PHALANX Online June 2001 Volume 34 Number 2
Welcome to PHALANX Online, the electronic complement of the premier quarterly MORS Bulletin.
Table of Contents
- The First Word
- Announcements
- MORSS News
- President's Corner
- From the Archives
- Highlights From the Printed Edition
- Lead Article
Feedback
THE FIRST WORD
I always look forward
to the June issue of PHALANX, for it brings always precedes a
revitalization of MOR activity with the spring MAS meetings and the MORS
Symposium. It also brings the announcement of the MORS slate for the new
officers of the Executive Council, including the platform for the upcoming
President-Elect. The fact that the candidates for MORS officers are so well
qualified is a tribute to the well being of the Society. This year is no
exception as Past President Bob Sheldon has assembled another
outstanding slate, including the President Elect candidates, Mike McGinnis
and Ted Smyth.
I am particularly looking forward to the 69th Symposium in that I will be introducing the 35th Anniversary PHALANX CD at one of the special sessions. My wife, Candace, and I have put nearly 300 hours of our personal effort into this project, and it will bring you the rich heritage of PHALANX history on CD with a robust search capability. Ask those who attended the MORS 35th Anniversary, it is well worth your time to check this out, and the CD itself should become the library centerpiece for any analyst who has ever been associated with Military Operations Research. You will be able to purchase it at the symposium.
Lee Dick, PHXOE
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Analysis of Urban Warfare Workshop
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab
2-4 October 2001
Operations Research Methods for
Information Operations:
A Battlespace of the 21st Century
30 October
- 1 November 2001
Analyzing Effects-Based Operations
Booz Allen & Hamilton, McLean, VA
29-31 January 2002
Professional Interchange
Have Crowd Will
Roar Wire PHALANX! Remember all those good exchanges between the crowd and our editors
in the past? Want to generate some discussion on PHALANX articles, or
MORS, or military operations research in general? Then why not post your
opinion in the PHALANX log at the bottom of this page.
Click here for the announcement (including color photos) of the Stephen A. Tisdale Graduate Award.
Membership Mailing List
The MORS membership
mailing list is used to notify the membership of important information. Has
your email address changed lately? If you did not receive the notice that PHALANX
Online was posted, you might want to check with the MORS
Office
to make sure your address is up to date. You do not have to be a card carrying
MORS member to be on the list.
MORSS NEWS
President's Corner
From the Archives
One of Jack
Walker's (past PHALANX Editor) features focused on Fellows of the
Society. This regular series entitled PHALANX Phellows featured a short
biography and a few candid observations by Jack about one of the Fellows. This
theme is reinstituted in the June issue of PHALANX with Fellow Fred
Hartman's take on our newest Fellow, Dick Wiles. For those of us
associated with PHALANX, Dick holds a special endearment since he was
the PHALANX publisher for so many years.
DICK WILES ELECTED AS FELLOW OF MORS
By: Fred Hartman, FS
The Board of
Directors elected Dick Wiles to become a Fellow of the Society at their
winter meeting. Dick's recognition as Fellow for his outstanding contributions
to the Society comes only months after his retirement from 16 years of service
as the MORS Executive Vice President.
It was during
Dick's tenure that we instituted the Fellow as a class of membership. Fellows
were first elected in 1989 and are elected annually at the December meeting of
the Board of Directors.
The MORS
Organization Manual outlines Fellows Procedures, and provides for the
Membership Committee to recommend nominees to the Board of Directors, at the
winter meeting. It also gives the following definition of Fellows:
"Because of significant, long-term contributions to the Society, certain
individuals are selected by the Board of Directors to hold the title of Fellow
of MORS. Fellows are elected for life. Selection as a Fellow is intended to be
an honor and recognition of contributions to the Society as opposed to a
contribution only to the practice of military operations research."
Dick Wiles is
certainly the epitome of "significant, long-term contribution" to our
Society.
