ARA's Board of Directors has announced the promotion of Southeast Division (SED) manager Allen York to Vice President. Allen joined the Division in 1998 as a senior engineer working on software to characterize and simulate attacks on hard, underground targets. In 2000 he was promoted to Group Leader of the Division's Advanced Modeling and Software Systems Group and then in 2003 to Division Manager.

     Allen led SED to 26 percent growth for fiscal year 2004 and 38 percent for fiscal year 2005 (over $18 million in revenue), all while meeting profitability and overhead goals. He was also instrumental in helping grow SED's new Orlando office, which now has more than 20 full-time employees.

     Allen has nearly 20 years of experience in software development and R&D project management. He was Principal Investigator of ARA's successful Integrated Munitions Effects Assessment (IMEA) software program sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). IMEA is DTRA's premier tool for munitions effects assessment and contains over 1.5 million lines of software. Allen was key to implementing 3D solid modeling technology into IMEA and is an expert at modeling above- and below-ground facilities for physics-based calculations. His expertise covers the broad areas of simulating conventional and nuclear weapons effects and subsequent target response.

     Prior to joining ARA, Allen was a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories, where he performed research and testing in the areas of high-performance transportation containers for radioactive materials and nuclear weapon structural design. His education includes a B.S. in mechanical engineering and an M.S. in engineering mechanics from Clemson University, and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of New Mexico. He is also a licensed professional engineer in New Mexico and North Carolina.