Chapter Leadership Blog

Montgomery Chapter Update -- 2011-4 -- 28 Apr 11

We held our first Montgomery AFCEA Chapter training session of 2011 on Tuesday of this week and it was wonderful. We had one of the IT world’s rock stars in town to twice deliver a course on Internet, Past, Present, and Future inside the Air Force. Our rock star was Darrel Beach, a former EE lieutenant at Gunter who was instrumental in the creation, initial designs, source selections, fielding, some of the programming, participating in industry and Air Force conferences where the participants decided on how the initial routing and programming would be done, and then began to incrementally evolve the creation of the Air Force Intranets. Also, during his 10-year tenure at Gunter, he created the first Air Force Intranet Control Center which evolved into the AF Network Operations Center and today’s 26th Network Operations Squadron. I was in awe, hog-heaven, and I’m still relishing my five hours with him. For the IT “geeks” of the Air Force, he is the closest thing we have to a “Colonel John Boyd.”

The sessions addressed the history of the intranets in the Air Force and also where Industry and Defense are going, particularly the drive to get at least 1GBit of IP to the warfighter, in every vehicle. Of course, if we’re to heed Darrel’s lessons, we know by the time they get there, the requirement will be for 100GBit. His most interesting point is the doctrinal challenge the Air Force faces, one most people don’t even think about. Does the Air Force communicate, operate or “effect IT” in the same manner in War and Peace? As Darrel showed us, we clearly do not, that in theater, at the edge, a wide variety of radios vice landlines are the preponderant means of communication, and effecting IP over a wide variety of radios to enable or support a wide variety of missions is vastly different from the way we operate with landlines at home bases, and the former is a much more difficult problem. His point is we’re degrading war time effectiveness by not training and operating in Peace like we do in War. His proposals to fix the problem were equally interesting and cogent.

What impressed me the most about the event is not what he said but who he said it to, a lot of young Air Force military and civilian personnel. Although we had expected a slighter larger crowd, we had over 50 people at each presentation, most of them young Air Force members. What many of these young people realized was that they too can make a huge difference in the fighting prowess of the US Air Force. Today, like 30 years ago when Darrel started as a butterbar, there are daunting IT challenges facing the Air Force that are ripe cherries for the picking by some smart, hard-working, and visionary Air Force member, in or out of uniform. Hopefully, Darrel’s experiences will inspire a few of the attendees to proactively help the Air Force maneuver effectively through this new phase of IT transformation.

Finally, I also want to thank Mr. Ken Heitkamp and Colonel (Retired) Jim Dendis for making this event possible. AFCEA only happens because of a lot of people contributing a little extra every day to help the whole Air Force team.

MITS 2011, 23-25 May 2011: We’re still on track for the event and all the speakers remain firm. The CIO and CMO leadership have some great MITS presentations that are logically consistent set of talks, both within MITS and complementary to plans for AFITC in August. A current Program for MITS is out at the website: http://www.afceamontgomery.org/

Respectfully, Joe Besselman

President, Montgomery AFCEA Chapter

781 879 9216

All -

I started writing this email update while I sat waiting for my flight back to Montgomery from Washington National last week. The trip afforded me the opportunity to see yet again what wonderful people we have as Americans. While I sat the loudspeakers announced that 182 World War II veterans from Tennessee would be deplaning shortly at a particular gate. Where I was sitting I could see the empty jet way, but I could not see the gate. So I figured when the jet arrived I would go back up the concourse and pay my respects like the other dozen or so veterans I figured were in the concourse. So I kept working and occasionally checked the jet way to see if the plane had pulled up. Finally the plane arrived and USAir made one more announcement. As I began putting my stuff away, I noticed almost everyone around me doing exactly the same thing. I looked up to countless people already walking back down the concourse with their bags. By the time I rounded the corner and could see the gate there were 500 or so people standing at the gate with a very thin path for the veterans to deplane. There was still quite a wait, because WW2 vets are not as spry as they used to be. Finally, when they started to deplane in their wheelchairs, with their walkers or canes, or with the help of a family member, the clapping was amazing and continuous. As people left the crowd to catch their planes new passengers would walk down from security and join the crowd in clapping. It was very moving and those veterans enjoyed it more than you can imagine.

Montgomery IT Summit, 23-25 May 2011: Riding the IT Wave: Enabling A More Effective, Secure DoD: The summit is just around the corner. The good news is all of the speakers have confirmed. The greater news is that the kick-off presentation will be a tag-team by Maj Gen Paul Capasso, representing the Chief Information Officer, and Mr. Kent Werner, representing the Chief Management Officer. Together, they will show and articulate a united CIO and CMO message of effective IT transformation across the Air Force. The latest conference agenda is available out at our website: http://www.afceamontgomery.org/

AFCEA Luncheon, 22 April 2011: In the shorter term, we have an AFCEA luncheon this week with Gen Olson, PEO for EIS, as our guest speaker. Sign-up for this event is also on our website: http://www.afceamontgomery.org/

AFCEA Training: History and Future of the Internet, 26 April 2011: Next week, we’re very fortunate to host two 2-hour training sessions being conducted by Daryl Beach of Cisco, a “101” session for novices and a “401” session for more experienced personnel. It is open to both Government and Industry and non-AFCEA members. Please sign-up at the website to assure yourself a seat.

