Biography

Dr. Cistone is an accomplished consultant offering extensive experience contributing to training, research, and consulting engagements with clients in the Aviation and Aerospace industries, including the FAA and NASA. He formed a consulting company named after his father: Sullivan Aviation Services, LLC, where he Serves as a trusted advisor and subject matter expert, providing a combination of flight instruction, training, research, and consulting services to clients in Aviation and Aerospace, and leverages extensive knowledge of UAV systems and technologies to contribute to the development of concepts and architectures for Detect & Avoid, Autonomy, UAS Traffic Management and other innovations in partnership with companies that include InterDigital, Crown Consulting, Inc. and Washington Progress Group. He has also served on the National Academies Airport Cooperative Research Program Panel, assembled to examine the impact of air traffic control efforts on airport operations.
Recently, at Eastern Mennonite University in Lancaster, he established an aviation program that is certified by the FAA and the first cohort of students have completed their initial year of study.
Dr. Cistone has over 40-years experience in aviation and meteorology, that included tenures with Lockheed Martin and supporting the development of NextGen. He began his aviation career in the area of environmental studies having studied for a Ph.D. (all but dissertation) in physics and atmospheric science at Drexel University. Subsequently, he was employed by Lockheed Electronics in Plainfield, New Jersey, beginning as a real-time assembler programmer for air traffic control automation systems (ARTS II prototype) and ending as Chief Engineer for Air Traffic Control programs. Dr. Cistone moved to GE Aerospace in Valley Forge, as the Technical Director for aviation information systems, where he was involved in airport surface and terminal automation systems development activities with the FAA and NASA. In addition, he led the development of an airline dispatch and weather automation system and was the capture and program manager for the NASA Advanced Air Transportation Technologies contract for GE/Martin and Lockheed Martin. After the Lockheed Martin merger, he moved to the Lockheed Martin Air Traffic Management Company in Rockville, MD, where he continued to lead contract studies into the future of air traffic and airline automation systems. In 2004, Dr. Cistone retired from Lockheed Martin to join the NextGen Joint Planning and Development Office through their support contractor, Crown Consulting.
In December 2014 Dr. Cistone was awarded a Ph.D. in Aviation, with a concentration in aviation operations research, from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where his dissertation was entitled: “Analysis of Airport Surface Deviations using the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS)”. Recently, the Aerospace Human Factors Association of the Aerospace Medical Association announced the award of the prestigious Stanley N. Roscoe Award for his Human Factors dissertation.
He is also a certified flight and advanced ground instructor for aircraft and instruments.  Dr. Cistone serves as an FAA Safety Team Representitive and is one of the DronePros for the FAA Safety Team in Harrisburg, pennaylvania.