We are a Professional Society
I recently received an e-mail from an individual
who was considering joining MORS but had changed his mind because of a somewhat
negative experience. He had received a
copy of the proceedings from the 68th MORSS and noticed that there
were several presentations related to his professional activities. He sent out numerous e-mails to authors
complimenting them on their presentations and asking a couple of professional
questions in attempt to continue a professional dialog. He received only two responses and one of
those was a note letting him know that the author was going PCS with no mention
of other colleagues working the project.
The second response was merely a request of a copy of some of this
individual’s work, which he provided via priority mail — with no response of
thanks. We probably lost this gentleman
as a potential member of MORS. I’d like
to remind our membership that we are a Professional Society. One of our published Goals of the Society is
to “provide opportunities for professional interchange.” Let’s try to be a little more professional
in enhancing professional interchange.
COL Mike McGinnis,
our Vice President for Meeting Operations (also 69th MORSS Program
Chair), the MORS staff and the 69th Organizing Committee are lining up the
activities for the Symposium, 12-14 June 2001 at the US Naval Academy at
Annapolis. The Theme for the 69th
MORSS is “Sailing into the New Millennium.”
Our goal is to break all attendance records
for a MORS Symposium. The Announcement
and Call for Papers is already out.
Visit our website (http://www.mors.org) for details on the
Symposium. Make your plans to attend
and begin submitting your abstracts and papers to Working Group Chairs for
inclusion in our program.
Special Meetings
I encourage all of you to keep your eyes open for
future PHALANX issues, PHALANX
Online, and our website for our
upcoming Special Meetings. We just
completed our Workshop on Advancing C4ISR
Assessment at the Army War College in Carlisle, PA, under the leadership of
Dr Cy Staniec and Chuck Taylor. RADM
Nutwell was the proponent for
this follow-up meeting to the one we had in October 1998. Details on the meeting will be
forthcoming.
We have another meeting scheduled on Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) for 30
January-1 February 2001 at the Booz Allen Hamilton facilities in McLean,
VA. LTC Bruce Bowman and LTC Jerry Glasow are heading up this meeting.
Andy
Loerch, the Board of Directors’ chair for our
Education and Professional Development Committee, is making final arrangements for
next year’s Education Colloquium to be held 3-4 April 2001, at the ANSER Corp.
facilities. Keep an eye on
announcements at our website.
Prototype MORS Affiliations/Chapters
Prof Rick Rosenthal
is chairing an ad hoc committee to research the details of establishing local
affiliations/chapters of MORS. Our
first test cases will be military academic institutes only. Rick’s committee is examining legal,
financial, membership, security and other issues. I will provide more details about this as we gather more
information and make decisions on how to proceed.
I would like to take this opportunity to
encourage all of you to visit our PHALANX Online.
It is an opportunity to
view the important items in PHALANX
and participate in on-line dialog with each other. It is an excellent means for providing the authors, your MORS
staff and Society leadership instant feedback.
Please check it out on our website.
In October 2000, our Natalie Kelly, Vice President Administration, celebrated her 20th
Anniversary with MORS. We had a “MORS
family” brunch for Natalie at Christine
Fossett’s, FS, house. To most of our membership, Natalie, IS
MORS. She has been a tireless worker
for MORS and keeps our MORS meetings going smoothly over the years as we
experience turn-over on our Board of Directors and our Officers. Natalie, on behalf of all the Past
Presidents, let me thank you for the 20 years of tremendous support you have
given me, all those who served in those 20 years, and the entire Society. By the way, Natalie started with MORS when
she was 11 years old.
December is also a major milestone for
MORS. Mr Walt Hollis, FS, our
Army Sponsor, celebrated 20 years as the DUSA(OR) and our Army MORS Sponsor. Mr Hollis has been a leading MORS Champion
over these 20 years and MORS is a better Professional Society because of his
leadership. I pass on my sincerest
thanks to Mr Hollis for the many years of unsurpassed support.
Value-Added
The MORS leadership wants MORS to be a
value-added to the Military OR community.
If you have specific ideas on how you think MORS can be more of a
value-added, please contact me and let me know.