CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE

I am happy to be delivering this Chairman’s message as my first official duty since the amazing 40^th anniversary ITEA conference in Destin Florida. We often talk about the increasing pace of change and how it affects the Defense and Aerospace industry worldwide. I would like to challenge all of us to reach outside our comfort zones and talk to our commercial peers as to the importance of building the body of knowledge that ITEA as an organization collates and disseminates through our flagship journal. Knowledge is key to test and evaluation (T&E); in fact, we are all seekers of knowledge as that is at the heart of test. We plan, we test, we collect data, conduct analysis, and create new knowledge about the behavior of systems. The difference is that the domains in which we seek knowledge, and the span of systems is increasing at a rapid pace. This pace is stretching our workforce worldwide and creating holes that need to be filled by young and energetic testers who have new ideas to bring to the range or the lab. In short, we need to expand our presence as testers and evaluators to ensure a safer and more reliable future, whether in autonomous military aircraft, medical robots, commercial road vehicles or heavy autonomous mining plant. We are overdue for a more diverse group and increased membership into what is a pretty exclusive and distinguished body of scientists, engineers and analysts.

Our journal has grown to represent newer areas of test such as cyber, autonomous collaborative systems, space, advanced data analytics, hypersonics and distributed networked system of systems being realized through the emerging research area known as mission engineering. With these new articles comes the need to drive our mission as a 501 (c) 2 Non-Profit education organization and help industry and governments worldwide have confidence that the testers out there are competent and certified to perform their functions with high reliability. We are the only test and evaluation body worldwide that focusses exclusively on skilling our members and growing the workforce. We are fiercely independent and strong advocates for the ethical and responsible conduct of testing.

As we transition to 2024 take a moment to think about your contribution to the journal and to the many conferences that we conduct to bring the test and evaluation community together to discuss the most pressing topics facing us and our world. I expect we will all have much to discuss when we meet either in the United States or at emerging T&E gatherings at international ITEA chapters like Southern Cross in Australia. Let us work together to make 2024 be the international year and grow our presence and influence around the globe. Let us also embrace those from different industries that have much to contribute to the body of knowledge that our “your” association embodies and look forward to an amazing year and the annual conference in Huntsville Alabama “Rocket City” on November 2024.

Let’s start a dialogue!

Mark Phillips