GTRI Veteran Terry Tibbitts Named ELSYS Director

Terry Tibbitts' resume contains only one line under employment history -- "Georgia Tech Research Institute, 1979-present."

As the recently appointed director of GTRI's Electronic Systems Laboratory (ELSYS), he brings to his new job nearly three decades of experience in that laboratory's research, along with an abiding faith in its business approaches.

"ELSYS has seen great leadership at the lab director position in our recent past," said Tibbitts, pointing to former leaders such as Bill Rogers, now retired, and Tom McDermott, currently GTRI's director of operations.

"That kind of leadership has helped us achieve steady growth in the last decade, so that today our three divisions are doing about $25 million in research annually," he said. "So I don't plan to make significant changes to either our business model or management style."

Tibbitts, who became ELSYS director in September, received undergraduate and graduate electrical-engineering degrees from Georgia Tech in the 1970s. During his last quarter in school, he became a co-op student at the Engineering Experiment Station - GTRI's earlier name) -- and, he recalls, "I really liked what I saw."

Since then, Tibbitts has spent more than 28 years conducting and managing research into the use of embedded computers in military avionics, particularly in ELSYS' specialty areas of radar warning receivers and electronic warfare (EW). Today his titles include principal research engineer as well as GTRI Fellow.

ELSYS, the largest lab in GTRI with 140 research-titled professionals and 100 support personnel, has roots that extend deep into GTRI's history, Tibbitts explains. It began life as the Systems Engineering Laboratory (SEL) in Engineering Experiment Station days, and it became ELSYS during a major GTRI reorganization during the late 1980s.

Work on radar warning receivers (RWR) - systems that alert military pilots of hostile enemy moves -- has been a big part of the ELSYS story. SEL's first RWR contract consisted of a small 1980 study to do an upgrade to the ALR 46, a defensive system used on the B-52 aircraft.

"That work ultimately resulted in the fielding of about 5,000 modification kits in 1982," Tibbitts said. "We've grown from that single contract to about $10 million a year specifically in radar warning receivers, and we've spun that into other sidelines that generate another $10 million or so, primarily in EW integration and software support."

Today, many U.S. and allied aircraft are protected by RWRs that contain software and hardware modifications designed by GTRI, including the F-16, A-10, C-130, and MH-53J aircraft.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Tibbitts is involved in aviation in his non-working hours as well. He's the joint owner - along with ELSYS employee Jack Hart - of a single-engine Piper Cherokee airplane. ELSYS' new director is also a licensed airframe and power plant mechanic and is currently building a VANS RV-9A two-seat experimental aircraft that he plans to fly over the Grand Canyon in 2010.

He is married to the former Sheila Weber of Blairsville; the Tibbitts split their time between residences in Dallas, Ga. and Blairsville.

Tibbitts foresees 10 percent growth this year among the three ELSYS divisions - System Evaluation, System Engineering and Human Systems Integration -- as well as ELSYS participation in several GTRI program offices located throughout the country.

The ELSYS business model, Tibbitts said, is based on keeping current customers satisfied, especially traditional DoD customers, and that won't change. Still, the lab is also growing business around the edges in thrust areas that include human systems engineering; research into Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I), and a GTRI initiative to develop a professional master's degree in systems engineering.

The ELSYS policy of gradual expansion is somewhat like "establishing a beachhead and then expanding from that beachhead into the future," Tibbitts said.

And, he adds, "our outlook for that future is very bright."