Summary: Arthur W. Blackburn is a veteran of the defense industry and has founded and managed successful consultancy firms providing engineering support to both industry and government. As the CEO and president of Systems Evaluation, Inc. (SEI), Mr. Blackburn grew the privately held company to over 500 employees with offices in El Segundo, San Diego, Walnut, Westlake Village, California and Arlington, Virginia. SEI’s areas of expertise included a broad spectrum of engineering, systems design/evaluation, software development and project management services for clients such as Northrop Corp., Rockwell International, Teledyne, Honeywell Inc., Litton Guidance and Control Systems and a variety of federal departments and agencies.

As a pioneer in the development of software for Reliability Analyses on the PC, Mr. Blackburn founded Evaluation Software which created the Relplus programs, a suite of reliability prediction, modeling and process improvement applications that gained wide adoption in engineering firms, government departments and universities. Support is also in IT engineering helping firms make the transition to hybrid cloud databases. 

Evaluation Software     

Mr. Blackburn formed Evaluation Software with the primary objective of providing computer software to complete engineering task and meet the growing needs of business to control vital data. Some typical tasks completed were:

Ø  Develop the Relplus reliability engineering programs.  The programs were developed using Visual C, Oracle database, Informix database, Microsoft SQL, and FoxPro.  The interface was developed using SQL or 4GL and using C for calculations.

Ø  Support to include the fields of Design; Design Analysis, Design Assurance, Quality Assurance, CM, Component Engineering, and Integrated Logistic Support, including Life Cycle Cost, Reliability, Maintainability and Safety. Complete standardization efforts including the preparation of Source Control Drawings or the writing of a single component specification. 

Ø IT Support for Company Databases to help provide the transition to hybrid cloud database systems  to reduce costs and increase storage of vital data.  Most systems, worked on, use query tools like Oracle PL/SQL

Systems Evaluation, Inc

(SEI) was formed to provide Design Assurance Engineering support to both the industrial community and governmental agencies. This support grew to include the fields of Design; Design Analysis, Design Assurance, Component Engineering, and Integrated Logistic Support, including Life Cycle Cost, Reliability, Maintainability and Safety. Complete standardization efforts including the preparation of Source Control Drawings or the writing of a single component specification.   SEI grew both in size and reputation with offices in El Segundo CA, San Diego CA, Walnut CA, Westlake Village CA, and Arlington VA.

During critical periods, analytical and design support has been instrumental in contributing to more cost effective, reliable, maintainable equipment without compromising performances. Typical programs participated in are the B1, the F-l4, F-16, F-15, HLH, AAH, Space Shuttle, SAWS, GPS, MK-904 Modem, MK 48 Torpedo, LHA, and the DD-963.  Some of the typical tasks undertaken and completed are as follows: 

Ø  Litton Guidance and Control Systems    Advanced Light weight Torpedo (ALWT): Performed design review during the conceptualization and formulation phase. Participation on this program was in the form of Integrated Logistic Support and the performance of a design review function on detailed signal processing circuits. A study was also made to scope the required filters and conduct an in industry search for potential supplies.   Cruise Missile Radiation:  Reliability analysis for Litton G&C on the guidance and control system for the Cruise Missile.

 Ø  Northrop Corporation   MX Missile Program: Provided component support during the design phase of the inertial navigation system. This effort also included nuclear hardening of both the components and the system. We provided nuclear effects physicist and highly skilled circuit engineers to assist Northrop working on the MX Missile program. They designed tested and then re-tested various elements of the electronics, to observe the effects of nuclear radiation. 

Ø Honeywell Inc.  IWD Mine: Provided design disclosure reviews and trade-off studies for optimization of the detailed design. This included the feasibility of a microprocessor application in the mine for guidance and navigation.

 Ø  Gould Advanced Technology.   Mark 48 Torpedo: provided design analysis for the 600 series of the MK 48 Torpedo. This included a worst-Case Circuit Analysis on both analog and digital circuits of the Torpedo.  Also a reliability prediction and storage Analysis was completed.

Ø  Magnavox Company GPS Phase II User Equipment: Closely involved with the Magnavox Company in the development of power systems for the user equipment. Severe EMI and EMP constraints presented a challenge to the state-of-the-art design. We actively participated in the preparation and presentation of both the preliminary and critical design review material to the combined services user community.  Secure Communication System: Working for Magnavox provided Worst-Case Design Analysis and Reliability analysis of the Secure Communication System.

Ø  Litton Ingalls Shipbuilders    DD963 and LHA Navel Ship Programs: Provided Reliability and Maintainability assistance to Litton during the design and development phase of these programs. The tasks Covered the complete spectrum of support over a two-year period" including the debugging and Maintenance of a complex computer program that calculates and refines the ship's availability. 

Ø Teledyne Systems  Loran Airborne Navigation System (LANS): Provided both reliability and Component support to Teledyne systems during the design and development of this system.

Ø Teledyne Controls  CENTAUR Program: Provided engineering assistance on several occasions when problems arose in the program. Such problems as ground loops, noise suppression and power supply difficulties where identified as well as corrective action.

Ø Bendix Corporation  IWD Mine: Provided design disclosure reviews and trade-off studies for optimization of the detailed design. This included the feasibility of a microprocessor application in the mine for guidance and navigation.

Ø Solar Turbines International   RACER Waste Heat Recovery System: Provided extensive R&M and Logistics Support in development of the RACER waste recovery system. Was also instrumental in actually establishing the preliminary design baseline and recommending selection of major components.

Ø Ford Aerospace Intelsat V Satellite: working for the Ford Aerospace Company, an independent worst-case assessment as made of the attitude control System and the communications satellite. Module designs from France, Germany, and Italy were combined to form an integrated system. Component with incompatibility problems were identified and we recommended some detail circuit changes prior to production release.

Ø Rockwell International   Space Shuttle Program:  Assisted in the evaluation and eventual redesign of a space shuttle subsystem. This subsystem gathered air data information, Low-level analog circuitry, AID converters and a CPU were part of this unit. A pulse-width regulated power supply also formed a part of the system.

Ø  Sargent Industries   Sonar Acoustical Warfare System (SAWS): We provided design guidance while undertaking the R&M support during the design and development of the launching system for the SAWS program.

As an Independent contractor:

 Litton Data Systems Worked on the development and reliability of the fire control systems of the DD963 

Litton G&C  Worked on the testing and failure analysis of Hybrids

American Laboratory  Worked on the Environmental Test for a large number of systems. During this contract, American Laboratory was sold to Ogden Technology Laboratory  

Air Research  Worked on the development and testing of the life supports systems for both the Gemini and Apollo space crafts. 

JPL  Worked in the Environmental Testing of Ranger and Mariner space crafts as well as testing on the ALPS systems.

U.S. Navy  Upon graduation from High School, went on active Duty in the U.S. Navy. This tour of duty started at submarines school in New London,  After completing Submarine school, I served first on the USS Remora (SS487) and then on the USS Tunny (SSG282). The main duty role was as an Electronic Technician. Qualification for Submarines was a good introduction to understanding complex systems.