ROLANDS & ASSOCIATESIntroduction
Founders, Dr. R. Jay and Ms. Ellen F. Roland, named the company "ROLANDS & ASSOCIATES" to illustrate that R&A is an association of professionals dedicated to:
- Delivering professional services,
- Focusing on and understanding client requirements,
- Meeting time constraints,
- Delivering products within cost objectives,
- Creating a safe and rewarding environment for our staff, and
- Being honest and forthright in all our business, professional and employee relationships.
The R&A founders learned their trade through developing simulations to analyze nuclear exchange scenarios during the Cold War as active duty military personnel. Their military careers culminated in their teaching graduate courses in Operations Research, Wargaming, Information Security and Computer Science. Dr. and Mrs Roland's transition into private business was seamless as they brought respect for their country and the ethics they learned in the military. The R&A simulation team had embarked on its professional journey before the term Modeling and Simulation (M&S) was coined. Today R&A supports M&S applications that range from the internationally acclaimed, operational level simulation, the Joint Theater Level Simulation (JTLS®) to high resolution, one-of-a-kind simulations for analysis.
Our business philosophy is to provide the highest quality possible on each and every item that we design and develop. We go the extra mile even if it is not cost effective from a purely business standpoint. As a small, closely held, business we have only to answer to ourselves. We are very conscious of our clients' perception of R&A and enhance that view whenever possible.
Our second business emphasis is to place the employees and business associates in the forefront of our concerns. We treat each as a family member with their associated benefits and responsibilities of maintaining a viable, professional organization. This emphasis has permitted R&A to deliver products and services much faster than larger organizations. R&A has performed successfully and met all requirements on every Government and commercial committment. We take pride in our record of providing contract deliverables on or ahead of schedule and consistently within budget.
Simulation
M&S is how R&A began, and it's at the heart of what we do today. The primary efforts of the Company focus on creating, testing, delivering and supporting mathematical simulations for training, analysis, and research. We devote more engineering time to M&S than to any other product, because we believe that simulations are important and can always be improved. We are constantly working to provide our clients with more relevant results so they can make better-informed decisions. To that end our products are tailored to meet ever growing operational and decision support requirements.
Clients
The "heart" of R&A is comprised of its clients. We strive, as a small business, to meet and exceed their expectations whenever and where ever possible. Given our family oriented, corporate culture, we become family with each client and nurture a relationship that together we can make a difference in meeting their organization's goals. We think this client-corporate relationship is key to our continued success. This relationship translates into the following summary:
| You Define | We Provide |
|---|---|
| Decision environment | Decision support |
| Subjective criteria | Objective relationships |
| General scenario | Detailed laydown |
| Limited budget | Cost effective design/implementation |
Tools
R&A provides up-to-date tools for its engineers while maintaining cognizance that we need to provide current and future clients with the most cost effective product possible while realizing the appropriate quality for the defined tasks. This means that we produce software architectures that are efficient anywhere on the earth and can "piggy back" on current technologies such as the Internet, cloud computing, distributed access and secure networks as needed. Our tools are a mixture of open source freeware, in-house unique software and commercial software, each of which is carefully selected or developed to provide a cost effective, time sensitive solution for the client.
Road Ahead
R&A is a small, woman owned, and Vietnam veteran owned company subject to the competitive nature of much larger companies. We do not employ lobbyists nor actively advertise, yet we continue to prosper in this environment. Our experience is that the quality and service approach to fielding and supporting our work in an ethical, dependable manner is always recognized by astute practitioners. R&A supplies a service to a unique niche and is recognized for its business ethic. Our clients refer other potential clients to us because of this quality of software and services they experience. Whenever a client needs a special piece of software to interface our simulations with their C4ISR, Common Operational Pictures and displays, civil-military applications or just a report in another language they know they can depend on R&A to deliver. The way ahead is lined with the seeds of the way behind. Our products and our services are like your wine; they do get better with time.
Ronald J. Roland, Ph.D.
President