Curriculum Vitale

Richard P. Kendall

About

Dr. Richard Kendall has most recently been a software engineering consultant to the Department of Defense (2007-2022). He has more than 50 years of experience in applications of computational mathematics (especially numerical linear algebra) to engineering problems. After completing his Ph.D. thesis at Rice University in 1972, he joined Esso Production Research Co. (now Exxon Mobil) as a Senior Research Mathematician. There he was directly involved in the development of physics-based reservoir simulators, the early virtual prototypes of petroleum reservoirs. During the early 1980s, he joined a startup ISV, J.S. Nolen & Assoc., to develop high-performance software modeling tools for the international oil market, specifically smaller oil companies and state-owned companies that in the 80’s lacked the expertise of oil industry leaders such as ExxonMobil. This startup was eventually sold to Western Geophysical (now Schlumberger), where Dr. Kendall became the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Western Atlas Software Division. In the mid-1990s, he joined Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) as a team leader for Oil & Gas Programs. In 1996, he was appointed Director of the Computational Testbed for Industry at LANL. The Computational Testbed for Industry was a DOE User Facility chartered to provide U.S. companies such as Procter & Gamble access to state-of-the art supercomputers of the 1990s (for example, the Thinking Machines CM-5). Later at Los Alamos, he was appointed Chief Information Officer of the entire Laboratory. In 2007, he retired from the University of California (then operator of Los Alamos) and followed Dr. Douglass Post to the DoD HPCMP CREATE(tm) program. Richard is a member of IEEE and SPE/AIME and has published in the fields of numerical analysis, petroleum engineering, information technology, and software engineering.

Career Highlights

• Software Engineering Consultant to the DoD CREATE Program, 2007-2022
• Deputy Cyber Security Program Manager, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2003-2007 (in retirement from Univ. of California)
• Chief Information Officer (CIO), Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1999-2003
• Center Leader of Supercomputer Testbed for Industry, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1995-1999
• Associate Director, Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute, Univ. of Houston, 1993-1994
• Sr. V-P and Chief Operating Officer, Western Atlas Software, 1990-1992
• External Advisor, Brown School of Engineering, Rice Univ., 1982-1990
• Research Mathematician to Sr. Research Associate, Exxon Production Research, 1972-1982
• Adjunct Professor, Rice University and Wake Forest University
• Visiting Scientist, SEI/CMU
• Member IEEE, SPE
• Professional Publications in Numerical Analysis, Petroleum Engineering, and Software Engineering literature

Experience

Federal Government [February 1995-2022]

DoD Consultant, HPCMO, Lorton, VA, CREATE Program Office, August 2007- September 2022
Principal Software Engineering consultant to the CREATE Project

Richard (bottom center) at the first CREATE All Hands meeting in Dayton, OH (2009)

Richard (center) being honored at the 2023 CREATE Developers Workshop

Visiting Scientist, CMU-SEI, Pittsburgh, Director’s Office, April 2006-October 2009
Team Leader for Software Engineering in the Computational Sciences

Deputy Cyber Security Program Manager, Los Alamos Nat’l Lab, CCN-Division, July 2003-September 2007
Supported cyber security program planning, including scope, schedule and budget for the technical cyber security component of the Annual Operating Plan

Case Study Team, DARPA High Productivity Computing Systems Program, Los Alamos National Laboratory, CTN-Division, January 2004-December 2006

Supported by a DOE Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (DOE Office of Science) grant, through LANL-CCN Division.
January 2004-October 2006; Conducted case studies of computational science and engineering projects to provide hardware vendor guidance to enhance the productivity of peta-scale high performance computers

Chief Information Officer, Los Alamos National Laboratory
CIO-PO, October 2000-April 2003
Responsible for strategic planning and policy formulation for the Laboratory’s business information management (ERP) and electronic information security programs. Line manager for computer security compliance program

Program Manager, Technical Cyber Security, Los Alamos National Laboratory CIC-DO, April 1999 – September 2000
Directed the technical implementation of LANL cyber security enhancements mandated by the Laboratory, the Department of Energy and Congress

Richard (leftmost) with the Cyber Security Team (2003)

Director, Virtual Laboratory Testbed, Los Alamos Nat’l Laboratory
CIC-DO, August 1996-April 1999
Managed the Laboratory’s largest User Facility which provided access to one-of-a-kind high-performance computing resources available only at the DOE National Laboratories. Improved the business and financial management of this DOE User Facility

