Mark Sampson is a Systems Engineering Evangelist with over 30 years of experience implementing Systems Engineering/Model-Based Systems Engineering and requirements engineering processes, methods, and tools in a variety of industries and well-known brands around the world—high tech, automotive, defense, aerospace, medical devices, consumer products and others.
Get to know Mark
Q. What inspired you to join the Applied team?
A. Recently retired from Siemens with lots of advice in my buffer on how to implement Siemens solutions.
Q. What are your areas of expertise?
A. MBSE implementation experience in many different industries.
Q. What do you do for Applied?
A. I’m a Systems Engineering Evangelist that preaches MBSE to organizations
Q. What do you love most about what you do?
A. Interacting with the customer and providing excellent customer service.
Q. Tell us about yourself – what’s your background and education?
A. I have a B.S. in Computer Engineering (BYU), an M.S. in Systems Engineering (USC), 30+ years of experience in developing and implementing MBSE tools/solutions in a variety of industries and well-known brands. My career included 14 years in high-tech electronics, aerospace, successful boot-strap startup, as well as developing/teaching graduate-level systems engineering at SMU.
Q. How did you get started in your field? What excited you about it?
A. Right out of college my beautiful designs and development plans got messed up by other parts of the organization outside of design (purchasing, support, mfg,…) which lead me to start thinking “systems” and pursue a graduate degree in the topic. This gave me the foundation to think about how to automate Systems Engineering (how to make it Model-Based) and we developed one of the early computer-aided systems engineering tools—SLATE (System Level Automation Tool for Engineers). Since then it’s been all about integrating those Systems Engineering concepts with the product lifecycle so a systems perspective is always with us enabling continuous system integration.
Q. Where are you located?
A. Southern Utah, outside Zion National Park
Q. Where would we find you when you’re not at work?
A. Systems problems are all around us, including here. I’m chair of the local planning commission which is dealing with a population boom, I’m restoring a ‘66 Chevy Truck always looking for parts, helping small startups get going, 4WD and Trail hiking, and more.
Tell us 3 fun facts about you.
- I was born on my front lawn in Las Vegas
- I was nationally ranked chess player in high school
- I play piano.