John Stevens ’96

John Stevens became CTO and cofounder with Bryan Cole of Cole Engineering Services, Inc. in 2004. Starting with just the two of them, CESI is now a company of more than 360 employees that develops unique simulation-based systems for simple and complex military missions. CECI was recently acquired by the McLean, Virginia–based defense contractor By Light Professional IT Services LLC.

In 1977, John attended then Florida Technological University as an Engineering Math and Computer Systems major. There was no computer science degree program in those days. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science with specialization in Parallel Computing from UCF in 1996 having spent virtually all of the years in between as a software engineer in both the Automated Test and Computer Storage industries in central Florida.

Staying in the central Florida area, John has been able to witness the exponential growth of UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, as well as reap the benefits of hiring those students.

John served as the systems architect on the Virtual Simulation Architecture; and the Live, Virtual, Constructive Integrating Architecture programs for the United States Army—pioneering programs that continue as the core of Army collective training today.
He has been a member of the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization since 1999 and has served two terms on the Standards Activity Committee overseeing both SISO and IEEE simulation standards development.