MIT Sloan Executive Education
Certificate Holder Profile
Greg H. Parlier
Adjunct Research Staff Member; Senior Systems Analyst
Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA); Science Applications International Corporation
USA
Executive Certificate(s):
Management and Leadership
Strategy and Innovation
Technology, Operations, and Value Chain Management
Greg Parlier is an adjunct research staff member at IDA where he currently serves as an advisor to the governments of the Philippines and Thailand. He is also a senior systems analyst at SAIC where he is developing a Center for Innovation in Logistics Systems, and an independent consultant to both the public and private sectors. Previously, he was a senior research scientist in the Von Braun Research Institute at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), and vice president for a new company specializing in strategic planning, engineering, and analysis.
Greg is a recently retired US Army Colonel. As a career Air Defense Artillery (ADA) officer, he was stationed overseas in the Far East, Europe, and Southwest Asia where units he led and served with performed missions and conducted training in more than 20 foreign countries. His operational assignments included three tours with the 82nd Airborne Division, and he commanded the 5th Battalion, 2nd ADA Regiment in Europe, then the only Army Corps level short-range ADA unit stationed overseas, which he organized, trained, force modernized, relocated, and deployed.
Before he retired, he was the senior most experienced Operations Research/Systems Analyst (ORSA) on active duty in the Army. His five ORSA assignments culminated in key leadership positions including: Chief, Resource Plans and Analysis Division in the Office of the Chief of Staff, Army; Director, Program Analysis and Evaluation for the US Army Recruiting Command; and Deputy Commanding General for Transformation at US Army Aviation and Missile Command.
Earlier in his career he served on the faculty of the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point as an Engineering Management instructor and Assistant Professor of Operations Research. He designed the initial program of instruction for a Systems Engineering major and was later designated one of the first Academy Professors in the newly created Department of Systems Engineering at USMA. Greg's education includes a BS in Engineering from USMA, master's degrees from the Naval Postgraduate School in Operations Research and in National Security Studies from Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service, and a PhD in Systems Engineering from Wesleyan. His military education includes the USMC Command and Staff College and the Army War College. He was also a National Defense Fellow at MIT.
“I first attended MIT as an Army National Defense Fellow in the mid-90s. I was deeply impressed — overwhelmed actually — by the incredible talent and knowledge across so many disciplines there. The faculty's ability to offer multi-disciplinary perspectives and practical applications derived from the incessant stream of research results and innovative ideas generated at one of the world's great universities was truly stunning. Since then, I have frequently returned to take advantage of several of the Executive Education programs. Each one has been personally insightful and professionally valuable. Polished and experienced instructors have always provided creative applications and practical examples of the innovative concepts that in most, if not all, cases they actually pioneered themselves. Both on active duty in the Army and in the corporate sector and ‘think tank’ world since retiring, I have directly applied what MIT has offered — everything from ‘managing technical professionals', to ‘system dynamics modeling’ and ‘supply chain concepts.’ On a personal level, I continue to benefit from long-term ‘advisory’ partnerships that actually started by attending some of these programs. In one case the direct and immediate value was so powerful I attended the same program twice in one year. In this sense the ‘return on investment’ has been off the charts. For this reason, and for periodic rejuvenation, I will continue to return to MIT and encourage professional colleagues and those I have endeavored to mentor to do likewise.”
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