[saic] SAIC's Wil Myrick Wins 2006 BEYA for Career Achievement in Industry

[Daily SAIC News]

25 January 2006 ; SAIC Feature Article
SAIC's Wil Myrick Wins 2006 BEYA for Career Achievement in Industry
http://www.saic.com/cover-archive/saicachieve/myrick.html

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SAIC's Aaron Demory and Gregory Wallace Named Modern-Day Technology
Leaders

There are many researchers working in the field of adaptive signal
processing, however only an elite few are truly advancing the state of the
art. SAIC's Wilbur (Wil) Myrick, Ph.D., is one of the elite.

In honor of Myrick's innovative contributions to engineering as well as
his leadership and mentoring, he has been awarded the 2006 Black Engineer
of the Year Award for Career Achievement in Industry. Since 1986, the
annual Black Engineer of the Year awards have recognized outstanding black
engineers, scientists and technology leaders in the United States.

"My accomplishments reflect the culture and mentoring that the SAIC
Technology Research and Integration Business Unit promotes throughout its
operations," Myrick says. "I am fortunate to have (Business Unit General
Manager) Jurgen Gobien and (Operations Manager) Scott Goldstein as leaders
who foster innovation as well as diversity."

Myrick and other Black Engineer of the Year award winners will be honored
at the Black Engineer of the Year Awards Conference in Baltimore, Md.,
February 16 - 18, 2006. Also to be honored during the conference are SAIC
Systems Engineer Aaron Demory and Systems Engineer/Enroute Facilities Lead
Gregory Wallace, who were named Modern-Day Technology Leaders for 2006 by
US Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine.

Solving the impossible

Myrick, a nationally recognized expert in advanced adaptive signal
processing, is an SAIC senior signal processing analyst recognized by his
colleagues as a brilliant researcher and scientist who solves problems
others thought "impossible" to solve. He gained this reputation when, on
more than one occasion, with limited funds and information, he very
rapidly produced successful solutions for the U.S. defense and
intelligence communities to challenges generally thought to be impossible
to solve.

"Wil is one of our brightest and most innovative young engineers," says
Gobien, "and his highly classified work has made major contributions to
being able to deal with some of the nation's most important security
problems."

Advancing signal processing

Myrick, who received his Ph.D. from The School of Electrical and Computer
Engineering at Purdue University in 2000, performs work that focuses on
advanced algorithm development and evaluation in the areas of
communications and radar systems. He develops signal and image processing
algorithms to support the development of a wide range of applications and
researches new techniques for working with remote sensing data. He
invented a processing architecture used in one of our major defense
programs, and his research led to the invention of a processor for signal
extraction and improvements to an algorithm used for signal processing.

SAIC recognized Myrick's accomplishments in 2003 with a prestigious
incentive award for outstanding new leaders, and in autumn 2005, with an
SAIC Research, Development, Test and Evaluation Group Scientific and
Technical Performance Award for pushing the boundaries of technology
through work that contributes to superior program performance.

Mentoring and leadership

The Career Achievement in Industry award also recognizes Myrick's
leadership and mentoring at work and in the community. He uses his ability
to express technological concepts to prospective customers and business
associates, and he works with junior SAIC engineers to develop and refine
their proposal-writing skills. He also recruits for SAIC at the University
of Maryland and encourages minority students to pursue engineering careers
and advanced degrees. Myrick also finds time to serve his community,
working with a program that distributes school supplies to children and
with a group that aids families in northern Virginia during the holidays.

Exemplifying SAIC's resolve

Myrick's management team members sum up their admiration for his
accomplishments, saying, "Dr. Myrick embodies SAIC's tag line 'From
Science to Solutions.'"