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Kenneth H. Brockel, Director

Kenneth H. Brockel is currently an engineering consultant. He retired as Chief of the Airborne Mission Division at the Communications Electronics Command (CECOM), Ft. Monmouth, NJ. He began his career in industry, at Frequency Engineering Laboratories in Farmingdale, NJ, where he was a microwave development engineer. Since 1975, he has worked in areas of tactical radio, and communications technology in the government. Since 1983 Mr. Brockel has held key management positions in the research, development, and readiness/logistics areas. Mr. Brockel has been a leader in developing the C3 modeling and simulation program for the Army. He has published numerous technical papers on a wide variety of communications technology subjects. He also holds a number of patents developed in the communications reliability modeling simulation field. Mr. Brockel received his BSEE from the University of Toledo in 1967.

James E. French is an independent consultant for product standards and regulations. He has served clients who manufacture and distribute both consumer and industrial products, and his experience includes employment with several national associations, a testing laboratory, and a government agency. James has chaired many technical task groups and organizational committees and has written extensively for individual companies and associations about the role of regulations and standards in both the United States and other countries.

James led the formation and development of major subcommittees in both IEC and ISO in the fields of industrial instrumentation and aerospace systems respectively. He also formed and guided the national support groups for these committees. James has also been active in the American National Standards Institute as a member of several standards boards and the Executive Standards Council.

James holds a degree in physics from Vanderbilt University.

Lou Gullo has 23 years experience in military, space, and commercial applications involving electrical system design, analog and digital circuit design, design/product assurance, reliability/maintainability, systems safety, component engineering, and production engineering. He has served in a director capacity for a world leader in electronic manufacturing services as well as management of product assurance electronic article surveillance and RFID product development. He is an individual member of the IEC TC56, Working Group 2, and IEEE SCC-37, Reliability Prediction Working Group. Lou Gullo has a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Connecticut.

John Langford has a background in contract management, logistics management, logistics system engineering, and configuration management. He has been an Adjunct Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Florida Institute of Technology, and George Mason University for Logistics Engineering courses. He is a Certified Professional Logistician and Certified Configuration Manager. He served on Board of Advisors, for the Centre for Logistics Study and Research, St. Petersburg, Russia. His education includes BS in Industrial Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology; MS in Logistics Management, AFIT; and resident graduate of the U.S. Air War College.

John William Lohmar, Director

Mr. Lohmar worked for almost 35 years in ship design with the Naval Sea Systems Command, including 25 years in reliability and maintainability of ships, systems and equipment. He directed the Ship Reliability Improvement Program to identify fleet reliability deficiencies and development improvements on over twenty active ship classes while in the office of the Chief Engineer of the Navy and documented a savings of over 15 billion dollars at a cost of less than 400 million dollars. He developed the reliability and maintainability sections of the Top Level Requirements, Top Level Specifications, Operational Requirements Documents, Ship Specifications, and Test and Evaluation Master Plans for many ship classes.

Mr. Lohmar is currently an active member of the US Technical Advisory Group to IEC TC56 on Dependability. He is a member of the Society of Reliability Engineers and a Senior Member of the Institute of Industrial Engineers. He holds a BS in Mathematics University of Arkansas and an MS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.

Russell A. Vacante, President

As founder and President of the Reliability, Maintainability and Supportability Partnership, Dr. Vacante works with representatives from professional societies, industry associations, Government agencies, and academia to improve RMS awareness and communication among professionals within these disciplines. Dr. Vacante is also the editor of the quarterly RMS Partnership Newsletter. He has published more than fifty articles on the subject of reliability, maintainability, supportability and logistics.

Dr. Vacante is also the founder and chairman of TRANSLOG International, an initiative to address present and future transportation and infrastructure issues from an intermodal transportation and holistic and Government-industry perspective. He is the managing editor of “The Voyager,” a TRANSLOG International News Journal. Since its founding in 1996 TRANSLOG International has successfully established strategic alliances with transportation-logistics community within government, industry and academia. Dr. Vacante also works closely with professional societies and industry associations interested in addressing 21st century transportation issues

He is currently the Director, Sector Leadership and a Strategic Planner for the Defense Acquisition University (DAU). Dr. Vacante now provides DAU’s President with strategic guidance on the achievement of the University’s goals, objectives and organization. In this role he serves as liaison for out-reach partnerships and alliances with institutions of higher education, professional organizations and with the leadership at the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). He previously served as DAU’s Director of Performance Based Logistics.

Dr. Russell A. Vacante served as President of SOLE-The International Society of Logistics in 2004. SOLE is a premier professional logistics organization with 6,000 members. The Society is the sponsors of the only internationally recognized certification examination for logisticians.

