Dr. Joseph A. Lannon  

Dr. Joseph A. Lannon was born on May 22, 1940 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After graduating from St. Joseph’s University with a B.S in Chemistry, he completed his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in 1966. He began his career in Ordnance the same year as a research chemist at Frankford Arsenal, Pennsylvania.

Throughout his 44-year career, Dr. Lannon was prolific in his research. He published over 40 articles in journals (including Journal of Chemical Physics, Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy, Journal of Ballistics, Spectrochemic Acta, Combustion and Flame) and presented more than 100 times at scientific conferences.

Dr. Lannon began his career in small arms armaments working in the laboratory on ignition and combustion of gun propellants. He was quickly recognized by the White House Office of Science and Technology for his work on explosives and munitions detection, and elected to the 1970 edition of the Outstanding Young Men of America for his outstanding work as a research chemist.

In 1977, Dr. Lannon moved to Picatinny Arsenal upon the closure of the Frankford Arsenal. While at Picatinny Arsenal, he served as chairman of the Armament Research and Development Command (ARRADCOM) Wear and Erosion Team, in which he developed the Gun Barrel Wear and Erosion program. Through it, he assessed the role of propellant and rotating band on wear in large caliber gun barrels and developed/tested wear resistant coatings and liners. As well, he was instrumental in doing propulsion work on ammunition; including 105mm and 120mm tank systems.

Until 1981, Dr. Lannon’s work as a research chemist was recognized by promotions up to the GS-14 level in a non-supervisory capacity. In 1982, he transitioned into leadership roles as a Supervisory Chemist in the Gun Propulsion Branch. Dr. Lannon had the opportunity to combine leadership with his extraordinary technical skills. During his tenure he, directed actions necessary to prepare the first insensitive munitions policy for the U.S. Army. This technical policy became the basis for a tri-service policy approval for the Joint Ordnance Commanders Group. In addition, he led the Army effort in 1991 to identify a taggant that would not affect explosive properties, but could be used to tag explosives, in order to detect them with existing sensing devices. This work enabled the U.S. to sign an international agreement to tag specific classes of explosives and prevent terrorists from using them on commercial aircraft.

In March 1991, Dr. Lannon was selected to the Senior Executive Service as Director of the Energetics and Warheads Division (EWD) at the U.S. Army Armament, Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC). In this position, he was responsible for life cycle engineering including research, exploratory/engineering development and product improvement in propellants and propelling charges, explosives, pyrotechnics, pyrotechnic devices, and warheads to advance lethal and survivable weapons systems. He provided leadership and direction for 220 employees and managed roughly $150M worth of facilities and about $100M worth of scientific equipment.

In July 1996, Dr. Lannon was named Director of the Warheads, Energetics and Combat-support Armaments Center (WECAC). His primary mission was developing, managing, and executing programs in propellants and propelling charges, explosives, pyrotechnics, pyrotechnic devices, warheads and their manufacturing techniques, munitions packaging, materials, pollution prevention/abatement, technical and engineering support of production/fielded items, and demil technology. He led a team of 550 employees with over $200M of laboratories and experimental facilities and scientific equipment in excess of $150M. During his tenure, he was the prime mover in establishing the Defense Ordnance Technology Center (DOTC), formerly known as the Warhead and Energetic Technology Center (WETC), whose purpose was to develop goals and objectives in ordnance technology using resources of the partners to help accelerate fielding of advanced energetics, warheads, and fuzes.

In October 2003, Dr. Lannon was appointed as the Senior Technical Executive for the Armament Engineering and Technology Center (AETC). In addition to energetics, packaging and environmental missions, Dr. Lannon now was in charge of formulating, guiding, and managing research, development and engineering efforts in all conventional weapons and munitions systems, fire control, and fuze and precision armaments at ARDEC. He managed and directed over 1,800 employees and was responsible for a budget of over $159M.

In September 2005, Dr. Lannon became the Director for the Armament Research Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) in September 2005. He was responsible for managing over 3,600 people, 64 labs, 800 buildings, and a budget of $1B. Under Dr. Lannon’s guiding principles and his unyielding commitment to provide the warfighter with the most innovative and safe armaments solutions, he built ARDEC into world-class workforce to execute and manage integrated life-cycle engineering processes required for the research, development, production, field support and demilitarization of munitions, weapons, fire control and associated items. These items represent over 90% of the Army's lethality capability. His leadership was recognized in November 2007 when President George W. Bush and Commerce Secretary Gutierrez announced that ARDEC was the first federal recipient of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in the non-profit category for organizational performance excellence.

Dr. Joseph Lannon retired in July 2010.