ISL Corporate Leadership

Joseph Guerci, PhD
President/CEO
Dr. Guerci is an internationally recognized leader in the R&D and transition of next generation sensor and cognitive systems. In addition to authoring over 130 peer reviewed articles (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3CFHqvMAAAAJ&hl=en ), he is the author of several popular books including Space-Time Adaptive Processing for Radar (Artech House, 2003, 2nd Ed. 2014), and Cognitive Radar: The Knowledge-Aided Fully Adaptive Approach, (Artech House, 2010, first book on this topic, 2nd edition in preparation). Dr. Guerci is the recipient of the Warren D. White Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for “Excellence in Radar Adaptive Processing and Waveform Diversity” and is a Fellow of the IEEE for “Contributions to Advanced Radar Theory and its Embodiment in Real-World Systems”. He was the General Chair for the 2015 IEEE International Radar Conference (largest surplus in the history of the conference series) and been selected to serve as the Radar/EW Series Editor for Artech House publishers. Most recently, he is the recipient of the IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal (2020) for “For contributions to advanced, fully adaptive radar systems and real-time knowledge-aided, and cognitive radar processing architectures”.
A graduate of NYU Polytechnic University (now Tanden School of Engineering) with a Ph.D.E.E, Dr. Guerci has held adjunct professorships in engineering and applied mathematics at The City University of New York, NYU Polytechnic University, The Cooper Union for Advancement of Art and Science, and Virginia Tech. Additionally, he has held senior engineer and scientist positions in industry and was Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for SAIC’s $2B+/year Research, Development, Test & Evaluation (RDT&E) Group. He is also currently a member of several industrial, academic, and government advisory boards.

Russell Shearer
Chief Operating Officer
Shearer was a senior presidential appointee at the Department of Energy, where he was the chief Environment, Safety, Health & Quality officer for the nuclear weapons, national laboratory, energy, and R&D complex, guiding corporate policy, compliance, performance assessment, and internal-investigation. Prior to that he was a senior appointee at the Department of the Army serving as the senior-most line manager of the $1.3B (annual) program that destroyed the Nation’s stockpile of chemical weapons, and as a senior manager in approximately $5.8B of Army housing and infrastructure recapitalization. Shearer practiced law with two AmLaw 100 / U.S. NEWS Best Law Firms; was environmental counsel to a nuclear-weapons-production facility; and served as a judicial law clerk to the Delaware Supreme Court and an Article I Federal appellate court.
Shearer is widely published in professional journals with two of his publications cited as annotations to the United States Code; is the co-author or contributor to many technical reports and studies; and has testified before an independent federal regulatory board. He was a member of the Department of Energy’s Operating Experience Council and the President’s Council on Modernizing the National Environmental Policy Act. Shearer’s awards include the Army Staff Badge, several Department of Energy citations, and the Department of Defense Citation for Employer Support of the Guard & Reserve. He is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in American Law, and serves on the board of a New Orleans charitable and civic organization.
Shearer earned his legum magister degree in energy and environmental law from Tulane University School of Law, his juris doctor degree from Widener University School of Law, his bachelor of arts degree from Washington and Lee University. He has a certificate in nuclear-weapons design from Sandia National Laboratory and was a National Security Decision-Making Fellow in asymmetrical warfare at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Jamie Bergin
Senior VP, Manager of Research, Development and Engineering Solutions Division

Jason Williams
Senior VP, Manager of Energy and Space Division

Robin Felice
Vice President, Controller, and CFO
ISL Board of Directors
John E. Don Carlos
Chairman of the Board & Founder
Mr. Carlos earned a B.S.E.E. from Iowa State University and a M.S. (Statistics) from Stanford.

Bob Kipps
Board of Directors
He is currently Managing Director of KippsDeSanto & Co., a leading investment banking boutique focused on mid-tier Aerospace/Defense and Technology firms. Prior to founding KippsDeSanto & Co., Mr. Kipps was a Managing Director in Houlihan Lokey’s Washington, DC office and a leader of Houlihan Lokey’s Aerospace∙Defense∙Government industry investment banking group. Mr. Kipps was also with Peterson Consulting and Tucker Alan where he advised aerospace/defense, engineering, construction and technology companies.
Mr. Kipps was recognized in 2007 as the Dealmaker of the Year – Investment Banker by the Association for Corporate Growth’s National Capital Chapter. He is on the Board of Directors of Information Systems Laboratories, Inc., Easter Seals of the Greater Washington-Baltimore Region, and a member of the Advisory Board for the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia. Mr. Kipps is a frequent speaker on mergers and acquisitions involving aerospace/defense and technology firms and is often quoted in publications including The Washington Post, GovConExec, The Washington Business Journal, USA Today and Washington Technology among others.
Mr. Kipps received his B.S. in Commerce, with distinction, from the University of Virginia. He is registered with FINRA as a General Securities Registered Representative and Principal (Series 7, 63, 24, and 79).

Prof. Lloyd Griffiths
Board of Directors
Prior to joining George Mason, Lloyd was Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He also spent six years at the University of Southern California where he held the title of Associate Dean for Research and Administration in the School of Engineering.
Dr. Griffiths’ undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering was awarded by the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. His M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering were awarded by Stanford University.
Dean Griffiths is a fellow of the IEEE and has been recognized with the IEEE Browder J. Thompson prize paper award.

Gail Taylor-Smith
Board of Directors

Dr. Fred Bernthal
Board of Directors
Prior to URA, Dr. Bernthal served four years as Deputy Director of the National Science Foundation, where he was also for one year Acting Director. From 1988-1990, he was Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, Environment and Science. He led the U.S. delegation to the first meeting of parties to the Montreal Protocol on Stratospheric Ozone, and chaired the 50-nation Response Strategies Working Group of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. From 1983-88 he was a Member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, in 1987 he led a U.S. interagency delegation to the Soviet Union, where he negotiated and signed the first US-USSR nuclear safety protocol.
From 1970-80, Dr. Bernthal was a professor of chemistry and physics at Michigan State University. On being named a Congressional Science Fellow in 1978, he took a two-year leave of absence from MSU to join the staff of U.S. Senator Howard Baker, on whose staff he continued to serve until 1983.
Fred Bernthal received a B.S. degree in chemistry from Valparaiso University in 1964, and a Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry in 1969 from the University of California at Berkeley. He did advanced study at Yale University in 1969-70, and at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, where he was a NATO Senior Scientist Fellow in 1977.
Dr. Bernthal has served since 2006 as a director of Information Systems Laboratories Inc. He also was for 18 years a director of PPL Corporation until, in 2015, he became a director of the newly-formed Talen Energy Corporation. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Member of the Cosmos Club of Washington.

William C. Ostendorff
Board of Directors