Chapter Hosts 42nd New Horizon Symposium

The chapter hosted its 42nd annual New Horizons Symposium in March at the Boston Marriott Newton Hotel, Newton, Massachusetts. Industry co-chair, Angela Dupont-Hevey, chapter board member, served as mistress of ceremonies and welcomed over 700 attendees to this annual scholarship fundraising event that provides industry partners a preview of pending new federal business opportunities. She thanked her co-chairs Lt. Col. JJ Haramiyo, USAF, Hanscom Air Force Base (AFB), and Jonathan Learn, The MITRE Corporation, and the many symposium sponsors, including Double Diamond sponsor Raytheon, and Diamond sponsor Oasis Systems, for their support before introducing Patrick Marr, board chair, who then provided chapter updates and invited special guest, AFCEA International President and CEO Lt. Gen. Robert M. Shea, USMC (Ret.), to offer opening remarks. Thereafter, Gen. Shea joined Marr, Tina Jordan, AFCEA International vice president of membership, and Mary Ann Carlson, regional vice president, in congratulating Lexington-Concord AFCEA International award winners: Patrick Hamilton, Booz Allen Hamilton; William Keller, Booz Allen Hamilton; Phil Blanchard, Hanscom AFB; and Stephanie Hutch P3I. Also, chapter scholarships of $3,000 each to University of Massachusetts Lowell and Boston University ROTC student chapter members, plus an additional $500 to each chapter to support operations were presented. Dupont-Hevey next introduced the first of the symposium's two keynote speakers, Kevin Fahey, assistant secretary for acquisition, Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense. Fahey provided the crowd with insight into the status of the department's acquisition reform efforts, noting that the Defense Department is on the way to an adaptive acquisition framework. The second featured keynote address was provided by William Marion II, deputy chief information officer, Department of the Air Force, who discussed the large investment the Air Force is making in information technology (IT), observing that enterprise IT is absolutely fundamental to Joint All-Domain Command and Control. New business opportunities were presented by Hanscom AFB, Air Force Life Cycle Management (AFLCMC), Program Executive Officers (PEO) Maj. Gen. Michael Schmidt, USAF, and staff, from Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence (C3I) and Networks, and Steven Wert (SES), Digital; as well from Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, Scott Hardiman, deputy director, Air Force Nuclear Command, Control and Communications (NC3). Other featured presentations included John Miller, Senior Executive Service (SES) director of plans and programs, Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL); Rob Coen, acquisition program director, General Services Administration (GSA) Professional Services Portfolio; Michael Attachi, deputy regional commissioner and director of assisted acquisitions, GSA New England; Col. Brian K. Beachkofski, USAF, Chief, Kessel Run (KR) Enterprise Services Branch, Air Force Materiel Command Detachment 12; Bernadette Johnson, chief technology ventures officer, MIT Lincoln Laboratory; Cynthia Bedell, SES, director, U.S. Army Research Lab Computational and Information Sciences Directorate, U.S. Army Futures Command; Bryant Wysocki, Air Force technical advisor for C4I and Cyber, AFRL, Information Directorate; and Adil Karim, chief engineer for architecture initiatives, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. Stephanie Hutch, co-chair of Women in AFCEA, AFCEA International, and vice president of strategic planning, P3I, Inc., moderated a Disruptive by Design panel discussion on ‘Empowering Today's Workforce to Tackle Tomorrow's Problems.' Panel members included: Melissa DeLuca, chief, Contracting Branch, Detachment 12, AFLCMC; Quynh Tran, AirOps Engineering Practice Lead, Kessel Run, Raytheon; Whitney Tallarico, deputy tech bridge director for the Assistant Secretary of the Navy's Agility Team, NavalX; Lt. Col. Alexander Babington, USA, product manager, Force Sustainment Systems, NSSC, PEO CS CSS, U.S. Army; and Capt. Maribel Gonzalez, USAF, executive officer, PEO C3I and Networks. Joyce Sidopoulos, co-founder and chapter vice president for programs and community, MassRobotics, also an AFCEA International board member and chapter secretary, was joined by Warren Katz, managing director, Air Force Accelerator Powered by Techstars, MassRobotics, in hosting a series of highly anticipated technology pitches from 20 innovative startups. The chapter also paid tribute to the troops with a grant of $1,000 accepted by Chief Master Sgt. Henry Hayes, USAF, command chief, 66th Air Base Group, Hanscom AFB. At conclusion, Dupont-Hevey and Marr thanked the numerous volunteers and again gratefully acknowledged the many individual industry sponsors who provided key support to help make the symposium possible.

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