Janet Lepanto
Aerospace Engineer, Tactical Systems Program Office
Program Manager, Joint Air-to-Ground Unified Adaptive Replanning Program (JAGUAR)
 Draper’s role in JAGUAR started well before the project launched officially in 2003. Janet Lepanto traces it to several years
earlier when the success of a decision-making and planning tool for more-efficient Air Force strike operations called the
Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) prompted Draper to propose a more-comprehensive system to DARPA.
“JAGUAR is a solid example of how Draper demonstrates thought leadership,” says Lepanto. “We realized that bringing
all the functions of combat operations, including target identification, assessment, and information management, together
in a single planning architecture had significant potential to improve efficiency.” This concept led to a seedling project that
demonstrated the potential benefit of integrated planning of air-based surveillance and strike. After the seedling, Draper was
awarded the system integrator role for DARPA’s JAGUAR Program.
Lepanto attributes Draper’s effectiveness as the system integrator for JAGUAR to our comprehensive understanding of
technical requirements of the individual system components, coupled with our experience: “We’ve worked in this domain
since JFACC, so we have significant expertise in air-to-ground planning, which greatly enhances our ability and credibility.”
Long-term involvement has enhanced Lepanto’s personal experience with the program. “As a program manager, projects
where I get to be involved from the beginning steps of defining a need and proposing a solution are incredibly rewarding.
Many times projects are brought in by someone else and then handed off to a program manager. In this case, I got to be
involved in both the business and technical development,” says Lepanto. As JAGUAR begins to transition to the Air Force
for integration into existing systems, Lepanto feels even greater satisfaction: “It’s gratifying to see even some part of what
you’ve developed transition to real-world operations.” |
