New Book by U of A Engineering Professor Ricardo Valerdi Teaches Better Decision Making in Business, Sports, and Life

University of Arizona Engineering Professor Ricardo Valerdi is a professional problem solver. He’s one of those people who seems to know a little bit about everything and just about everything on the subjects in his wheelhouse.   

Valerdi can comfortably hold court in a conversation about sports statistics with any super-fan on the planet and, without missing a beat, shift into discussions of military readiness, rocket manufacturing, or the science of teaching in a way that illuminates counterintuitive connections between those topics that seem almost obvious when he explains them. 

It is this casual yet authoritative sensibility that Valerdi injects into his new book, The Five-Tool Team, scheduled for release on September 29, 2026 from Regalo Press.  

The title is essentially a guidebook on how to make better decisions, drawing examples from the worlds of sports, business, science, and decision theory to demonstrate how great leaders make tough choices, even in the face of contradictory information and the potential for counterintuitive outcomes. 

“I strongly believe that decision-making is not a trait you are born with or without,” says Valerdi in the opening chapter of the book. “It is a skill you can master, much like writing, teaching, or shooting a basketball.” 

Renaissance Man 

A lifelong tinkerer, Valerdi says he knew early on that he was destined to follow in his father’s footsteps as an engineer. “I was always fascinated by how things work,” says Valerdi, “I was that kid who would take the TV apart and not be able to put it back together.”  

He studied electrical engineering as an undergrad – a field he refers to as “hardware engineering” since it involves designing and building physical machines like radio transmitters and satellites. He then rounded out his education in grad school as a student of Barry Boehm, the inventor of the “Spiral Model” of software development who is widely regarded as the father of software engineering. 

“I strongly believe that decision-making is not a trait you are born with or without,” says Valerdi in the opening chapter of the book. “It is a skill you can master, much like writing, teaching, or shooting a basketball.” 

Later, Valerdi landed academic positions at MIT and, later, the University of Arizona, where he today serves as head of the Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering. Along the way, Valerdi also somehow found time to consult for major enterprises like SpaceX, Major League Baseball, and the US Army, and to establish and grow the STEM education non-profit Science of Sport, which partners with professional sports teams in the MLB, NFL, NBA and more to introduce elementary and middle school students to science through athletic applications. 

It is through these connections that Valerdi developed relationships with headline names in sports like Super-Bowl-champion coach John Harbaugh and U of A men’s basketball coach Tommy Lloyd, both of whom provided forewords to The Five-Tool Team.  

The diversity and depth of Valerdi’s experience and knowledge make him an ideal candidate to offer an improved pathway for better decision making, and his mastery of language make the book an easy and entertaining read. 

The Five-Tool Team 

Valerdi’s book opens with a story about socks. Before he would let his players touch a basketball, legendary UCLA coach John Wooden would first teach them how to put their socks on properly. 

It may seem trivial, but the point Valerdi makes right off the bat is that decisions, both good and bad, compound. For a basketball player, putting on your socks incorrectly can lead to blisters, which will inevitably impact play and can lead to injuries. The same is true in other fields, Valerdi says. 

The Five-Tool Team, which Valerdi says he conceived of during a research fellowship at the U of A’s Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, offers a five-part playbook for better decision making in any situation. The title itself is a nod to former Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey’s revolutionary player scouting and evaluation system based on the “five tools” a baseball player needed to master to be successful.  

But, says Valerdi, unlike in baseball, leaders can often distribute the burden of making difficult decisions among a team. “I didn't want to give people the impression that they need to be good at all five decision-making tools,” says Valerdi. “That's a lot of pressure. But you can take the pressure off the individual person by forming a team of folks who, together, excel at all five skills.”  

Through the careful weaving of examples and case studies ranging from analyzing baseball statistics to performing heart surgery, from Navy SEALs training to developing a new computer operating system, Valerdi makes the process of improving one’s decision-making skills seem accessible, even intuitive, while his conversational tone and style make the book fun and informative for readers.