Gerardo Meléndez

Who is Gerardo Meléndez?

Gerardo J. Meléndez is a San Juan, Puerto Rico-born scientist who serves as Director of the Armaments Research Development Engineering Center headquartered in New Jersey, supervising the work of over 3,600 Army scientists and engineers, and one of the highest-level Puerto Ricans in the Department of Defense's Senior Executive Service since April, 2010. He has recently been appointed Director of the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center of the United States Army, located at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, which in military rank equivalent would place him at the 2-star General Officer level.

During his civilian career with the Army, which began in 1983 as an electronics engineer for the U.S. Army Communications and Electronics Command in New Jersey, Meléndez has been a strong advocate of incorporating commercial technological advances in military applications, including equipment based on consumer products generated by companies such as Apple Inc. and Microsoft. He has also served as chief of the Automatic Target Recognition Team for Product Manager Tactical Endurance Synthetic Aperture Radar, as well as chief of the Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate’s Battle Space Identification Branch. He has also travelled to India and other countries to establish technical relationships with his counterparts in the military branches of U.S. allies, as well as accepted recognitions on behalf of his workforce.