An interesting event took place at Campus Point on Monday when a time capsule that was buried there 25 years ago by SAIC was dug up and the contents revealed. I was unfortunately unable to attend the festivities, but my daughter Mary Ann was there, and she took some photos for the blog.

Some of the items in the capsule included a photo of the Stars & Stripes America’s Cup boat that we helped design and which won the Cup back from Australia in 1987, a computer printout of all SAIC employees at the time, an annual report, a copy of the San Diego Union newspaper article about the Chargers beating Pittsburgh, a VHS videotape on SAIC communications solutions, and a brochure from the engineering firm that was building out Campus Point. I hope that there are plans to preserve these items for the future.

– Bob

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This past week I received an entertaining series of photographs taken at the 1st Annual Memorial Day Massacre Reunion in San Antonio. According to Bruce McKinney, former Deputy Division Manager at SAIC’s San Antonio office, the event marks the day in May 2012 when the San Antonio division was dissolved.

While some of the members of the division stayed on with the company, others went their separate ways. I would like to thank Bruce for inviting me to attend.

Although I was unable to do so, as you will see in the photos below, Bruce made sure that I was there in spirit. I send my best wishes to all who attended, including former Division Manager JJ Romano, former Chief Scientist DJ Bauch, former Global Harvest AVP Ken Champlin, and many others.

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We are working to update our list of SAIC alumni companies, especially those founded by SAIC alumni over the past 10 years. If you know of any of these companies, please post your response on my blog. Thank you.

– Bob

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We are continuing to make progress with both the book on Network Solutions and the second edition of The SAIC Solution. We are currently working on the NSI book interior design with our publisher, and reviewing some new cover ideas for the second edition of The SAIC Solution. From what I understand, The NSI book will be first out of the gate, with The SAIC Solution to follow two or three months later.

By the way, the FED still has a limited number of autographed copies of the first edition of The SAIC Solution. These books are no longer available through the publisher or Amazon.com. If you would like copies, please contact the FED.

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I recently read an interesting article in Bloomberg Businessweek titled “How the U.S. Government Hacks the World.” The article’s author takes an interesting position on China’s ongoing efforts to hack U.S. government agencies and commercial businesses.

He points out that the U.S. does much hacking of its own, amounting to approximately 2 petabytes worth of data each and every hour of the day. Most of this hacking is conducted, according to the article, by the NSA.

The primary thing that makes our hacking different from China’s efforts is that we are prohibited by law from going after commercial businesses. The Chinese, of course, face no such limitation. It will be interesting to see how this all works out over the long run.

– Bob

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I was surprised to read in today’s Washington Post that SAIC has decided to sell off the Tysons headquarters complex. It appears to me that SAIC is being dismantled piece by piece in anticipation of the split into two separate companies.

Depending on the terms of the sale, there will likely be a short-term boost to the bottom line of both SAIC and Leidos which may help ease the transition to two companies, at least in the eyes of shareholders. This boost won’t last. The present dismemberment of SAIC is a great disappointment to me; it is very difficult for me to watch.

– Bob

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I would like to congratulate University of Michigan College of Engineering student Katherine Sebeck on her selection as a 2013-2014 fellow for the J. Robert Beyster Computational Innovation Graduate Fellows Program. During her time as a fellow, it is my understanding that Katherine will pursue computational materials simulations of the dynamic polymerization of the epoxy/graphite interface.

This work could have implications for improvements in the area of fuel efficiency. I hope to have the opportunity to meet Katherine when I return to Michigan this fall for Homecoming.

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I see that J. Craig Venter Institute recently announced a gift that Betty and I made to the organization. The gift will be used to help complete construction of the Institute’s sustainable laboratory and programs in microbial genomics in marine environments.

It’s no secret that I have long been an admirer of Craig and the work that his talented team is doing on a variety of scientific fronts. It is good to see this kind of pure scientific research being done here in San Diego, and I look forward to seeing the results of their work.

– Bob

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I was pleased to meet with Mike Daniels here in La Jolla a few weeks ago. He was here to discuss our progress on the Network Solutions book, which is now in production with our publisher. My understanding is that the book will be available no later than July. I am hoping that the second edition of The SAIC Solution will also be available soon after that, hopefully by September.

The FED has set up a Twitter account for the NSI book. If you are interested in tracking our progress, you’ll find us at @NSIBook.

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Like everyone else this past week, I was shocked by the news of the Boston Marathon bombing, and I send my condolences to those with friends and family who were killed or injured. If it turns out that the perpetrators acted alone and not in direct contact with any foreign groups, then this kind of terrorist attack is extremely difficult to detect in advance and prevent.

Unfortunately, there are many people out there who wish to do our nation and our people harm. We cannot possibly prevent every single incident, though our track record since 9/11 has been a good one.

I saw on the news that two men were arrested today in Canada for plotting a terrorist attack against the Canadian railway. In this case, there was direction and guidance from al-Quida, which made detection possible before the terrorists could act.

– Bob

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