Summary: Bronius Cikotas is a senior research scientist and one of the nation’s recognized experts in Electromagnetic Pulse technologies, with broad experience across the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, Inter-Agency, NATO, and Multi-National groups.  He is responsible for the Executive level EMP-hardened communication system in Washington D.C., the EMP hardening design of the Strategic Air Command and was the EMP Division Chief for the Defense Nuclear Agency.  His work includes assessment of EMP national infrastructure vulnerability and EMP attack impact for both high altitude and ground burst EMP, as well as facility hardening, Command and Control system survivability and tactical and strategic weapon system hardening. 

Bronius Cikotas is a strategic advisor to the United States government on global EMP policies and on EMP threat assessment and delivery methods, attack scenarios and risk identification, infrastructure hardening and continuity planning, and has been a key contributor to EMP risk and risk-mitigation briefings to the President and Vice President of the United States, and to multiple U.S. Congressional Commissions and panels.  

Biography: Bronius Cikotas is one of the founders of the national Asymmetrical Threat Analysis Response Center (ATARC), supporting multiple government agencies with threat analysis and response planning to counter asymmetric use of RF weapons such as EMP, along with other asymmetric threats.  He is also a strategic and technical consultant for the White House Military Office’s National Security Council Staff, the President’s Office of Science and Technology Planning and the Interagency National Command Capabilities Working Group.

Bronius Cikotas is one of the key scientists leading and advising efforts for EMP hardening and testing.  He led the design team for the U.S. National Military Command System Architecture.  He created, designed, tested and implemented the Washington area EMP hardened Fiber Communications System (FCS) which provides Executive level EMP hardened communications.  He also prepared the survivable C3 and satellite sections of a DoD C3 Architecture in support of the Nuclear Fail Safe and Risk Reduction Study, a Federal Advisory Committee to Congress chaired by Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick.

Bronius Cikotas assessed foreign RF weapon technology and threats to U.S. satellites for the Defense Information Systems Agency.  He is responsible for the EMP hardening design and implementation of the Strategic Air Command’s Positive Control Launch (PCL) Mission.  He also designed the EMP-hardened Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN). 

As EMP Division Chief for the Defense Nuclear Agency, he prepared briefings for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Vice President of the United States on the national implications of an EMP event over the United States.  In that regard, he also participated in the EMP working group of the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee to the President of the United States, and initiated a program to examine the implications of EMP attacks on U.S. industry.  He collaborated with the National Academy of Sciences to assess all aspects of EMP hardening.

Previously, while working as a research scientist for the USAF Weapons Laboratory, he designed and built the EMP pulse generator for the first EMP test conducted in the United States. Initial tests were conducted on a NORAD 425L mainframe which produced critical data in understanding computer system vulnerability and design options to improve systems hardening. 

His responsibilities in the USAF Weapons Laboratory including design, development and testing of the U.S. Air Force’s missile and ground based system hardening programs, as well as EMP simulators for Air Force systems, including the Minuteman site tests.  While working in this position, he was also responsible for the hardening design, implementation and testing of the DSP military satellite ground data stations, the Strategic Air Command Headquarters, and the Operation Support Center at Ramstein AFB, Germany, as well as testing of EMP hardening for key U.S. strategic defense missile systems. 

Bronius Cikotas has been one of the leading designers and inventors in EMP protection.  This includes design and implementation of the first application of an infrastructure protection solution that focused on personnel entry way tunnel dimensions as a new method to automatically minimize EMP energy entry into hardened facilities known as the “wave guide beyond cut off” approach, now widely accepted as an important tool in the comprehensive hardening of facilities.  He also invented the Continuous Shielding Integrity Monitoring System SIMS/HAMS concept to monitor hardness assurance of systems and facilities, and designed the first EMP-hardened fiber-optic phone for the Strategic Air Command.