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SPONSORS
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Keynote Presentations
Specially selected keynote addresses will take us into the future looking at population, technology and the environment, and how to prepare our simulation capability for a more sophisticated audience. We will also look back and reflect on past learning, delving into the specific challenges we are currently facing around skills shortage, platform interoperability and reducing cost of ownership.
The Need for Change - Implications on Capability
MAJGEN Steve Day
Joint Capability Coordinator, VCDF Group
Department of Defence
Read GEN Day's speech.
Major General Day was born into a military family in Sydney in 1960, attending a number of schools within Australia and overseas. His father and both grandfathers also served with the Australian Army.
After graduation from the Officer Cadet School at Portsea, he was commissioned into the Corps of Royal Australian Engineers in 1982. He has served in a variety of engineer (or sapper) units, including as the Commanding Officer of the 3rd Combat Engineer Regiment. His operational service has included deployments to Namibia, East Timor and as the Director of Strategic Operations with the Multi-National Force in Iraq. For his service in East Timor with the International Forces, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
Major General Day has been an instructor at the Royal Military College, Duntroon; has been a Staff Officer to the Chief of Defence Force; and has attended Defence Colleges in Australia and Malaysia. He has qualifications from New South Wales, Canberra, Deakin and Malaya Universities.
He is a passionate cricket and rugby supporter and the current Patron of Army Cricket. Major General Day and his wife have three adult children, one of whom is now also serving in the Army.
Following an appointment as the Director General Plans at Joint Operational Command, he was appointed as the Commander of "South Queensland’s Own" - the 7th Brigade - in December 2007. Major General Day was promoted and appointed as Head of Joint Capability and Coordination in February 2010.
People Challenges
Professor Ross McAree
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Queensland
Vice President for Automation, CRCMining
Professor McAree has been working in the field of mining technology and equipment with CRCMining for the last 10 years with a focus on the development of operator assist tools for electric mining shovels.
Prior to Joining the University of Queensland he was an academic in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford.
System Challenges
COL (ret) Dennis Thompson
Colonel US Marine Corps (Retired)
Director, Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) Training Simulations Division, Marine Corps Training and Education Command,
Quantico, Virginia
Mr. Thompson served nearly 30 years of active duty in the US Marine Corps in a wide range of Joint and Marine Corps billets, retiring as a colonel in 2005. Operational tours include service with infantry, artillery, combat service support, reconnaissance, special operations capable, and communications units, as well as serving on two Marine Expeditionary Force staffs. Strategic and operational level staff experience was gained through duty with Headquarters Marine Corps, the Joint Staff, and US Central Command. Training and education related tours include serving as the Marine Officer Instructor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and commanding two formal Marine Corps schools. He attended numerous Joint and Service professional military education schools as a student. He commanded at every rank and was designated a Joint Service Officer.
Upon retiring from active service, Mr. Thompson became a research fellow with the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank focused on policy options regarding governmental use of science and technology. Assigned to the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory’s Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities, he conducted research regarding the capabilities implications of future Marine Corps’ operations in Africa, hybrid warfare, actionable intelligence at the small unit level, and company grade officer training and professional military education. Following advancement to senior research fellow in 2006, Mr. Thompson supported Office of Naval Research and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency initiatives related to expeditionary operations, distributed operations, and irregular warfare.
Mr. Thompson became the Director, MAGTF Training Simulations Division in September 2008. His responsibilities include integration of ground and aviation simulations and simulators to support small unit, MAGTF, and combine arms training and resource sponsorship for ground virtual and constructive simulation training systems.
What is cost of ownership and how to finance it
Mr Heath Shonhan
Director, Business Advisory Services, Bentlys
After beginning his career with a “Big 4” accounting firm, Heath joined Bentleys in 2004 and was appointed a Director in our Business Advisory area in 2006.
His experience spans family business, middle markets and institutional advisory, assurance, management consulting and corporate finance. He has worked with clients in local and international markets, and has been the key advisor to many large organisations – including ABN AMRO, GlaxoSmithKline and Horizon Housing Ltd.
Throughout his career, Heath has been proactive in guiding businesses and organisations through times of strategic and operational review. He has considerable experience in developing management decision making tools and long term business resilience planning.
His clients span a broad cross section of industries, and include not-for-profit organisations, health and aged care, property and construction, pharmaceutical, tourism and leisure, manufacturing and retail and Australian subsidiaries of foreign listed companies.
What are Factors that Shape Capability?
BRIG Barry McManus
Director General Capability and Plans, Department of Defence
Barry McManus was born and raised in Brisbane. He joined the Army in 1980 and graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon into the Royal Australian Corps of Transport in 1983. His junior career involved a range of regimental appointments within the 1st Division Transport Regiment.
He has held Corps, Logistic and all Corps training appointments including Senior Instructor Logistics at the Army Logistic Training Centre, Directing Staff at the Army Command and Staff College, Queenscliff and in 2008 Commandant of the Australian Command and Staff College.
His operational appointments have included service as a military observer with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation based in Israel and with the United Nations Protection Force in the Former Yugoslavia. For his service in Yugoslavia he was awarded a United Nations Force Commander’s Commendation. As the Commanding Officer of the 9th Force Support Battalion he saw further operational service in support of the International Force East Timor and subsequently the United Nations Transition Authority East Timor in 2000. On return from East Timor he commanded the Tri-Service Force Support Battalion providing transport, personnel, military policing and logistics support to the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Brigadier McManus has also held the operational appointment of Commanding General of the Joint Headquarters Transition Team, Multi National Security Transition Command – Iraq, where he led coalition officers advising and mentoring the Iraqi Joint Headquarters and Ministry of Defence. He was awarded the US Legion of Merit – Officer, for his efforts in this appointment.
Senior staff appointments include Chief of Staff Logistics Support Force, Acting Colonel Operations Support at Land Headquarters, Chief of Staff Land Warfare Centre and the Chief Staff Officer Personnel and Logistics (J1/J4), Headquarters Joint Operations Command. For his services as the J1/J4 he was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday Awards. Currently he is the Director General Capability and Plans in Capability Development Group where his responsibilities include future Capability Planning, Capability Options Testing, Network Centric Warfare, Interoperability and Ballistic Missile Defence.
Brigadier McManus has two teenage children Connor and Meghan who reside in Brisbane. His leisure interests include logistic military history and Rugby League and Cricket.
As a 1983 graduate of the University of New South Wales he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Military Studies. He completed a Master of Defence Studies through the University of Canberra in 1999. Brigadier McManus is a graduate of the British Army Command and Staff College, Camberley and the Australian College for Defence and Strategic Studies.
