

John R. Ellis personal background
Member of the Adjunct Faculty Computer Science Program
Florida Institute of Technology
150 West University Boulevard
Melbourne, Florida 32901-6988
e-mail:
john@retisoft.com or
johnrellis@earthlink.net
WWW: http://cs.fit.edu/~ellis
Professional Interests:
Software Engineering:
- Organization Process Definition
- Individual Process Definition
- Object-Oriented Software Development Methodologies
- Embedded Real-Time Systems
- Professional Training
Systems Engineering:
- Requirements Analysis and Specification Techniques
- Requirements Management
- System Functional and Performance Modeling
Classes
Current Semester:
Previously Taught:
Pastimes:

Personal History
Professional Experience
December 1997 - Present
- President, retiSoft, inc.
Presently responsible for operations and engineering activities of a small
enterprise specializing in the development of embedded, real-time computer
systems. Current projects include embedded, networked microcontroller systems
in the telecommunications and health & fitness industries.
April 1995 - March 1999
- Vice President, Senior Member of the Technical Staff,
Exigent International, Inc.
Responsibilities included a number of management and engineering roles, including
Product Manager for Pluto, a new
product for building custom satellite simulators;
Product Manager for OS/COMET®,
a commercial product on which satellite ground stations can be built; and
chairman of the Exigent Corporate Software Engineering Process Group (CSEPG).
Also worked with System Design of the Satellite Control software component of the
IRIDIUM® Personal
Communications System.
February 1978 - March 1995
- Senior Systems Engineer, Harris Corporation,
Electronic Systems Sector,
Government Aerospace Systems Division
Various technical and management positions on a variety of commercial and military
embedded real-time software systems and Internal Research and Development projects.
Notable systems include a DoD sponsored nuclear event detection system, a telephone
multi-service system, networked newspaper editorial composition systems, the
Integrated Multiplex System for the Agusta A-129 Mangusta helicopter, a digital map
display system for the Japanese C-1 Kai transport aircraft, two separate fiber optic
High Speed Data Bus controllers for the Navy A-12, and Systems Engineer for Software
on the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter program. In addition to engineering responsibilities,
served on the Software Engineering Process Group and the Systems Engineering Curriculum
Committee.
March 1975 - May 1978
- Space Shuttle Launch Operations Engineer, 6555th Aerospace Test Group, USAF
Member of the Air Force resident office at the
Kennedy Space Center during development of the
Space Shuttle systems; with responsibility for liaison with NASA for the transfer of
Launch Processing System technology to the Air Force Shuttle facilities at Vandenberg
Air Force Base, CA.
June 1969 - March 1975
- Headquarters Air Force Mathematician/Systems Analyst,
Air Force Technical Applications Center, USAF
Responsible for the development of prototypes for several embedded real-time data
collection and processing systems for the DoD monitoring of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Personally developed the software for all systems; managed the hardware development.
Teaching Experience
June 1995 - February 1999
- Software Technology, Inc. & Exigent International, Inc.
Personally developed courses entitled: "Work Package Leader Training", "Introduction to
C++ Programming and Object-Oriented Design", "Introduction to Software Engineering",
"HTML: Enough to Build Effective Web Documents", "Object-Oriented Programming".
Responsible for managing developer training activities on the
IRIDIUM® program.
for managing the development of the operator training courses on the
IRIDIUM® program.
September 1991 - Present
- Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida
Teaching graduate level courses: Introduction to Software Engineering, Advanced Software
Engineering, Special Topics in Software Engineering, and Software Project Management.
June 1990 - March 1995
- Harris Corporation, Government Systems Sector
Personally developed courses entitled "Object-Oriented Software Development" and
"Real-Time Object-Oriented Structured Analysis". Also presented short tutorials on
various technical topics, especially associated with Ada, Ada run-time systems, Ada
Chapter 13 capabilities, real-time kernels, development methodologies, etc.
- September 1971 - January 1972
- University of Virginia, Extension Center, Ft. Belvoir, VA
Undergraduate course: Introduction to Computers. Also substitute for college algebra
course.
Education
1968 - 1969
- New Mexico State University
, Las Cruces, NM.
Graduated with M.S. in Computer Science.
1963 - 1967
- University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
, Milwaukee, WI.
Graduated with B.S. in Mathematics.
Patents
- October 26, 1998 (filing date)
- Satellite Simulator (Pat. Pending).
- April 24, 1984
- Method of Controlling Message Transmission Sequence in Multi-Station
Communications System (Pat. No. 4445214).
- June 1, 1982
- Multiple Services System Using Telephone Local Loop (Pat. No. 4332980).
Awards and Honors
- April, 1992
- Harris GASD Eagle Award for Excellence in the Area of Continuous
Improvement, for establishing and offering object-oriented training across
several Electronic Systems Sector divisions.
- August, 1991
- Harris GASD Achievement Award for excellent performance in Support
of GASD's Visions and Goals.
- December, 1987
- Harris GASD Engineering Award for Outstanding Individual Contribution
from concept through transition to manufacturing of the A-129 project.
Significant Publications
1994
- Objectifying Real-Time Systems,
SIGS Books, New York.
- October, 1989
- "A Periodic Ada Control Kernel (PACK)," Tri-Ada '89 Proceedings.
- May, 1988
- "Controlling Large Cyclic Avionics Software Systems Written In Ada,"
NAECON '88 Proceedings (Co-author: Steven A. Von Edwins).
- May 1985
- "A New Approach to Ensuring Deterministic Processing in an Integrated Avionics
Software System," NAECON '85 Proceedings.
Professional Society Memberships

Want to get a hold of me?
e-mail: johnrellis@earthlink.net
