Dr. Randy Billard is the President and CEO of Virtual Marine. He is the original founder of the company and has been with the company since it started in 2004. He is a P. Eng, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, with expertise in small vessel motion and waves modeling. He has a Ph.D. in Engineering at Memorial University with a research concentration in measuring human performance in simulation-based training programs.
Randy is responsible for leading Virtual Marine’s team in the continuous development of small craft simulation technologies. He has expertise in oil and gas and military simulator development and project management and is actively involved in ocean engineering and simulation R&D communities. He has experience in managing technical product development from early stage prototypes to commercially ready systems which includes validation and testing of simulators at various technology readiness levels. His work has included human factors studies to assess the effectiveness of simulation-based training programs and the measurement of learning and skill retention in marine training programs. He has published research papers on vessel and wave numerical modeling, human performance modeling, and simulator training transfer. He is currently leading the development of the company’s automated tracking and adaptive learning software.