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Lockheed Martin C-130 Aircrew Training Systems |
By Hampton Roads Partnership’s Megan C. O’Reilly, volunteer summer communication intern with an M.A. in Global Communications from The American University of Paris and a B.A. in Public Relations from Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee, and Missy Schmidt, Vice President-Strategic Communication and Marketing
According to the Congressional Modeling & Simulation Caucus, ModSim or M&S, involves complex computer models to create artificial environments. From doctors performing hands-on simulated surgeries, to homeland security models that account for details such as wind direction and construction sites, to transportation models that show projected traffic patterns decades into the future, M&S is breaking out of the defense industry and into the everyday lives of Americans. Using simulations saves time and money, improves quality and is often safer than conducting experiments with a real prototype.
| In 2007, Congress declared M&S as a National Critical Technology, i.e., America’s future economic development is dependent upon this technology for continuous advancements in the fields of science and engineering. |
Hampton Roads, in Southeastern Virginia just three hours south of Washington, D.C., is a collection of rural, urban, suburban and urban-suburban communities. It is home to the Port of Virginia and nearly one-fourth of the nation’s active-duty military personnel. With the third largest concentration of assets in the U.S. and Canada, the region is a global leader in M&S led by the needs of the military with growth and expansion into emergency management, transportation, medicine and game-based learning.
| Old Dominion University’s (ODU) Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC), is the centerpiece of M&S today in Hampton Roads. |
U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), active since 1999 and based in Hampton Roads, was responsible for about 80% of VMASC’s startup funding, an $80 million overall investment. JFCOM was the impetus for M&S growth in the region with military efforts to save money – and lives – using simulated war games.
JFCOM closed this year under federal efforts to cut military spending in the first-ever disestablishment of a U.S. combatant command. Thanks to local, state and congressional leaders’ efforts, approximately one-half of JFCOM’s nearly 4,000 essential function jobs will be saved and reassigned locally. All layoffs will be complete by March 2012, leaving a collection of brilliant minds and expertise available within the region to pursue new ventures.
In 2010, when Dept. of Defense (DoD) Secretary Robert Gates made the closure announcement, 10,000 jobs were estimated to be lost within not only the command, but also local industry. The closure of JFCOM is estimated to save DoD $450 million annually, and an expected $200 to $300 million will be lost within Hampton Roads as a direct result of the loss.
Modeling and Simulation, Medical and more – the future in Hampton Roads
As the region transitions M&S workers from a DoD focus, Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) and ODU’s medical educators turn to modeling and simulation rooms, called “immersive labs,” set up for students to practice performing procedures on a mannequin in a special environment. Hospital staffs, in the form of avatars, project on the walls around the students and move about the room, creating the same amount of complexity one would find in the operating room.
To practice in high intensity situations, such as on the battlefield, a digital war zone with the sounds of gunfire and helicopters may immerse students, an experience they would not gain in the classroom. Dr. Donald Combs, Vice President and Dean, School of Health Professions for EVMS, explained that within only a few practice runs in the “immersive labs,” the virtual patient survival rate grew from 20% to 80%.
Dr. Combs proposes the potential for M&S extends far beyond the medical field, “all markets evolve and change; it’s not change itself that’s the problem, it is how we craft a response to it.”
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Old Dominion University, Medical Modeling and Simulation |
M&S allows for increased efficiency and lower cost for companies, says Dr. Johnny Garcia, of Hampton Roads-based SimIS, Inc., a veteran-owned 8(a) Information Technology services corporation. His company developed an M&S service technology to facilitate a company’s data portability and collaboration without incurring infrastructure costs.
According to Tom Mastaglio, founding director of VMASC and now CEO of MYMIC LLC, a service-disabled, veteran-owned small business, “A real strength is our educational offerings in M&S in the region. We are the leaders. We need to make sure we don’t lose that.”
The Hampton Roads region is the only place in the world where one will find an innovative continuum of M&S education from high school through PhD and annual exiting military personnel – that numbers 10,000-plus – with exposure to and/or expertise in M&S since its birth.
MODSIM World, International Conference in Hampton Roads
The MODSIM World Conference and Expo began in 2007 when the Hampton Roads Partnership (HRP) saw the need to share information on the vast amount of M&S based development occurring in the area within a wide variety of industries from Defense & Homeland Security and first responders, to health and medicine, to human behavior, to education, to serious gaming and virtual worlds. The conference’s synergy was created by the efforts of JFCOM, VMASC, EVMS, NASA Langley Research Center and many other military organizations, colleges, universities, and industry organizations. Learn more at http://ModSimWorldConference.com.
M&S Cluster, Innovate!HamptonRoads
From the region’s first Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) sprang Innovate!HamptonRoads™, a cluster-based program of HRP whose mission is to promote locally grown business, technology-based economic development by connecting ideas, entrepreneurs and capital. M&S, the most mature of the six clusters, stimulates high growth new business formation and ignites the commercialization of research innovation. According to Tom Osha, ODU’s Economic Development Officer, “HRP has a leadership role in making sure we are doing economic gardening, nurturing the companies we already have here.” For more information, visit http://InnovateHamptonRoads.com.
Additional Hampton Roads M&S FACTS:
- M&S jobs pay more than double the average regional salary.
- 2009-U.S. Congress directed VMASC to lead the National M&S Standards Study.
- 2008-U.S. Department of Labor granted $5 million to promote M&S use in transportation, warehouse and distribution industries.
- 2006-Congressional M&S Caucus held its first annual Leadership Summit in Hampton Roads, continuing today.