BANQUET and AWARDS PRESENTATIONS

Tuesday, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. 

(Pavilion Salon C)

Net Centric Systems: Lessons Learned and Directions
Dr. James Gantt, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, MD USA


Overview: In a little over 50 years we have moved from the ENIAC to Super Computers, the World Wide Web, Cell Phones, PDAs, and an almost endless list of technologies that we don't know how we would live without. The ENIAC was installed at an Army laboratory in 1947. Today the military is living in a world of computers and networks. Since September 11, 2001 several events have shown how much has changed in the way computers and communications are used by the military. In this presentation we will look briefly at the past and then focus on lessons we have learned since 9/11 and conclude with a look into the future.


Biography: Dr. Gantt was born in Murray, Kentucky. After graduation from high school, he attended Murray State University and received a Bachelor of Science with honors (Cum Laude) in 1971. In 1972, he received a Master of Science degree in Computer Science, majoring in Operations Research, from the University of Missouri at Rolla. After graduation, he entered the United States Army and served as an instructor at the Army Computer Science School at Fort Harrison, Indiana.

In 1978, he received an Education Specialist degree in Management from Ball State University. He moved to Atlanta, Georgia and was employed as an Operations Research Analyst with the Army Institute for Research in Management Information, Communications, and Computer Sciences (AIRMICS), which is now part of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL). He was selected to spend the 1981-1982 school year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Fellow in the Center for Advanced Engineering Studies.

From 1983 to 1992, he served as the Chief of the Management Information Systems Division at AIRMICS. He completed his Ph.D in Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1989.

When ARL was formed in 1992, he became the Chief of the Software Technology Branch and then served as the Chief of the Software and Intelligent Systems Division.
In September 1996, he became the Acting Director of the Information Science and Technology (IS&T) Directorate. He was selected to become a member of the Senior Executive Service and appointed as Director of IS&T in June 1998. In May 2000,
Dr. Gantt became the Deputy Director of ARL’s new Computational and Information Sciences Directorate (CISD), which was formed by merging the Computational Sciences with the Tactical Information Processing and Communications Research programs. In July 2003 he became the Acting Director of CISD and Acting Chief Information Officer (CIO) of ARL.

The CISD of ARL is responsible for conducting research for the Army in Computational Science, Computer Science, Communications, and Weather. The current budget for the Directorate is approximately $175M. About 350 government employees and another 350 on-site contractors execute this budget.

Dr. Gantt is married to the former Kay Thompson of Paducah, Kentucky. Kay received BS and MS degrees from Murray State University. James and Kay have two daughters, Heather and Jenny.