Willard R. Fazar (March 16, 1915 - September 13, 1997) was an American economist, Head of the Program Evaluation Branch at Special Projects Office, U.S. Navy, and author. He is known as one of co-inventors, and key-developers of PERT." Biography Born in 1915, Fazar studied economics at Cornell University, and obtained his Ms in Agriculture in 1936. After graduation Fazar started his career in industry, and in his early career worked at Wall Street, R. H. Macy & Co and US Steel Export Co., and did industrial price research for the Government. In World War II he served in the army, and afterwards joined the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, D. C., where he was appointed chief of the food section. In 1956 Fazar was appointed by US Navy Admiral William Raborn as director of the program evaluation branch of the special projects office of the Navy, and was charged to "overcome the management challenge presented by the Polaris program." Around 1967 Fazar was appointed at the U.S. Bureau of the Budget, where he worked in operations research. Work Development of PERT After his appointment at the Special Projects Office (SPO) as director of the program evaluation branch in 1956, Fazar played a key role in the development of PERT. James Jerome O'Brien (1969) summarized, the events that lead to that development: "[In the fall of 1957 Fazar had noted, that]... it was clear that the various management tools available for management of the Polaris program did not provide certain information essential to effective program evaluation. In particular, they did not furnish the following: Appraisal of the validity of existing plans in terms of meeting program objectives Measurement of progress achieved against program objectives Measurement of potential for meeting program objectives The search for a better management system continued through the fall of 1957. At this time, the Navy was cognizant of the development of CPM at Du Pont. In January, 1958, the SPO initiated a special study to determine whether computers could be used in planning and controlling the Polaris program, and on January 27, 1958, the SPO directed a group to undertake the task of formulating the PERT technique. The goal of the group was to determine whether improved planning and evaluating research and development work methods could be devised to apply to the Polaris program, which involved 250 prime contractors and more than 9000 subcontractors." About