Robert Shannon Hoover, Ph.D.
President
Michigan Chapter NDIA
Bob.Hoover@baesystems.com
Dear members of the NDIA Michigan Chapter, 2007 was a great year for the Michigan Chapter of NDIA and 2008 is promising to be better. There were many accomplishments that are noteworthy. I’d like to highlight a few of these and with each, discuss how these events have fruited and led to new opportunities for NDIA to contribute to the local Defense Community.
The Power and Energy Conference, a teaming event between TARDEC and NDIA-Michigan, yielded record attendance and established a new conference for this coming August; The Robotics Conference. Registration information is on the website now if you are interested. www.ndia-mich.org Additionally, there is a Power and Energy Workshop coming in the near future as a follow up to the conference. Please check the website for details that will be posted soon. The Power and Energy Conference will be held again in the summer of 2009. As a precursor to the Robotics Conference, NDIA hosted a luncheon for Col Braden and the new Robotics Joint Program Office. We expected 50 to 80 attendees. We maxed out the capacity of the Gazebo conference facility at 200 people. The interest in the emerging field of Robotics shows the relevance of this field. The potential this field has to save lives on the battlefield is staggering. The Fall Business Event was a tremendous success. This event was different than most of our NDIA events in that the audience we wanted to serve were neither the U.S. Government nor defense contractors but contractors seeking to enter the defense business or wanted to improve their skills in the defense industry. Since this event, many new contractors that normally did not do business in Government are now providing products and services to TACOM and the PEO’s. Due to the success of this event and demand from the local community for another event like this we will be hosting a follow on to this event most likely in September of this year. Please check the website for updates.
In November of 2007 one of NDIA’s affiliates, Women in Defense (WID), formed a local chapter in Michigan. It is commonly acknowledged that our defense community is a male dominated field particularly in the engineering arena. WID strives to provide opportunities to provide professional development and networking for women in this important industry. To support this new organization, NDIA Michigan has asked the WID president, Ms. Julie Stackpoole, to become an advisor to the NDIA Board of Directors. Ms Stackpoole has subsequently become an advisor to the Board of Directors and has already taken the lead on a joint project developing technological and scientific leadership development in local schools. I urge women in the US Government or Defense Business who are interested making a greater contribution to the defense community to visit the WID website at http://wid.ndia.org
Robert Shannon Hoover, Ph.D.
President
Michigan Chapter NDIA
