James T. Heires is a 13-year veteran of the software industry; the majority of his time was spent with Rockwell Collins, Inc. His professional experiences include design of electronic flight instrumentation, flight management systems, and consumer electronics. Mr. Heires's work in software process improvement culminated with the achievement of Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model Level 3 in two Rockwell Collins business units. Currently, Mr. Heires is improving the state-of-the-practice in project cost estimating using parametric modeling techniques. Mr. Heires received recognition in 1998 from WHO'S WHO of Information Technology, and writes software product reviews for Application Development Trends magazine. He can be reached via e-mail at jtheires@collins.rockwell.com.