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Raytheon Certified Architects
The Raytheon Certified Architect Program (RCAP) is the culmination of Raytheon's systems architecting learning curriculum. RCAP focuses on providing our customers with the expertise needed to support their long-term transformational goals. In recognition of their certification, we continue to highlight our Raytheon certified architects.


Doug Dusseau,
Chief Technologist
Raytheon Technical Services Company

Doug Dusseau is a chief technologist at Raytheon Technical Services Company, responsible for developing multiple product-line architectures. He is chief architect for the Mission Support Reference Architecture, as well as an instructor in the Raytheon Systems Engineering Technical Development Program in which he teaches a module on Mission Support.

Throughout his 25 years at Raytheon, Dusseau has played a significant role in the design and architecting of products and systems. Through the Raytheon Certified Architect Program, he has been able to further refine his skills and apply them to the development of large-scale enterprise architectures focused on various Mission Support domains.

The architectures he supports help define the tasks, operational activities, information exchanges, and systems necessary for our customers to accomplish their missions, Dusseau said. "Utilizing the Raytheon Mission Support Reference Architecture as a common framework reduces time, cost and risk when developing mission support solutions," Dusseau noted.

Dusseau enjoys the variety in his work, becoming involved in many projects and supporting multiple domains. "I really have my dream job, since I get to be involved with a lot of different things. Each day, I have to be able to quickly switch gears and perform tasks associated with the many challenges of Mission Support. There's never a dull moment."

According to Dusseau, Mission Support means providing products, systems and capabilities to the customer where and when needed. "Knowing the sacrifices that our end users typically make daily to accomplish their missions make me want to ensure that every product I support will be operationally available when it's needed and that it will perform as designed," he said.

Dusseau believes that Raytheon's Mission Support goals are critically important to the future of the company. "There has already been a decided shift by our Department of Defense customer to transition from the procurement of new systems to funding the enhancement and sustainment of existing systems," he explained. "This has created numerous opportunities for us to prolong the fielded systems life of our products through the successful implementation of Mission Support principles."



Michael Townsend,
Principal Systems Engineer, Chief Technologist for Weather,
Water and Climate
Raytheon Technical Services Company

Principal Systems Engineer Michael Townsend is chief technologist supporting the Customized Engineering and Depot Support (CEDS) Weather, Water, Climate (WWC) business area. A 24-year Raytheon veteran, Townsend is responsible for supporting a number of different WWC programs, and his primary focus is helping to grow the business, assisting Business Development and the Program Office with new pursuits. Townsend works closely with the other CEDS chief technologists, keeping abreast of key capabilities throughout Raytheon to support our customers.

Early in his career, Townsend had the opportunity work side by side with end users, an experience he credits with helping him build a foundation for his entire career. One of his first assignments was to complete the design for one subsystem of an airborne electronic warfare system, taking the system through test, pilot production, initial deployment, and completion of the production run. During that time, he worked with operators and maintainers, seeing firsthand how they used the system, what they liked and disliked, what worked, and what didn't. "Their opinions about system quality and capability were formed based on real-world performance," he said. "I have always tried to understand that user and maintainer perspective, and solicit their input whenever possible to improve the systems I'm involved with."

That experience also formed the core of his Mission Support philosophy. "If possible, you need to talk to the system users — operators, maintainers, everyone you can." According to Townsend, each of these users has different needs, and understanding those needs will help develop a better understanding of how architecture and design trade-offs will affect long-term system performance. "That performance, including reliability and maintainability, will continue future perceptions of Raytheon products, and Raytheon as a company."

With customers continuing to look for ways to do the same, or even more, with less, Townsend believes that those providers who demonstrate the ability to design for the total system life cycle will have an advantage. "Raytheon's ability to effectively provide not just systems, but life-cycle solutions, is critical to our corporate strategy and competitive advantage," he said. "The more effectively we consider the entire life cycle, the better we will perform in our role as a Mission Systems Integrator."