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AFCEA International Headquarters Staff Adds Value

Your association continues to move forward in what is proving to be an exciting and dynamic era, and these efforts include personnel changes. In an important step, AFCEA has just added two new members to the executive team who are going to benefit all of you.
By Kent R. Schneider, SIGNAL Magazine

Your association continues to move forward in what is proving to be an exciting and dynamic era, and these efforts include personnel changes. In an important step, AFCEA has just added two new members to the executive team who are going to benefit all of you.

Dr. Vincent W. Patton III, Ed.D., has joined the AFCEA International team as vice president, corporate outreach and deputy to the executive vice president for plans. As our corporate membership has grown to nearly 2,000 companies, it has become clear that we can use an experienced senior member of the staff to spearhead outreach and coordinate AFCEA corporate services and support. Vince is the perfect person to take on this challenging task. He has had an extraordinary career to date, focused on leading, supporting and developing people.

In a distinguished career comprising more than 30 years in the U.S. Coast Guard, Vince served in a demanding and diverse set of assignments afloat and ashore, culminating as the eighth master chief petty officer of the Coast Guard, the senior enlisted leader and ombudsman, and principal adviser to the commandant of the Coast Guard, his directorates, and the secretaries of Transportation and Defense.

For two years after retiring from the Coast Guard, Vince was an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkley, where he taught ethics. He also served as executive director of the Halley’s Comet Foundation, where he worked with at-risk teens in Los Angeles.

Since 2004, Vince has been the director, government partnerships and alliances at Military Advantage—now part of Monster Worldwide—reporting directly to the company president. He identified, evaluated and developed new business opportunities and marketing strategies targeted for the military community, including active duty, reserve, retired, family members and veterans. In the course of his work with Military.com, Vince created the Veteran Career Network, an online mentoring program that brings together more than 1 million veterans who mentor and assist transitioning service members, providing employment and career development advice.

In his new role with AFCEA, Vince will be the focal point on the staff for all of our corporate members, helping them to optimize their value proposition with AFCEA membership. He will help correlate corporate objectives with AFCEA services and support. Vince will promote holistic involvement with AFCEA, including event participation, involvement with the Educational Foundation, participation on committees, leadership at the regional and chapter levels, government engagement and professional development programs.

The second exceptional leader to join the AFCEA team is Col. Michael B. Warlick, USMC (Ret.). Mike will serve as vice president, regional and chapter outreach, and deputy to the executive vice president for operations. As many of you know, we declared this year “The Year of the Chapter.” Knowing that our chapters are the heart of AFCEA, we want to make sure we are doing everything we can to support all of our chapters worldwide and help keep them successful. One of the actions that came out of our study of chapter requirements was to identify an experienced senior leader who understood AFCEA and its chapters in depth and could focus full time on regional and chapter support. We found that leader in Mike Warlick.

Mike served a distinguished career in the Marine Corps, where he focused on communications, information technology, and command and control. In addition to his technology contributions to the Corps, Mike spent a significant part of his career leading and developing Marine Corps officers. For five years he was director of the Command and Control Systems School, Marine Corps University, and for two years he was the university’s vice president.

After retiring from the Marine Corps, Mike worked for Electronic Data Systems/Hewlett-Packard, leading development and delivery of various aspects of the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) for the Marine Corps for eight years. Two years ago, he moved to Harris Corporation to lead business development and capture efforts for the NMCI follow-on, the Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) procurement.

Mike long has been involved with AFCEA leadership, having served twice as president of the Quantico-Potomac Chapter—once while still on active duty and once after retirement from the Marine Corps. In his second period as chapter president, Mike led the Quantico-Potomac Chapter from near extinction to become a robust and growing chapter.

Mike will serve as the primary interface between AFCEA International headquarters and the regions and chapters. He will focus on improving services and support to the chapters and helping in any way possible, reaching into the headquarters staff when needed. We are delighted Mike is on the team, and we know he will be a tremendous asset to the chapters and the regional vice presidents.

We are extremely fortunate to have two people the caliber of Vince and Mike joining us in our endeavors to improve your association’s service to its members. While you can be sure that they will be seeking you out to engage in coming months, please do not wait to contact them if you think they can help. Reach out to Vince at vpatton@afcea.org and Mike at mwarlick@afcea.org. These two leaders are going to be among the best teammates you have.