Short Biography:  JRTTheriault


Since March 2006, Joe has been retired from his professional career and has been devoting his time to working on his genealogy and Acadian history projects. He is founder and director of the 'Terriot Acadian Family Society', an organization of volunteer family members in North America dedicated to researching the genealogy and history of the Terriot (Theriot, Theriault, etc.) family. In support of the society's work, Joe is creator, publisher and producer of the society's flagship website at WWW.TERRIAU.ORG. Joe is also doing volunteer civic work in his local community and teaching part-time at local universities. His book "Destination: Madawaska", a biography of Charles Thériault, a settler of the Madawaska territory, was published in April 2009 by the Société historique du Madawaska.

Before his retirement, Joe worked for 21 years as a Senior Principal System Engineer with Raytheon's System Engineering Center in Marlborough, Massachusetts. He was assigned to the International Air Traffic Control Systems organization to develop European ATC systems. Since 1994, he served as lead System Engineer on two development programs for new enroute and approach air traffic control centers for the Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS), the German civil aviation authority. The two systems were the P1 Air Traffic Management System which was deployed in 1999, and the VAFORIT (Very Advanced Flight Data Processing Operational) system, which will be deployed in 2010.

From 1981 until 1985, Joe was Software Engineering Manager for Quintron Systems, Inc., a small digital communications firm in California. During that time, Joe lead the development of the software for the company's principal product, the DICES system, a secure digital voice communication system for the US Air Force and for NASA. During that time, he also transitioned the company to automate its management systems with its first computer-based accounting, finance and inventory information system. 

Prior to joining Quintron, Joe served for 22 years first as Airman and electronic technician in the United States Air Force and later, as Regular Officer and Electrical Engineer. His career in aviation and space electronics included assignments with the Strategic Air Command’s B-47 and B-52 bombers, the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile in Wyoming, and later with the Air Force Systems Command at Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts and Vandenberg AFB, California. At Hanscom, he was involved in fine-tuning the performance of large-scale scientific computers throughout the Air Force, and later, managed the development of computer-based communications, surveillance and intelligence systems. His final assignment was at Vandenberg where he was Air Force member of the NASA team at Cape Kennedy which launched STS-1 on 12 April 1981, the first Space Shuttle mission.

He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wyoming at Laramie and Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Resident School of Engineering of the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the US Air Force Officer Training School in Texas.

Joe is married to the former Miss Rosemary Ann Vicino of Wethersfield, Connecticut. They live in Massachusetts and have two daughters and two grandsons. He was born Joseph Ralph T. Theriault and raised in his French native language in the Upper St-John River Valley in northern Maine in the Acadian parish of Ste-Luce, in present-day Upper Frenchville, Maine. There, he was fortunate to have been educated in his native French language by the Sisters of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. 

Joe has life-time teaching credentials with the State of California. He is member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE),  Past President of the Harvard Historical Society, a senior member of the Harvard Board of Assessors and a member of the Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Parish.