I started working on actual engineering projects in 1976, and did so full time until the end of 2015, building systems for customers in aerospace and defense, but also civil government (at the federal, state, and city level), health‐care, the steel industry, the energy industry, higher education, entertainment, and others. My inventions are widely used in the consumer electronics industry (I sometimes say “used in a billion devices worldwide,” but a rigorous count is beyond my means). I also had the opportunity to build such systems for customers in several countries outside of the United States, to travel extensively in those countries, and even to live overseas for a couple of years on such an assignment. I draw upon those experiences in writing this book.

Over that period of time when I worked on these engineering projects, I benefited from many people, a few of whom I will name herein.

First, I want to recognize the many people who taught me how to be the manager of an engineering project. I will let Peter Karacsony, Dr. Joe Mason, and Jack Distaso represent the large number of people who helped me along this wonderful (but demanding) life path.

Next, my many customers, most of whom truly believed in being effective partners in the difficult enterprise of building complex engineered systems. LTG (ret) William Campbell will represent this group of great people.

My childhood friend Dr. Mitch Allen is an archeologist who spent much of his professional career as an academic editor and publisher. When I conceived the idea of writing this book, Mitch (despite being retired from the publishing business) taught me everything that I needed to know in order to write a book proposal, and actually found me acquisition editors by name to whom I could submit my proposal.

I also wish to thank my collaborators at Wiley, my publisher: Eric Willner and his staff.

I wish to thank my former company, TRW/Northrop Grumman (TRW was acquired by Northrop Grumman in 2002). In addition to offering me an amazing career – with the opportunity truly to save lives, improve the defense of the United States and our allies, aid humanity, and enjoy continuous intellectual stimulation – they kindly allowed me to create a set of teaching and research materials that drew upon data and lessons learned from real projects, and allowed me to release that information about those real engineering project experiences to my students and the public. This book could not exist in this form without my ability to tell those stories.

Two real engineering projects were key learning experiences during my career, and are the source of some of the lessons learned and stories described herein:

• The Forward‐Area Air Defense Command‐Control‐and‐Intelligence System. Peter Karacsony was the manager of this project; I was the chief engineer.
• Force XXI Battle Command Brigade‐and‐Below (also known as the Blue‐Force Tracker, the Appliqué, or the Digitized Battlefield). I was the project manager; Jack Distaso was my direct supervisor during this time. LTC (ret) William Campbell was the senior customer (called in Army nomenclature the program executive officer) for this project, and for many more projects that I had the opportunity to build for the US Army, as well.

I was always blessed with an amazing team of engineers and other professionals when I set out to manage an engineering project; several are named at appropriate places within the stories told in this book. I owe a great deal to those colleagues at TRW and Northrop Grumman, and to those colleagues at various other companies who worked with me as subcontractors on these great projects.

I used an early draft of the book with my undergraduate engineering students at the University of Southern California, and am grateful for the feedback that they provided. Some of them were willing to be recognized by name, and so I would like to acknowledge (in alphabetical order) Terry Lam, Aaron Lew, Seema Snitkovsky, Sara Stevens, Kathleen Sullivan, and Tal Volk.

Lastly (but always first) my wife, Dr. Robyn Friend, who – in addition to everything else – was always the first to read every chapter, and provided useful and thoughtful feedback.