Executive Vice President | Products and Internal Systems - Craig Strauss
As Cimarron's Executive Vice President of Products and Internal Systems, Mr. Craig Strauss is responsible for the development and distribution of the products produced by Cimarron's product development group. Craig has more than 30 years experience in software design and development. The last 22 years has been in the management of software development efforts. He was the chief system architect for Cimarron's first educational software product, The Campus Planner.
Mr. Strauss led a team of software managers that created Cimarron's software development methodologies and processes. In July of 2003, these processes were assessed at SEI/CMM Level 3 maturity level by an external CBA IPI assessment. These processes are now used on all software development efforts managed directly by Cimarron.
Prior to his current position, Craig was Vice President of Operations. He functioned as the first, second, or third line manager for a variety of Cimarron projects in the Houston, Louisiana and Mississippi areas. These projects run the gamut of Information Technology and Real-time Control center implementations. Craig has overseen such NASA projects as the Mission Control Center Upgrade 2.5 and 2.7, the Multi-Program Control Center Project, Space Station IT hardware, and IV&V projects for Checkout and Launch Control and the Multi-Element Display System onboard the Shuttle. He has managed commercial projects including the Arizona Public Service TP Monitor Project, a software conversion migration from a TI990 platform to an IBM 9370, and the Exploration and Production Data Access System Program Product developed by IBM.
Craig was originally recruited in 1981 to join Cimarron for his technical expertise, but quickly moved into management. His continued technical expertise has enabled him to successfully manage, as well as, assist in difficult design and technical issues. His knowledge of the software development life cycle, software methodologies, scheduling methodologies, project control, and quality metrics, has enabled him to successfully manage numerous projects and maintain customer satisfaction. Prior to joining Cimarron, Craig Strauss was Vice President of SPI, Inc., a data processing contract services firm that he and a friend founded. Craig holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Iowa State University.
