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When I started at Spectrum<\/em><\/em> 25 years ago, a senior editor suggested that I find a \u201crabbi,\u201d by which he meant someone who could mentor me in how EEs approach problems and evaluate potential solutions. <\/p>\n I didn\u2019t find one right away. Then in 2005 we decided to do a special report, focusing on the challenges of enterprise software development. I suggested we invite IEEE Life Senior Member Robert N. Charette<\/a>, a self-described risk ecologist, prolific book author, and leading authority on risk management and software engineering, to explore in our pages the myriad reasons software projects fail. His seminal article \u201cWhy Software Fails<\/a>\u201d is still read in university engineering classes today. <\/p>\n It was, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I had found my rabbi, one who shared my love of writing. We settled into a rhythm that would last more than 20 years, talking on Friday mornings about a range of topics including the growing ubiquity of software in our lives. <\/p>\n So when I became Spectrum<\/em><\/em>\u2019s website editor in 2007, he was the first contributor I tapped to start a regular blog (remember those?). The Risk Factor<\/em><\/em> was born and over the course of more than 10 years and 1,750 posts, Bob chronicled hundreds of software debacles, culminating in \u201cLessons From a Decade of IT Failures<\/a>,\u201d which won a Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Infographics in 2016. Ironically, yet predictably, those infographics were created in a software package that is no longer supported and thus are lost to the bits of time.<\/p>\n Bob, however, was not a one-trick pony. In between his full-time job running his two management consultancies and raising a future biochemist and a future civil engineer, his daughters Maura and Megan, he also wrote many deeply reported and insightful articles. These include last year\u2019s \u201cThe Doctor Will See Your Electronic Health Record Now<\/a>,\u201d the eye-opening 12-part series and e-book The EV Transition Explained<\/em><\/em><\/a>, and my personal favorite \u201cAutomated to Death<\/a>,\u201d about the deadly consequences of the automation paradox as manifested by the cyberphysical systems that pilot planes, trains, and automobiles. <\/p>\n His main goal all along has been to make software visible, as he told me one Friday in July. \u201cSoftware is all around us, but we don\u2019t recognize it at all,\u201d he said. \u201cI really wanted my stories to help people better understand complex software systems. You can\u2019t see software, you can\u2019t touch it, you can\u2019t taste it. You may feel the consequences of software failure, but you never see the reason itself.\u201d<\/p>\n When he told me that he was hanging up his hat as a contributing editor to focus on nature photography and to write a handful of fictional trilogies, including one entitled \u201cThe STEM Murders\u201d featuring an engineer-turned-detective and his<\/em><\/em> rabbi, I asked him which of his Spectrum<\/em><\/em> articles had the biggest impact. <\/p>\n ![\"Older](\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/media-library\/older-white-man-with-a-white-beard-and-glasses.jpg?id=67541843&width=980\")
IEEE Life Senior Member Robert N. Charette is one of IEEE Spectrum\u2019s most prolific authors.<\/small>Robert N. Charette<\/small><\/p>\n![\"Blue](\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/media-library\/blue-heron-with-a-fish-in-its-beak.jpg?id=67541851&width=980\")
\u201cI like the expression on the fish just before it\u2019s going to be swallowed by the heron.\u201d<\/small>Robert N. Charette<\/small><\/p>\n![\"Juvenile](\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/media-library\/juvenile-bald-eagle-over-water-yellow-talons-extended-as-it-prepares-to-snag-a-fish.jpg?id=67541848&width=980\")
\u201cThe young bald eagle I photographed in September 2024 had bands that I could read which identified it as a female born in May 2024, near Lexington Park, St. Mary\u2019s County, Maryland, about 65 miles away from where I live.\u201d<\/small>Robert N. Charette<\/small><\/p>\n![\"Humming](\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/media-library\/humming-bird-feeding-from-a-long-red-flower.jpg?id=67541845&width=980\")
\u201cThe hummingbird I caught with the yellow of a road curb behind it.\u201d<\/small>Robert N. Charette<\/small><\/p>\n