fortune 500 firms who are developing investment strategies aimed at improving their systems and software engineering capabilities and capacity. Mr. Reifer also serves as the Principal Investigator on our information warfare and software protection SBIR efforts. In addition, he serves as a Visiting Associate at the Center for Systems and Software Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). He leads several of the Center's COCOMO-II efforts and mentors graduate students and Affiliates in the proper use of this popular cost model.
Mr. Reifer was awarded the Secretary of Defense's Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 1995 for the innovations he brought to the DoD during his assignment. Some of his many other honors include the include the AIAA Software Engineering Award, Hughes Aircraft Company Fellowship, the Frieman Award for advancing the field of parametrics (cost estimation), the NASA Exceptional Service Medal and membership in Who's Who in the West. In 2002, Mr. Reifer was presented the AIAA Software Engineering award for accomplishments in the field. Reifer is a senior member of the ACM and IEEE and a member of INCOSE and ISPA.