Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon

Staff Page for Stephen Blanchette, Jr.

Contents: Contact Background Publications Education Memberships
Job title

Senior Member of the Technical Staff

Administrative home

Acquisition Support Program

Key responsibilities

Acquisition improvement with an emphasis on Army programs.

Teams

news@sei Editorial Board 

Professional Background

Stephen Blanchette, Jr. is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff with the Acquisition Support Program at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), where he manages a team providing consultation on a range of software engineering topics to the US Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program. He also participates in the Army Strategic Software Improvement Program (ASSIP), sponsored by the Army Acquisition Executive, to improve acquisition practices throughout the Army.

Prior to joining the SEI, Mr. Blanchette was the Deputy Manager of Business Development for Software and Systems Engineering at the Ground Systems Division of United Defense in Santa Clara, California. In this role, he managed the establishment and operation of a satellite office at a customer site. He also developed and executed IR&D programs and reviewed proposals. He joined United Defense in 1996 as the Lead Engineer for Command and Control software on the Bradley A3 program and rose quickly to the position of Bradley Software Technical Lead, responsible for the schedule, cost, and technical performance of a staff of 40 engineers in the development and integration of software for all Bradley programs. Mr. Blanchette received the US Army Achievement Medal for Civilian Service for his work on Bradley.

Before joining United Defense, Mr. Blanchette worked as a senior engineer for Stanford Telecommunications in Sunnyvale, California, where he led a team on an IR&D effort to develop a soldier-transportable terminal for use with the Milstar satellite communication network. He began his career with McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Company in Mesa, Arizona, where he rose to increasing levels of responsibility and leadership while working on diverse engineering, R&D, and proposal programs, culminating in leadership of a small team during development of the System Processor software for the Longbow Apache helicopter.

Mr. Blanchette earned the Master of Arts degree in Diplomacy from Norwich University and the Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He has over 21 years of experience developing and managing development of real-time, embedded systems in support of US Army programs. His expertise encompasses the specialty areas of program management, systems and software engineering, command and control, situational awareness, system diagnostics, satellite telemetry, and process improvement.

Mr. Blanchette is a senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) . He also is a member of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) , the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) , the Armed Forces Communications Electronics Association (AFCEA) , and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) . He is a peer reviewer for IEEE Computer Society publications.

In addition to his professional activities, Mr. Blanchette and his wife, Terri, support a number of local and national philanthropic interests.

Publications (recent or significant)

Education

Professional Memberships and Activities

Contact Information

Electronic mail address: sblanche@sei.cmu.edu

Phone: 412-268-6275

Fax:412-268-5758

Room: 4410