Robert G. (Tad) Elmer
As president and CEO of BBN Technologies, Tad Elmer is responsible for over 500 highly trained engineers and scientists working on cutting-edge R&D projects in internetworking, mobile networking, speech recognition, intelligent distributed systems, sensor systems, and quantum computing.
Under Tad's leadership, BBN has produced consistent growth and profit while fostering BBN's unique culture of innovation. Tad also led the negotiations that resulted in a successful, management-led buyout from Verizon Communications in 2004 and now leads an independent BBN that continues its resolute focus on government R&D while also transitioning leading edge technologies to solutions for a more diverse customer base.
Before being named president, Tad was vice president and assistant general manager of BBN. Earlier in his career at BBN, Tad established the Newport, RI office, specializing in underwater simulation and complex real-time systems. He built an organization of extremely competent scientists and engineers who designed and built the Weapons analysis Facility (WAF), a large real-time multi-processor system for undersea warfare simulation.
Tad graduated cum laude from Carleton College with a bachelor's degree in physics and earned a master's in physics from the University of Washington. He is a member of the Acoustical Society of America, has published in the Journal of the Acoustics Society of America, and has a patent pending for a system and method for automatically optimizing software performance. He has been at BBN for over 29 years.
