MBDA Director Takes Up Business Management Assignment on the Meads Program

Marco Pistoni has been named Business Management Director for MEADS International and the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) program. He joins the program management team in Orlando on assignment from MBDA Italia S.p.A., and will report to the executive management team of President Jim Cravens (Lockheed Martin - U.S.), Executive Vice President Dr. Axel Widera (LFK - Germany) and Technical Director Claudio Ponzi (MBDA Italia).

Before his assignment to MEADS International, Mr. Pistoni was Security and Facilities Director reporting to the Managing Director of MBDA Italia. In this position, he was responsible for industrial security, legal affairs, facilities procurement, maintenance, planning and cost control at MBDA. Previously, he managed the Air-to-Air Missiles Business Unit and international missile programs involving IRIS-T, MEADS, HARM PNU and METEOR. He also worked as program manager for the Aspide missile and Skyguard Weapon System.

Before joining MBDA Italia’s predecessor Selenia in 1990, Mr. Pistoni attained the rank of Commander in the Italian Navy during a 17-year career.

Mr. Pistoni is a graduate of ITI Enrico Fermi with a degree in Industrial Engineering and the University of Rome La Sapienza with a degree in Statistics and Actuarial Sciences. .

He succeeds Stefano Zalonis, who returned to Italy after contributing five years to the success of the MEADS Design and Development program.

MEADS is a mobile air and missile defense system designed to replace Patriot systems in the United States and Germany and Nike Hercules systems in Italy. It also meets the requirements of Germany’s “capabilities oriented” air and missile defense concept.

MEADS will provide capabilities beyond any other fielded or planned air and missile defense system. It will be easily deployed to a theater of operations and once there, will keep pace with fast-moving maneuver forces. When completed, MEADS will be the only air and missile defense system able to roll off tactical transports with the troops and almost immediately begin operations. More importantly, its open architecture will provide for 21st century air and missile defense system-of-system integration capabilities that allow operational mission-tailoring for homeland defense or defense of maneuver forces. MEADS will also provide greater firepower with less manpower than current systems, producing dramatic operation and support cost savings.

In May 2005, MEADS International signed a definitized contract valued at $2 billion plus €1.4 billion for MEADS design and development. A multinational joint venture headquartered in Orlando, FL, MI’s participating companies are MBDA Italia, Lenkflugkörpersysteme (LFK) in Germany and Lockheed Martin in the United States. Together, these companies have focused an international engineering team in Orlando to develop systems and technologies for the MEADS program, which is closely watched as a model for collaborative transatlantic development. The United States funds 58 percent of the MEADS program, and European partners Germany and Italy provide 25 percent and 17 percent respectively.