Looking back at last 16 years as NTSA president.

• Author: Lewis, Fred
• Position: NDIA News - Conference notes

* My first year at the helm of the National Training and Simulation Association in 1995 was a turbulent time for the industry. Political leadership allowed the government to shut down for the first time in history and its representatives couldn't travel to the Albuquerque, N.M., Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference.

In spite of this adversity, we carried on with 1/ITSEC 1993 and had another successful event.

I/ITSELC 1993 had particular significance for me because it was my first in-depth exposure to the industry as president of NTSA. was deeply impressed by the array of companies involved in the enterprise, by the state-of-the-art technologies on display and by the commitment to excellence by all participants.

We have built on the technology development that I observed in 1995 and have made significant strides in enhancing the believability of our simulations. This is key to the success we have enjoyed as we responded to the changing requirements from the customer base, which were the result of different threats, operational environments and capabilities that have been strongly influenced by the increased processing power of computers and networks.

The industry has been blessed by tremendous agility and creativity in its responsiveness to meet warfighter requirements. Today, our constituent base includes other domains. These new fields now embrace modeling and simulation as a way to train, analyze, forecast, explore and develop. Manufacturing, financial analysis, meteorology, oil and gas exploration, transportation, education, architectural design, communication and aerospace industrial design are some of the domains where modeling and simulation has become a critical component of progress and success. In the healthcare field, the technology has experienced an explosion of growth and acceptance.

The single greatest challenge to our industry is work force development. In 20W, we began to offer a credentialing service with the certified M&S professional program. We instituted over the past 16 years the Future Leaders Pavilion, America's Teachers at VITSEC, Serious Games Showcase, and the Student Tours program, which have all proven to he highly successful in helping us to achieve our objectives of education and inspiration. We have only just begun to exploit the significant potential that modeling and simulation has throughout the education field.

I am confident that by leveraging new developments and by using...