Dr. Gerardo J. Melendez was appointed into the Senior Executive Service in February 2005.  Since June 2010, Dr. Melendez is serving as the Director for Armaments Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC).  He is responsible for management of over 3,600 people, for direction of Armaments programs and for effective functioning of the Center.  He is accountable for the progressive research of technology, the development of future systems concepts, the effective engineering development, and the phase-in to production of materiel which is reliable, maintainable, and producible at a cost commensurate with performance.  Dr. Melendez assures that systems evaluation and armaments concepts are effectively provided at all phases of the research, development, engineering and production processes.  

Dr. Melendez previously served as the Director of the Command and Control Directorate within the Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC).  He was responsible for the research and development of technology, capabilities and systems in the areas of advanced battle command, portable and mobile power, environmental control, and navigation for the US Army.  He was also responsible for the quick-reaction integration of C4ISR systems into prototype military platforms.

Dr. Melendez also served as the Deputy Project Manager for the Future Combat System Network Systems' Integration.  He joined the then nascent Project Management Office in July 2002, where he grew a group of 5 employees into a 140-person organization responsible for the development, integration and fielding of the communications, computers, command, control, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and middleware capabilities for the Army future forces.

In 1983 Dr. Melendez joined the US Army Communications and Electronics Command as an electronics engineer to conduct research in the area of digital signal processing for target identification and data fusion.  Because of his contributions in those fields he received several awards, including the RDEC’s Director Award for Technical Excellence in 1989.  Dr. Melendez was awarded a DA Fellowship in 1987, which allowed him to initiate doctoral studies in electrical engineering at Drexel University.  In 1994 Dr. Melendez became the Chief of the Automatic Target Recognition Team for Product Manager Tactical Endurance Synthetic Aperture Radar (TESAR) with responsibility for the development of target recognition algorithms for synthetic aperture radar.  In 1996 he joined the US Army Project Manager for Combat Identification to lead the execution of the Army and OSD flagship research and development programs in combat identification, which included the Joint Combat Identification Advanced Concepts Technology Demonstration.  In 1996 he became the Chief of the Battlespace Identification Branch and assumed responsibility for research and development of all target identification mission areas for the Army.  He was awarded the CECOM Leader of the Year Award in 1998 and the Commander’s Civilian Service Award for his leadership and accomplishments in the Combat ID arena.  In 1999 Dr. Melendez became the Chief Engineer for the Electronic Combat Division with responsibility for the technical and programmatic aspects of the research and development of protection and survivability systems for US Army platforms.  In 2001 he was assigned to build and lead the Combat Identification Special Projects Office at the Directorate level.