Corporate Bio - Cris Kobryn

Cris Kobryn is the CEO and Founder of PivotPoint Technology Corporation, a software and systems engineering services company that focuses on Model-Based Solutions™ for tough business and technical problems. Cris is a technologist, system architect, and entrepreneur who specializes in advanced software and systems development using Model-Based Engineering and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. He has global experience leading high-performance software development teams, and has architected custom applications and commercial products. Before founding PivotPoint, Cris held senior technical positions at Telelogic, EDS, MCI Systemhouse, Inference, Harlequin, and SAIC.

Cris is an internationally recognized expert in visual modeling languages (UML, SysML), architecture frameworks (DoDAF/UPDM), and Model-Based Engineering technologies. He chaired large international teams of vendors and users to specify the Unified Modeling Language (UML) 1.x and 2.0 standards for software engineering, and the Systems Modeling Language (SysML) 1.0 standard for systems engineering. In recognition of Cris's contributions to the UML the Object Management Group (OMG) presented him with its Distinguished Service Award in 2000, and in acknowledgement of his contributions to the SysML the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) presented him with its Outstanding Service Award in 2006. In 2007 Cris accepted the SD Times 100/Modeling category award on behalf of the SysML Partners open source specification project that he chaired.

Shortly after he launched his professional software engineering career in the early 1980s, Cris developed expertise in AI programming languages (Prolog, Lisp, CLOS), and their applications (knowledge-based expert systems, natural language processing). He has successfully implemented AI technologies in both commercial and defense applications. Cris's accomplishments with AI technologies include leading the applications group at Harlequin Limited that developed the Watson™ investigative analysis application, which was eventually acquired by Xanalys Limited. Before Cris became a software engineer he served as a commissioned officer in both the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army, and was infantry, armor, airborne and Special Forces qualified.

Cris received a BA degree from Colgate University, and a BSCS degree from San Diego State University. His multi-disciplinary graduate studies at SDSU and UCLA explored the synergies among linguistics, computer science and artificial intelligence.

Cris is a frequent invited speaker at industry conferences and workshops that are concerned with Model-Based Engineering, UML and SysML. He is a former computer science instructor at the University of California, San Diego Extension and is a member of the ACM, IEEE, INCOSE and AAAI.