Mitre Corporation

MITRE is a US federally-funded research organization who's main activities are applying computer-based automation to large and complex tasks. In the 1970s and 80s they would be referred to as a think tank, but this term is no longer widely used.

MITRE was formed in 1958 as a not-for-profit corporation under the leadership of C.W. Halligan, in order to provide overall direction to the army of company and workers involved in the US Air Force's SAGE project. Most of the early employees transfered in from Lincoln Labs at MIT.

After SAGE wound down in the early 1960s, MITRE won a contract in 1963 to develop a similar sustem for the Federal Aviation Administration, to produce an automated air traffic control system. The result, the National Airspace System, was used into the 1990s.

One of their more recent projects is to provide a modernization plan for the Internal Revenue Service.

Today MITRE operates three major research centers, each based on one of their major projects. The Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD) continues to work on the successors to the NAS, the Center for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I) continues on SAGE-like projects, and the Center for Enterprise Modernization (CEM) is currently dedicated to the IRS.

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