Prior to his assignment at the Defense Acquisition University, Dr. Vacante served as a professor at the Army Management Staff College. Dr. Vacante had leadership responsibilities pertaining to the design, implementation and teaching of acquisition-logistics subjects. He came to the College from the Engineering Directorate of the Communications-Electronic Command, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where he served as chairman of an interdisciplinary reliability, supportability, and maintainability task force. The function of this task force was to improve the RMS performance of Army communications-electronic equipment.

Dr. Vacante received his Ph.D. in Comparative Education, State University of New York at Buffalo in June 1987. He has taught at colleges and universities throughout Western New York. He resides with his wife and family in Nokesville, Virginia. Dr. Vacante is a native of Buffalo, New York and received his under graduate and graduate degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

John Phillips

John Phillips is the former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Logistics). He recently left Home Depot as Vice President of the Government Solutions Group, which he formed. The organization propelled Home Depot into the Federal business, growing to over $100 million in the first 12 months of operations. He is now President of Phillips Defense Consultants. His organization includes subject matter experts across the range of defense operations from IT, supply chain management, and acquisition to Network Centric Warfare.

John brings more than 30 years of comprehensive acquisition, aviation, IT, logistics, and leadership experience to the organization. He served as Vice President of Government Services for Honeywell, where he held several positions of increasing importance since 1997. Prior to joining Honeywell, John served as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Logistics) overseeing an organization of 850,000 military and civilian personnel with a budget of $114 billion. In this capacity he established an outsourcing and privatization program for the Federal government. He led the 1994 Quadrennial Defense Review. The recipient of over 250 awards and decorations, John was honored with Vice President Al Gore’s Hammer Award in 1999.

John served for more than 27 years in the United States Air Force, retiring with the rank of Major General. His last assignment was Commander, McClellan AFB, California. The military depot was responsible for aircraft, satellites, and microelectronic technology. John earned John earned the highest Department of Defense certifications (Level III) in Program Management, Acquisition Logistics, and Computer Systems Development. He is a fighter pilot with over 3,000 flying hours, 300 of those in combat. John holds a BS degree in biology and chemistry from Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins, Texas, and an MS degree in Logistics Management from the Air Force Institute of Technology.

Leonard Vincent

Lenn Vincent is a CACI Vice President responsible for working with senior Department of Defense and Industry leaders to build long-term AMS relationships and to help identify solutions to acquisition, logistics, and financial management challenges. His strategic focus is an initiative to create an integrated digital environment that will extend the DOD’s automated procurement system into industry and into the DOD program management offices, in addition to implementation and training strategies for new products and service.

At AMS he led a 130-member business unit responsible for the deployment and launch of government and industry procurement and contract management software solutions. His acquisition business solutions profit center was responsible for implementing DoD’s Standard Procurement System currently being used by over 23,000 procurement personnel and launch of a commercial contract management system for industry which was bought by The Boeing Company.

Prior to entering civilian life, Mr. Vincent completed a distinguished career in the United States Navy, serving at both sea and ashore. He has over 30 years of broad based and in-depth leadership and management experience in acquisition, supply chain management, logistics and financial management.

When he retired on August 1, 1999 at the rank of Rear Admiral, he was the Commandant, Defense Systems Management College (DSMC), where he led a graduate-level DoD College with a faculty and staff of 300 people and an annual budget of $25 million. While in this position, he began an overhaul of acquisition education to include reform principles and technology based distance learning.

Prior to leading DSMC, Mr. Vincent had served as the Logistics, Ordnance and Fleet Supply Officer for Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet, where he established policy and coordinated logistics requirements to support supply chain operations in the Pacific Fleet and Indian Ocean.

Mr. Vincent was the Commander of the Defense Contracts Management Agency (DCMA), a diverse worldwide organization of 19,000 people responsible for administration and oversight of over 400,000 contracts valued at $800 billion. Concurrently, he also served as the senior acquisition executive responsible for procurement policy within the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA).

His afloat tours included Supply Officer on both USS Pensacola (LSD 38) And USS Dixon (AS 37). Some of his other shore based assignments included: Assistant Commander for Contracts at the Naval Air Systems Command; Commander, Defense Contract Management Command International; Commander, Defense Contract Administration Services Region, Los Angeles; Director, Contracts Director at Navy Inventory Control Point, Mechanicsburg; Contracting Officer, SUPSHIP Bath, Maine; and Director, Contracts Navy Supply Center, Puget Sound.

Mr. Vincent holds a Masters in Business Administration from George Washington University.

He serves on the National Contract Management Association Board of Directors and Board of Advisors; Board of Directors Navy League National Capital Council; Board of Directors, NDIA Washington DC Chapter; Board of Visitors, Defense Acquisition University; member of AFCEA, AUSA, NDTA.