By Lt. Mike Randazzo, USNR, Air Systems Program Public Affairs Officer

Featuring a powerful lineup of top industry and military featured speakers, the 2004 Science, Technology & Engineering (STE) Workshop at the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina, May 20-22, promises to be a must attend event.

Now in its second year, the STE Workshop is an annual program organized and staffed by the Science, Technology and Engineering Consortium, an informal organization of Naval Reservists representing the Navy’s various engineering and scientific communities.

This year's event is formally sponsored by the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and co-sponsored by the Naval Reserve Association. Attendance is open to all active duty and reserve military members, government employees, industry partners and the media. The 2004 program focuses on FORCEnet, the Navy's joint forces information exchange solution initiative, and the importance of providing cost-wise readiness by increasing collaborative efforts with industry to develop and deploy more effective warfighter tools.

"Our Naval Aviation Enterprise has embarked on a journey to better understand, manage, and ultimately, reduce the true costs of military readiness,” said Vice Admiral Walter Massenburg, NAVAIR Commander. "We recognize, and want to leverage, the experience and expertise our industry partners can bring to this effort.

Top industry leaders and senior executives from Southwest Airlines, Texas Instruments, Dell, Best Buy, Cisco, Boeing, MySQL, and Organizational Planning & Design will present their views on best practices and experience in transforming their respective organizations to excel under challenging operating conditions.

Confirmed military speakers include Vice Admiral Massenburg, NAVAIR Commander, Rear Admiral Gallagher, Commander Carrier Group FOUR, Rear Admiral Miller, Deputy Assistant to the President & Director, White House Military Office, and Rear Admiral Hazara, Director, Air Systems Program.

Rapidly growing numbers of industry participants are also planning to operate corporate exhibitions that that will run concurrently with scheduled speaker’s presentations.

The final segment of the STE Workshop 2004 is the formal presentation of scientific and technical papers associated primarily with the event’s FORCEnet theme. While most entries will be submitted by members of the STE Consortium communities, the committee will consider those from other sources.

The STE Consortium was formed to better leverage the combined military and civilian expertise of highly technical Naval Reserve professionals in augmenting the efforts of their active duty counterparts through the increased use of best business practices, state-of-the-art tools, and integrated Reserve support for common projects that transcend traditional boundaries. The group strives to provide meaningful input that directly results in superior Warfighter support.

STE Consortium core membership includes senior officer representatives from seven separate commands: the Naval Sea Systems Command, Naval Air Systems Command, Office of Naval Research, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, Naval Network Warfare Command, Naval Network & Space Operations Command, and the Naval Facilities Engineering Command. Participation in the STE Consortium has recently expanded to include limited representation from similar communities in the Marine Corps, Air Force, Army and Coast Guard.

For more information on the conference, presentations, exhibitor lists, and registration please visit http://www.navair.navy.mil/ste/index.htm or contact Lieutenant Commander Ken Georgevits, STEW 2004 Marketing Director, at [email protected].