CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE – DECEMBER 2025

I am completing my first of two years as ITEA Board Chairman. The year seemed to fly yet so much happened. We are commemorating the end of our 45^th anniversary celebration; look at the newly launched ITEA website at https://www.itea.org.

It has been an eventful year to say the least, pun intended. With the challenges of a restrictive federal government travel policy and the 43-day government shutdown, we became creative, again. ITEA didn’t close the doors; we reimagined what an event could be by hosting five highly successful forums culminating with our Annual International Symposium in November. The planning committee, co-chaired by Mr. Timothy Mott and Mr. John Rafferty, and their dedicated volunteers from the Emerald Coast Chapter, did a stellar job morphing the agenda almost daily as speakers and panelists had to withdraw. We had attendees from the UK, Australia, Republic of Korea, and Sweden to name a few and our volunteers onsite were ready for anything, including  adapting in real time as the five teams of STEAM students showed up a day early. The STEAM competition proceeded smoothly, and ITEA awarded $3,000 in scholarships to the local area schools, bringing the 2025 total to nearly $20,000. This is ITEA at its best.

One real joy of the Symposium was being part of the ITEA T&E professional awards presentations. Two held special significance for me: Mr. Matthew (Matt) Reynolds (Board of Directors Award) and Mr. Russell (Rusty) Roberts (Dr. Allen R. Matthews Award). Matt’s entire family came to see him receive this award – his daughter and her husband even flew in from Alaska! Matt is a founding member of ITEA, was its 7^th President, creator of the original fundamentals of T&E short course, author of a book on T&E, former chair of the Elections Committee, and much more. You can learn more about Matt through his interview in the March 2021 issue of The ITEA Journal. Rusty, who had his number one fan, his wife, Cindy, by his side is also a former ITEA President and has been the face of GTRI as a trusted Corporate Member for decades. Rusty and his team are icons, always supporting ITEA efforts by volunteering their time and talents on planning committees, sponsoring, exhibiting, delivering technical presentations, writing articles for The Journal, mentoring early career professionals, and going above and beyond for the benefit of the T&E community, GTRI, and ITEA. If you’d like to have a bourbon with Rusty, go read his interview in the June 2024 issue of The ITEA Journal.

Another highlight of the Symposium was the presentation of the first class of Senior Members and the first elected class of ITEA Fellows. Go read who they are (https://itea.org/membership/) then offer your congratulations. Think about nominating someone next year; watch for the call for nominations in June. We also announced new members to the Board of Directors. Welcome to Mr. Kenneth (Ken) Senechal of KBR and Mr. Jeff Tolleson of PeopleTec. The Board sadly bids farewell to Dr. Robin Poston, who is stepping off the Board as she continues to focus on her responsibilities as dean of the Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies and associate provost for graduate education at Southern Methodist University. She will remain as chair of the Awards Committee, and we will continue to entice her back to the Board. Thank you, Robin, for your selfless and untiring service to ITEA. And for just being fun.

Two of our  professional partnerships were prominent  at the Symposium, the Digital Twin Consortium and the Directed Energy Professional Society (DEPS). We were pleased to have Dr. David Stoudt, Executive Director and DEPS Fellow, present a Keynote address, engaging the audience in questions and follow-on conversations. Mr. John Frederick, Director, Innovation and Testing Strategies at Veracity Engineering and Dr. Antonios Kontsos, Henry M. Rowan Foundation Professor and Director of the Digital Engineering Hub at Rowan University, hosted a Technical Interchange Session to introduce the Digital Twin Consortium (https://www.digitaltwinconsortium.org) which drew much attention and discussion.

Plan to join us next November in Phoenix for the 43^rd Annual International T&E Symposium, and visit https://itea.org/calendar/ to learn about the 2026 calendar of events on Test Instrumentation, AI, Directed Energy, Cybersecurity, All Domain Operations, and the second annual UK T&E Summit.  If you are interested in being a part of the planning process, please contact info@itea.org for more information on how to engage.

What does 2026 hold for ITEA? To quote an overused Danish saying, It’s Difficult to Make Predictions, Especially About the Future. We will plan based on what we know and expect, we will remain flexible and adapt to change, and we will continue to move forward to grow ITEA, to expand our reach into the vast realm of T&E and train the current and future workforce.

Thank you for being with us this year. See you next year and bring a friend.