Colonel Describes Common Operating Environment

In October, the chapter hosted Col. Mike Flanagan, USA, program manager for training devices, Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation. His organization's mission is to develop and field training ranges and instrumentation for the U.S. Army and its allies. It accomplishes this through three main program and mission areas: live training systems, digitized training and combat training instrumentation systems at home station and combat training centers. One of the most critical elements in this training is the Personal Area Network. It is extremely important in providing a state-of-the-art technology that ties together the dismounted units and vehicles via a common player unit at the training centers. Col. Flanagan focused mainly on the Common Operating Environment (COE) Initiative. Currently, the COE shortcomings are painful and costly interoperability, unnecessary duplication, inefficiency from a sustainment standpoint and inconsistent with the current rate of change of technology. Rather, Col. Flanagan cited the chief information officer G-6's vision where the COE has standards, products, architectures and processes that will enable agility and interoperability. He also briefly addressed net integrating events; information assurance, the need for increased embedded training capabilities and the potential cuts to the U.S. Defense Department budget and its implications. Steve Painter, chapter president, spoke briefly about the chapter's upcoming TechNet Orlando Warfighter Conference January 18 to 20, 2012.

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