New Group Advocates Better Government Via High Tech

By Jennifer Freer, Staff Writer


APRIL 25 ? A newly formed research and development organization sees high technology as the key to making a better government.


"The future of better government lies in putting high technology in the hands of talented people," and the Copernicus Institute, "is about bringing new technology, new techniques and new intellectual capital to the nationís problems," said Jerry Tuttle, one of the group's founders.


The Washington D.C.-based, non-profit group was formed in response to requests the founders received from the departments of Defense and Education to address future government problems in new ways, said Michael Loescher, another Copernicus founder.


They said the specific problems are confidential, but that the group hopes to gather people who have proven performance in solving problems for government, he said. The founders all have a government background.


The institute's first customers: the National Reconnaissance Office and the Education Department.


The founders are Tuttle, Loescher, Charles Thomas, Mark Loescher, John Casti and Paul Tobin. Michael Loescher is chief operating officer. He and Tuttle authored the Navy's Copernicus Architecture of the early 1990s. He and Mark Loescher own the Copernicus Group Inc., a defense public relations firm.


Tuttle is CEO of Forgefinder Inc. and a director at Deloitte Consulting. Casti is a member of the Sante Fe Institute and a founder of the new science of chaos mathematics. Tobin is the former oceanographer of the Navy and now is director of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Professional Development Center.