Richard (second from left) at LANL Viz Lab (with New Mexico Senator Udall, 3rd from left)

Richard (leftmost) in Sarov in 1998 (Tsar Bomba in the background) next to Yuri Trutnev, one of its “fathers.” This trip was in support of the non-proliferation mission of LANL after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Team Leader, Los Alamos Nat’l Laboratory, EES-5, Earth & Environmental Sciences Division
Oil & Gas Programs, 1995-August 1996
Promoted Laboratory R&D Resources to perspective Oil & Gas Industry Partners. Developed technical infrastructure to support Oil & Gas activities in computational physics within EES-5

Oil & Gas Industry (September 1972-December 1995)

Associate Director, University of Houston , Houston, TX, Jan 1993- Dec 1994
Developed the technical program for the Institute’s involvement in the Department of Energy’s Advanced Computing Initiative for Independent Oil and Gas Producers. Represented the business interests of the University of Houston at the Petro-technical Open Software Corporation’s business forum

Richard on an Offshore Platform near Santa Barbara, CA in 1994 (while Associate Director, Univ. of Houston)

Sr. Vice-President, COO, Western Atlas Software (now Landmark/ Haliburton)
Houston, TX, 1990-1992
Served as Chief Operating Officer of a then new division of Western Atlas International [1987-1998]. Responsible for building the technical (R&D and product development including standards enforcement), marketing, and sales teams required for Western Atlas’ entry into the petro-technical software market

Richard representing Western Atlas Software at a contract signing in Beijing in 1992

Vice-President, Integrated Technologies, (became Western Atlas Software, a Division of Western Atlas International in 1990), Houston, TX, 1988-1990
Served as Product Line manager for the reservoir engineering software unit of INTECH’s operation

Executive Vice-President, J.S. Nolen & Assoc., Inc. (Acquired by Western Atlas International in 1983 and merged into Integrated Technologies Division of WAI during 1988)
Houston, TX, February 1988-September 1988
Served as Chief Operating Officer of J.S. Nolen reservoir simulation software company during period when this company was being assimilated by Western Atlas

Richard in the Boardroom at J.S. Nolen & Associates with Industry titan Donald Peaceman

Vice-President, J.S. Nolen & Assoc., Inc. Houston, TX, April 1982-January 1988
Responsible for product development, customer support, and technical support for the third-generation VIP® family of reservoir simulators. Developed the miscible simulation component of this family

Sr. Research Associate, Exxon Production Research Co. (now Exxon/Mobil), Houston, TX , March 1982
Responsible for Long Range Research Division’s reservoir engineering activities

Research Associate, Exxon Production Research Co., Houston, TX, 1980-1982
Served as first project leader for the MARS reservoir simulator development project.

Sr. Research Specialist, Esso Production Research Co., Houston, TX
1978-1980
Supported Esso Europe’s use of reservoir simulation for projects like the Brent reservoir development study

Research Specialist, Exxon Production Research Co., Houston, TX, 1975-1978
Deputy project leader of the Abqaiq (Saudi Arabia) reservoir management team

Sr. Research Mathematician, Esso Production Research Co. Houston, TX, 1972-1975
Conducted research designed to enhance the stability of GPSIM, the second-generation Esso general purpose reservoir simulator

Academic

Instructor
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 1969-1972

Lecturer in Mathematical Sciences
Rice University, Houston, TX, 1975

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Mathematical Sciences
Rice University, Houston, TX, 1980-1982

Adjunct Professor of Mathematical and Computational Sciences
Rice University, Houston, 1982-2000

Visiting Scientist
SEI/CMU, Pittsburgh, 2005-2008

Adjunct Visiting Professor
Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, 2013-2014

Education

Richard’s Teachers, Classmates
and Friends from Rice University (2005)

Ph.D. 1973 Mathematics, Rice University, Houston, Texas
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Henry H. Rachford, Jr.
Thesis Topic: “Asymptotic Rounding Error Analysis of Some Iterative Procedures for the Solution of Finite Difference Analogues for Self-Adjoint Dirichlet Problems”

Henry H. Rachford, Jr. lecturing at Rice in 1967 (photo taken by Todd Dupont)

M.A. 1970 Mathematics, Rice University, Houston, Texas
No Thesis

M.A. 1964 Mathematics, University of Texas, Austin, Texas
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Roger Osborn
Thesis Topic: “A Consideration of the Euler ø-Function”

B.A. 1963 Mathematics, University of Texas, Austin, Texas
(Honors)