Whiz Kids (Department of Defense)

Whiz Kids was a name given to a group of experts from RAND Corporation with which Robert McNamara surrounded himself in order to turn around the management of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) in the 1960s. The purpose was to shape a modern defense strategy in the Nuclear Age by bringing in economic analysis, operations research, game theory, computing, as well as implementing modern management systems to coordinate the huge dimension of operations of the DoD with methods such as the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS). They were called the Whiz Kids recalling the group at Ford Motor Company that McNamara was part of a decade earlier. The group included (among others):

  • Harold Brown
  • Alain Enthoven
  • Patrick Gross
  • William Kaufmann
  • Jan Lodal
  • Frank Nicolai
  • Merton Joseph Peck
  • Charles O. Rossotti
  • Henry Rowen
  • John H. Rubel
  • Ivan Selin
  • Pierre Sprey
  • Adam Yarmolinsky

Famous quotes containing the word kids:

    When our kids are young, many of us rush out to buy a cute little baby book to record the meaningful events of our young child’s life...But I’ve often thought there should be a second book, one with room to record the moral milestones of our child’s lives. There might be space to record dates she first shared or showed compassion or befriended a new student or thought of sending Grandma a get-well card or told the truth despite its cost.
    Fred G. Gosman (20th century)