Patrick Imperato

About

Former F/A-18 Fighter Pilot turned technical Product Manager at SAIC, leading mission training software product vision, roadmaps, PRDs, and agile transformations across DoD simulator platforms. Built hands-on LLM/RAG and data pipeline projects in personal time, focused on reliable retrieval, observability, and structured workflows in high-stakes, distributed environments.

Experience

• Principal Product Manager, Mission Training Software Platform F-16 Simulator · SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation)2022

  • Owned product vision and roadmap for the F-16 Mission Tactics Trainer, prioritizing networked training, sensors, and capabilities based on customer discovery, scope, budget, and delivery risk • Achieved full simulator-to-aircraft concurrency for first DoD fighter training ANG platform, increasing training fidelity by ~400% • Defined PRDs, technical requirements, backlog prioritization, and acceptance criteria, ensuring engineering delivery aligned with user outcomes, risk, and delivery timelines • Expanded scope and responsibility across new stakeholders and requirements, increasing annual program funding from $7.5M to $32M by delivering high impact capabilities at speed • Transitioned delivery from annual waterfall to agile, reducing lead time by 83% and enabling releases every 2 to 3 weeks • Established delivery cadence of 3 to 5 production features every three weeks, tightening feedback loops and improving adoption metrics by 43% across both customer avatars exceeding yearly growth KPI by over 115%. • Resolved competing priorities between customer avatars by resequencing features and reallocating engineering resources • Scaled training delivery to distributed systems (ARCNet/DMON) by building platform integrations and release processes

• PMO Lead, Training Simulators · SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation)2020 – 2022

  • Directed a $150M portfolio across fighter, joint terminal attack, and helicopter simulator programs spanning ideation, development, delivery, and sustainment • Delivered 26 simulators across 7 sites, coordinating facilities, logistics, and stakeholder acceptance to increase training fidelity • Integrated simulators into a distributed classified network, enabling cross platform training and interoperability • Managed expectations across military stakeholders, vendors, and sites during COVID disruptions, maintaining about 95% on time delivery despite facility and transportation constraints • Reduced duplicated vendor effort by centralizing reusable simulator environments, cutting visual development work by 30% • Reallocated $10.2M in unused funds to extend simulator capability influencing and aligning cross functional leadership

• F/A-18 Fighter Pilot, Systems and Operations Lead · United States Navy2009 – 2020

  • Executed 150+ hours of carrier-based combat and operational missions, operating in high-risk, time-critical environments • Led complex systems and readiness teams, including a 51-person maintenance organization and a 20-person IT/security team • Managed $200M+ in aircraft assets and coordinated operations with international partners and stakeholders • Drove data-informed process improvements and structured reviews to improve readiness, reliability, and team performance

Education

• Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern UniversityMBA, Master of Business Administration (MBA)
• Embry Riddle UniversityBachelor of Science, Professional Aeronautics

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