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**CANCELLED**

Course Dates:  March 30-31, 2010

**CANCELLED**

Course Description

A two-day program which includes college-level textbooks, instructor slides, 150 pages of CONOPs templates, checklists, technical writing tips, and good and bad CONOPs example templates. Course results in a certificate of CONOPs competency

Day one: definition and structure of Concepts of Employment, Operating Concepts, Concepts of Operations; hands on exercises in innovation; small teams build People Mover (innovation exercise)

Day two: small teams design battlefield robotic medic, practice recognizing five levels and two types of CONOPs, practice building OpCons, assessing and improving existing CONOPs, working with other disciplines, building the CONOPs briefing; recognizing skewed data and flawed conclusions

Instructor

Mack McKinney has been in the DoD R&D field for many years, beginning with Westinghouse Defense in 1983.  He has personally managed R&D and other DoD projects up to $6M and has been the business area manager for dozens of projects developing low observable materials, mission avionics for future aircraft and other high tech components and subsystems.  Mack has a US patent in hyperspectral imagery and another in advanced radar processing for tactical engagements.

At Westinghouse Defense, which became Northrop Grumman in 1996, Mack helped develop a self-protection system for the AN/TPS-70 radar system.  This system consolidated several radar and IFF control functions into one easy-to-use control that eliminated exploitable emissions from the TPS-70 when threatened by an anti-radiation missile.  Also at Westinghouse, Mack’s team of Signature Management specialists reduced the signatures of combat platforms.  Additionally, Mack led a team of combat operations analysts in studies of various nations’ combat capabilities, weaknesses, strengths and possible enhancements.  Mack has helped design C3I systems for foreign nations including the UAE, Saudi Arabia Peace Pulse and Peace Shield, Peru, Honduras, Australia and several others.  Mack has a practitioner’s appreciation for C4I combat simulations and models such as the EADSIM and a current DoD Top Secret clearance.

            Prior to his work at Westinghouse, Mack was an Instructor Air Battle Manager (fighter controller) in the US Air Force from 1975 to 1983.  He taught controllers aerial combat techniques, including Russian air-to-air tactics, across the USAF, in Germany, Italy and elsewhere.  Mack maintains a solid grasp of current US and threat fighter armaments and tactics. 

            More recently, for Research Associates of Syracuse, with whom he still consults, Mack supported research efforts for the US Air Force’s signals intelligence (SIGINT) community.

Now working for his own consulting company, Solid Thinking Corporation, Mack brings a unique mix of radar, EW and business-related skills: 

• Management of mid-sized defense programs
• Combat operations analysis and studies, exploring electronic warfare techniques used by hostile combat platforms.  Mack has flown the F-15, the Russian MI-8 HIP and other military aircraft.  He has controlled fighters from the E-3 AWACS, the E-2C Hawkeye and ground based C4I systems worldwide, giving him a detailed understanding of air combat operations.
• Threat analysis, using his hands-on knowledge of threat systems. Mack has controlled MiG-21 fighters, using Russian P-35/7 BARLOCK and Chinese P-440 GCI radar systems, and has controlled from French and Italian C2I/radar systems.
• Generation of military CONOPS to support requirements generation and flow-down of the warfighters’ needs to systems engineering teams.  He has recently managed an Unmanned Air System CONOPS for the US Joint Forces Command and another CONOPS for an airborne, covert surveillance platform for the US Coast Guard.  His company, Solid Thinking Corporation, teaches CONOPS development and advanced project management techniques to the US military and to defense primes including Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Boeing, MITRE Corporation, Booz Allen Hamilton  and many others.

Registration Fees

• On or before Mar 15: AOC Members- $1250, AOC Non-members - $1350
• After Mar 15 - on-site: AOC Members- $1300, AOC Non-members - $1400

Location

AOC Headquarters, Alexandria VA