Derek J. Hatley is president emeritus of System Strategies, an international consulting and training firm based in Jenison, Michigan. He previously was a Staff Engineer at Smiths Industries, Avionic Systems Division, where he was responsible for systems and software development techniques. At Smiths, he developed the requirements model, managed its first major application, developed an instructional workshop to be given internally and to customers and suppliers, and presented the technique in technical papers at numerous international professional conferences. Retired for 12 years, he now enjoys a more relaxed life–with his wife of 52 years and his grown sons and their families, which include four grandchildren.
Peter Hruschka, a principal of The Atlantic Systems Guild, is based in Aachen, Germany. He is widely regarded as one of the fathers of CASE, and he helped create one of the first tools to implement the Hatley/Pirbhai real-time method. His mission: introducing better quality and higher productivity in system development as a trainer, consultant, and author. He has written more than a dozen books and numerous papers (mostly in German) on software architecture, requirements engineering, and development methods. Peter loves to travel and is often found with his wife, Monika, in some of the most scenic parts of the world, trying to hit little white balls into holes that are far too small.
Imtiaz A. Pirbhai was a principal of Systems Methods, based in Seattle, Washington. During his tenure at the Boeing Commercial Airplane Co., he was responsible for the development of structured methods standards and procedures. He specialized in real-time and general systems development training, utilizing the methods his team at Boeing introduced and developed. He taught and consulted internationally, introducing the methods described in Strategies for Real-Time System Specification (Dorset House, 1987) throughout the world. At the time of his death in 1992, he had begun work on the manuscript for Process for System Architecture and Requirements Engineering, completed by his coauthors Derek Hatley and Peter Hruschka.