Who was the American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, who surrounded himself with the group of experts called Whiz Kids?
Whiz Kids (Department of Defense) Whiz Kids was a name given to a group of experts from RAND Corporation with which Robert McNamara surrounded himself in order to turn around the management of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) in the 1960s. The purpose was to shape a modern defense strategy in the Nuclear Age by bringing in economic analysis, operations research, game theory, computing, as well as implementing modern management systems to coordinate the huge dimension of operations of the DoD with methods such as the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS). They were called the Whiz Kids recalling the group at Ford Motor Company that McNamara was part of a decade earlier. The group included (among others):
Brandon Friedman Brandon Friedman is a writer, entrepreneur and former Obama administration official. He is the CEO of The McPherson Square Group. Previously, he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. His memoir, "The War I Always Wanted", was named by the "Military Times" in 2010 as one of "The Best Military Books of the Decade."