In the September
1984 issue of the PHALANX, MORS President Jim Bexfield, FS
announced the selection of Dick Wiles from more than twenty applicants to
replace Ed Napier as the new Executive Director of the Society. Jim
charged Dick with "ensuring that the MORS office, symposia and
publications run well, and also to take an active role in working with the
Board of Directors to identify and implement new ways that MORS can enhance
military analysis." Dick took that charge seriously and the Society
flourished during his 16-year tenure. In recognition of his 16 years of service
as the Executive Vice President of MORS, at the June Board of Directors
meeting, Bob Sheldon, then-President of MORS, bestowed the title of
Executive Vice President Emeritus on Dick, effective on the date of his
retirement from MORS.
Dick was active in
MORS even before he before he joined the Society's professional staff. He
attended symposia, presented papers and chaired the "Measures of
Effectiveness" and "Land Warfare" Working Groups. Dick has been
instrumental in moving MORS forward and shepherding the progress that has brought
us to be one of the premier professional societies in the nation. MORS now has
from two to four special meetings a year on topics of timely interest to our
Sponsors and the community. Attendance at the annual symposium was increased
from a low of 505 to a high of 1,126 in 1995 and remains relatively stable
around 1,000. Military Operations Research, the MOR journal was brought
to publication and is now publishing four issues a year. Two new Society Awards
were introduced, the Clayton J. Thomas Award and the John K. Walker, Jr. Award;
and the MCAP (MORS Coveted Acrylic Paperweight) and Impact Coins have been
devised as a way to recognize achievement and individual contributions to the
Society. The list of his individual achievements goes on, but Dick has left his
mark on MORS and has touched each of us through his hard work and dedication to
the Society.
Dick joined the
MORS professional staff after 26 years in the Army and six years in private
industry. He was commissioned in the Army Field Artillery after graduation from
the United States Military Academy in 1952. He commanded an armored field
artillery battery in Korea in 1953 and a direct support field artillery
battalion in Viet Nam in 1968-9. He was trained as an OR analyst at Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute. He served OR assignments in the Office Chief of Staff.
Army (twice), Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and his final
tour in the Army as Director of Systems Force Mix Analysis at the US Army
Concepts Analysis Agency.
On behalf of the
Members, Fellows, Officers and Board, we offer our sincere congratulations to
Dick as our newest Fellow of the Society, and express our thanks for his many
years of support and leadership to our profession. Dick will attend the 69th
MORSS at Annapolis in June for official induction.
HIGHLIGHTS
From The Printed Edition
Operations
Research Support to the Combined Air Operations Center during the Air War over
Serbia by Richard
F. Bird, AFSAA/SATG, is included as the Online Feature below.
LTC George
Stone, US Army, Joint Warfare System, provides us an Executive Summary on
the MORS Homeland Security Mini-Symposium.
LTC Bruce A.
Bowman, Ph.D., The Joint Staff (Co-Chair), LTC Jerry Glasow,
ODUSA(OR) (Co-Chair), and Mr Douglas Schultz, IDA (Technical Advisor),
summarize the First MORS Workshop of the New Millennium: Chemical-Biological
Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Do we really
know what the terms "information" and "knowledge" mean? Dr Oliver
Hedgepeth, GRCI discusses this subject in his article, "The Mess or
Message of Information and Knowledge".
Dr Bob
Sheldon introduces the new MORS slate of officer candidates including
President Elect candidates Col Mike McGinnis and Ted Smyth who
provide us with their platforms.
Alan Zimm addresses new trends in
analysis in his article, "Modern Theories and the Practice of Analysis".
In the Naval
Analysis Department, Dr Brian McCue examines "Another Method of
Estimating Search Rates".
An extract from Past
President Bob Sheldon's and Director Jack Mariott's Oral Project
interview with Gene Visco, FS, is provided in "One Analyst's
Experience with Chemical Munitions Testing".
Mike
McGinnis,
VPMO, provides this months Veeps Peep and MORS President Elect Tom Allen
gets ready to take the reigns.
ONLINE FEATURE ARTICLE