Robert I. Desourdis Jr.

Robert Irving Desourdis

- Principal of Desourdis Collaboration, LLC

- Editor for the NOVA Science Publishers Homeland Security Series

- Chairman of the “Freedom for Italy” Initiative to build a nationwide WWII memorialization system in Italy

- Selected by Marquis Who’s Who in America for 2023

Bob Desourdis was born in Arlington, Virginia, on December 6, 1955. He grew up in Warrenton, Virginia, Perrine, Florida, south of Miami, and Worcester, Massachusetts. He received a BS degree in Mathematics and an MS degree in Electrical Engineering from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an MS degree in Technology and Policy from MIT. He has created or coauthored 14 books and contributed to three others, with each book or book contribution spanning some chronological portion of his career as an editor/coauthor of homeland security books for NOVA Science Publishers, and earlier as a Systems Engineer, Communication Scientist, and ultimately a Solution Architect, Master. His most recent creation - with excellent co-authors - are two volumes on the Covid-19 disaster. He has five new titles in development.

He created the homeland security series of books or book contributions for NOVA Science Publishers (Long Island, NY) to prove that people alone and their collaboration with others determine the success or failure of any homeland security (or any other) human enterprise. For example, the Preface to Part II of our book entitled Human Collaboration in Homeland Security, "A Failure of Men," shows that each one of the 25 planning failures documented in the 1946 Congressional Investigation of the American Pearl Harbor disaster can also be identified in the testimony and paraphrased testimony from the 9-11 Report, the Katrina Report, the Virginia Tech Shootings Report (his oldest daughter was on campus that day in 2007), and the Deepwater Horizon Report. The Preface shows these human failures are endemic to all human planning unless and until the impact of 25 Pearl Harbor failures are specifically sought and minimized or eliminated through planned, vetted and teated operation plans. Volume 1 of the two Covid books adds the two Space Shuttle disasters to these collaboration-failure examples.

The phrase "People, Processes and Tools (i.e., Technology)" has often been used to span all possible causes of success or failure. The human-collaboration thesis in these books points out that "Processes" and "Tools" are just "People" again, though they may "not be around" when the process or tool proves its value, or its inadequacy. Either way, its only the fault of the people involved along the chain of the incident or event, not the copper electrons in the integrated circuits of the equipment involved. "It's (only) the people, not the stuff" that matter, where the processes and tools are just people again, once removed. This fact is continuously evident in reports of success or failure.

He is currently working two follow-on books on the WWII Italian Campaign, one on the WWII Normandy Invasion, one on the Medical Reserve Corps, and one about major improvements to DoD acquisition- all with more knowledgeable lead authors contributing to his NOVA Science Homeland Security Series.