| July 2001
Minutes
Indiana Chapter
DINFOS Alumni Association
PO Box 26295
Indianapolis, Indiana 46226-9001
The fifteenth meeting of the Indiana Chapter of the D1NFOS
Alumni Association was held at 8:30 am on July 21, 2001, at
The Garrison at Ft. Harrison State Park. Attached is a listing
of those who attended.
The President of the Alumni Association opened the meeting
by asking all of those present to introduce themselves.
He then introduced the guest speaker, Colonel Hiram Bell,
the Commandant of the Defense Information School. He
especially mentioned that Colonel Bell was a Distinguished
honor graduate of the DINFOS Public Affairs Officer Course
here at Ft. Harrison, and prior to being appointed Commandant,
had served as the Director of the Public Affairs Proponent at
DINFOS, Ft. Meade.
Colonel Bell expressed appreciation to everyone for coming
and thanked them for their hospitality and for sustaining the
DINFOS Alumni Association. He emphasized that it is clear that
without this group, there would be no Alumni Association.
He presented a quick update on the school as follows:
-
It is fully
understood that the services are the school’s primary
customers who employ our graduates because of their
training. People can’t believe what we do at the school. We
have to meet customers’ needs, and we are different from a
civilian institution. We must be of maximum value to our
customers, and we have to do it faster, better and cheaper.
-
We offer resident
training along with distance learning. We will soon offer as
much in distance learning as resident training. We are now
working to train PAOC (RC) through distance learning with
the same number of faculty. To meet needs, we will have to
do our training differently. We will create a Lessons
Learned Component to record our training venture with
distance learning.
-
The school is
involved in participating in a Joint Public Affairs
Doctrinal Manual. If we are going to maintain our identity,
we will have to do other things besides teaching courses in
residence. An effort is underway to get PAO Distance
Learning up to speed. We are developing technology to help
with remedial writing and speaking. D1NFOS will become a
career-long, professional development center available to
our customers to which the Alumni Association will have a
linkage.
-
When thinking
about the future of the school, we realize the importance of
the Alumni Association. It is strategic in what it can do on
behalf of the students. The Alumni Association will have a
vital role in this challenge. Our goal is to reestablish an
Alumni Association at Ft. Meade. I will have to get a local
volunteer group to kick off the alumni organization. I
received advice from the Army War College on how they met
this challenge with their Alumni Association.
Colonel Bell held a question and answer period. A variety
of questions were asked to include his vision for the Alumni
Association. He said he looked at the reasons the Alumni
Association should exist. One reason is its means of support
for un-appropriated funds such as buying books for the DINFOS
Library and Technical Reference Center as it has done in the
past.
The next agenda item was an update on Ft. Harrison by LTC
Chuck Ricks, USA-Ret, who was recently appointed Deputy Mayor
of the City of Lawrence. He reported the following:
Dr. Rubak read letters he had received from General John
Carlson, a member of the DINFOS Hall of Fame, and from Colonel
Walter Moore, a former DINFOS Commandant. They both wanted to
be remembered to those present.
The last order of business was the election of officers to
serve on the Alumni Association’s Executive Council. A motion
was made and seconded to approve all of the nominations in a
blanket vote.
The meeting adjourned at 11:30 am.
Respectfully submitted,
Jack Rubak
President
Helen C. Stritt
Secretary
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