AFCEA Educational Foundation Awards Luncheon, 1 Jun 2010, Wynlakes Country Club: This luncheon will honor all of our 2010 awards recipients. We’re honored this year to have Dr. Legand Burge, Dean of the Tuskegee School of Engineering and Physical Science, as our guest speaker. He is also a retired Air Force Colonel and Electrical Engineer, with a PhD from Oklahoma State.

With Respect,

Joe Besselman

President, AFCEA Montgomery Chapter

OK everyone, I have three quick things to talk about.
 
1. The Registration website for MITS 2011 is finally live with a link off of our Chapter's main site:  http://www.afceamontgomery.org/. We're progressing with assembling a stellar program and a list of speakers to support our theme: "Riding the IT Wave:  Enabling a More Effective, Secure DoD". Notably, we selected our theme and planned speakers in an effort to complement or support the Air Force's and DoD's IT transformational goals, activities, and the Air Force's planned August IT Conference. We will have another update in the next week to detail our speakers and planned panel.  
 
2. We had another great Young AFCEAN event last week at the Hilton Garden Inn, where we had almost 50 attendees.  
 
3. We had about 150 attendees at our February luncheon, where retired AF CIO Mr. John Gilligan was our guest speaker.  He gave us an update on the IT transformation activities going on in Washington and it was extremely well-received by the Montgomery Chapter.
 
If you have any issues, please don't hesitate to contact me, joe.besselman@yahoo.com, or our Vice President, Capt David Payton, david.payton@gunter.af.mil.
 
With respect, Joe Besselman
781 879 9216

All -
 
Before I start in earnest on this edition of my blog, here is your reminder to register for the 23 February 2011 Luncheon Meeting. Our speaker is John Gilligan, former USAF CIO. More details and online signup are available at our Chapter website (http://www.afceamontgomery.org/Events?eventId=270010&EventViewMode=EventDetails). Deadline for registration is COB Tuesday, 15 February.
 
I’m writing because if there is one common theme I’ve heard or discerned in talking to our members and pouring over the findings from AFCEA’s 2010 survey of members, it is that the membership would like to hear more from its chapter. I’m not sure they necessarily want to hear from the leadership, but until I hear otherwise I’m only too happy to oblige. This year you will hear from the chapter leadership periodically, and if you want someone in particular, perhaps one of our stellar performers not necessarily in a leadership position, then let us know and we’ll do our best to comply. How often will we “blog”? We’re not sure. Certainly, if we’re getting positively reinforcing emails [and ignoring negative emails], you’ll hear from us more frequently. There is a lot for us to talk about and there are a lot of opportunities to grow our AFCEA chapter and grow the value we endeavor to provide our Country.
 
To start this month’s rants, we’re extremely pleased and honored to announce that retired Air Force Chief Information Officer (AF CIO), Mr. John Gilligan, will be our first 2011 Quarterly Luncheon Speaker, where he will give us an update on his efforts to help the Federal Government and, more particularly, the Department of Defense to transform their IT acquisition processes. Those of you that have had the luxury of working with Mr. Gilligan, know he cares very much about delivery velocity, heavy emphasis on capability delivery even if it is only an 80 percent solution, and the collection of meaningful metrics to prove one’s program is providing meaningful value to Air Force users. Mr. Gilligan will grace our presence in Montgomery on 23 Feb 11 at our Capital City Club from 1130-1300, with informal social exchanges beginning at 1100.
 
Far be it for me to not toot our chapter’s horn, so I’m exceedingly pleased to announce that I was lucky enough to attend AFCEA West last week in San Diego and see two our very own members, Eric Sloan and Raheem “Ray” McCormick, pick up two AFCEA International awards as Outstanding Young AFCEANS. Although the AFCEAN West is a Navy-driven event, it was abundantly clear to me it was US Marine Corps driven awards ceremony all the way. It quite literally had tears running down my cheeks, because when a Marine got an award, it didn’t matter where that Marine was on the planet, that Marine was “Skyped” into the event from several Southwest Asia locales, some clearly in disheveled bunkers, and a local Marine Senior Leader took the podium and regaled the audience with that Marine’s accomplishments. It was amazing!
 
Finally, our planning for the Montgomery IT Summit, 24-25 May 2011, is advancing wonderfully. We’ve settled on an exciting theme for this year: Riding the IT Wave: Enabling A More Effective, Secure DoD. For our speakers, we’re targeting six areas to buttress the overarching theme: 1) Governance, 2) People, 3) Infrastructure, 4) Commodities, 5) Processes, and 6) Applications. We’re also working closely with the AFITC planners with the intention of our themes, subtopics, and speakers complementing or building off of one another, with the collective ultimate goal of helping the DoD transform its IT acquisition, development, and operational activities. We’re also continuing the Tom Brantley Golf Outing on the 23rd, so please don’t hesitate to visit our chapter website to sign-up for one or more sponsorships. The golf tourney is our premier fund raising event of the year that enables us to support the IT academy and other Education Foundation initiatives. You should be treated to another blog in the very near future laying out the complete program and speakers.
 
With Respect,
 
Joe Besselman
President, AFCEA Montgomery Chapter