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Richard Gifford
Vice President of Engineering
Mr. Gifford joined DHPC Technologies as Director of Engineering in March, 2009 and was promoted to Vice President of Engineering in June, 2011. Mr. Gifford is responsible for direct management and technical oversight for all Engineering personnel involved in the wide variety of engineering programs being worked on within the company. He develops and directs procedures and methods to ensure that technical accuracy and quality standards are met and maintained. He provides daily engineering expertise and direction to DHPC's Engineering teams working on a variety of highly technical and complex programs. As a professional technical coordinator, he is responsible for ensuring the projects are executed properly and are technically accurate, while maintaining customer satisfaction.
Prior to joining DHPC Technologies, Mr. Gifford had a lengthy career with the US Army, Intelligence & Information Warfare Directorate (I2WD), where he served part of his career as Chief of the EO/IR Survivability Branch. His time with the Army gave him extensive experience planning and coordinating technical programs with several other projects, Research and Development Directorates, DoD Services, matrix organizations, private industry, and Government laboratories. He has also held positions with Lucent Technologies as a Product Deployment Manager and Product Release Manager for the Fiber Optic and Switching Systems Business Units. Prior to Lucent, Mr, Gifford was a program lead for the Aviation Research and Development Team at Teledyne Brown Engineering. Mr. Gifford has extensive engineering and program management experience in research and development of electronic warfare, advanced communication systems, computer networks, and advanced electronic systems. He has been able to apply his experience in both private industry and Government Engineering and Acquisition to areas of program management, systems engineering, integration, and acquisition for DHPC's DoD customers.
Mr. Gifford holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, with concentrations in electronics and computer systems, from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He is also a member of the Army Aviation Association of America (AAAA), Association of Old Crows (AOC), the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE), and the Association of the United Stated Army (AUSA). He graduated from the Naval Post Graduate School in 2006 with completion of Principle of Acquisition and Program Management. While at I2WD he supported the PM-IRCM as the Contracting Officer Technical Representative for the Common Missile Warning System and the Advanced Threat IR Countermeasure System, which received the David Packard Excellence in Acquisition Award in 2006. Mr. Gifford was awarded the Achievement Medal for Civilian Service by the Department of the Army in December 2008. He was a member of the Army Acquisition Corps and successfully fulfilled the requirement for provisional certification as an Acquisition Professional. He has received commendations from the US Army for civilian service in combat zones during the Bosnian and Kosovo military activities.