 |
Karen Rigopoulos |
Collaboration and Net-Centricity: A Project
Leader's View
Karen Rigopoulos
June 2006
Information sharing in its many forms guides Karen Rigopoulos and
her colleagues on a daily basis. First there's the work itself—supporting
a variety of Department of Defense (DoD) customers as they use information
technology to develop an interoperable joint command, control, communications,
computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR)
architecture and capability.
Then there's the work style—a team effort drawing on staff
from across MITRE. For the past year, Rigopoulos has led one such
effort for the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Networks
and Information Integration)/DoD Chief Information Officer.
A net-centric infrastructure and architecture is imperative to
accurate and timely information sharing. Developing a joint C4ISR
capability is a major goal of the DoD and is made possible by the
underlying support of the Global Information Grid (GIG), which facilitates
access, scalability, and information exchange across a broad base
of global users. MITRE's role in supporting the project is to help
demystify the GIG for the customer by ensuring interoperability
and performance throughout the entire system.
When asked what are the most important challenges specific to the
project, Rigopoulos replies, "Net-centricity and enterprise
integration are very important to our customers. There is an abundance
of guidance on net-centricity and enterprise integration out there
but some of it is conflicting, some of it is redundant, and, in
some cases, the guidance doesn't provide enough meat for a program
to build the GIG. Therefore, the DoD is defining a common enterprise
foundation so everyone will have a shared understanding of how to
provide end-to-end capabilities the joint warfighter needs."
She continues, "We're developing a set of technical guidelines
and principles that we can hand off to an acquisition program so
that they can use them to build their part of the GIG. It's one
of the outcomes of the entire effort.
"This task is highly collaborative," she says. "It's a hybrid team
of people from MITRE, the government, and contractors. The MITRE
contribution is cross-corporate and includes numerous individuals
from across the company."
Focusing on the Whole Enterprise
MITRE's strong history in systems engineering has had a positive
impact on the project. "Because we take many command and control
[C2] systems such as AWACS and JSTARS through the entire acquisition
cycle, we have a complete understanding of what needs to be done,
which enables us to understand the end-to-end engineering of the
systems," says Rigopoulos. "In respect to this project, we're co-located
with our sponsor in Washington, so we work closely with the team
members to share the breadth and depth of our C2 and enterprise
systems engineering knowledge."
Rigopoulos is quick to point out that this project is a good example
of how MITRE has changed in recent years. "When I first started
here, the focus tended to be on one customer, the Electronic Systems
Center, so as a result, you weren't really sure what was happening
outside of that community," she says. "However, during the past
several years, my efforts have been devoted to programs that are
much more focused on enterprise-wide issues.
"This is indicative of how MITRE has changed: from project-specific
to net-centric enterprise efforts. This has allowed me to grow in
my perspective of the corporation, as well as interact with a far
broader population of the company. The flexibility we all have to
make an impact across the corporation is very exciting.
"Overall, I think MITRE is a great place to work," she continues.
"One of the things I like best is the great support system—you
can always go to others for help. I've been lucky that opportunities
have presented themselves to me. My advice is that you need to have
an open mind about everything."
And while Rigopoulos's career keeps her busy and includes a lot
of traveling, she still finds time to pursue her two favorite hobbies:
tennis and jewelry design. "I play tennis and belong to both a singles
and doubles team," she says. "But jewelry making is my real passion."
At one point Rigopoulos seriously contemplated pursuing an artistic
career before deciding to enter an engineering program in college.
"My parents thought it was best that I go into engineering," she
says "so I did. I even went on to complete a master's degree in
it. I still needed a creative outlet so now I channel my artistic
energy into jewelry making. In my free time I make necklaces using
semiprecious stones such as coral, turquoise, and onyx."
—by Kay M. Upham and Cheryl Balian
Related Information
Articles and News
Technical Papers and Presentations
Websites
|
