GTRI Honors Huntsville Research Laboratory's 30 Years of Service

(L-R): Georgia Tech President, Dr. Wayne Clough, AMRDEC Director, Dr. William McCorkle and Georgia Tech Vice President & GTRI Director, Dr .Stephen Cross.

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GTRI's Huntsville Research Laboratory (HRL) is celebrating a major anniversary. HRL became official exactly 30 years ago - in February 1978 - when Georgia Tech research faculty began establishing an onsite presence at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., to support U.S. Army missile technology.

Since its modest beginning as "Huntsville Operations," the laboratory's impact has grown, branching out into a variety of defense fields. Moreover, its location on a key Army installation has helped enhance communication between its parent organization, the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), and its military stakeholders.

"Our Huntsville Research Laboratory is an extremely important part of our overall strategy," says Stephen E. Cross, GTRI's director and a Georgia Institute of Technology vice president. "It has delivered outstanding technical assistance and real innovation on a consistent basis, which is reflected in the positive feedback we get from our stakeholders."

HRL's milestone was celebrated at a Feb. 26 Huntsville event that drew some 200 attendees, including Georgia Tech officials, researchers and alumni, and representatives from the Army and other U.S. military branches.

Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough presented a GTRI award to William McCorkle, executive director of the Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) and an early proponent of a permanent GTRI presence in Huntsville. McCorkle is the first recipient of the GTRI Award for Exceptional Innovation and Leadership.

In making the award, Clough remarked on McCorkle's many achievements in Army rocket and missile technology and praised him for his vision.

"What we are celebrating today is Dr. McCorkle's bold solution - to bring in Georgia Tech to Huntsville and established the permanent presence of GTRI engineers at Redstone Arsenal," Clough said.

Today, HRL focuses on software engineering and system engineering for a variety of U.S. Department of Defense programs, says Barry Bullard, the lab's director. HRL's biggest customers include the Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center (AMRDEC); the Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM); the Security Assistance Management Directorate (SAMD); the Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC); the Army Program Executive Office Missile and Space; the Army Program Executive Office Aviation; and the Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency.

These agencies keep HRL busy with research that covers air defense systems modeling, software testing and evaluation, war-game simulations and analysis, and weapons system modernization. The lab's current work includes hardware/software-in-the-loop (H/SWIL) systems engineering and analysis of the Patriot air and missile defense system, as well as ongoing modernization of the Hawk air defense system, a legacy system still used by numerous U.S. allies.

"In our 30 years here, we've had the opportunity to work with the Army on its missile defense mission as well as grow our sponsor relationships into other areas," says Bullard, HRL director since 1998. "Our expansion into the aviation mission area and several forms of system engineering is keeping our staff of 33 very busy."

William Craig leads AMRDEC's Software Engineering Directorate, HRL's biggest customer. Craig calls GTRI's Huntsville lab "certainly one of the better contractors that we have.... You have unique expertise and very capable people, and you have given us valuable expertise in a number of areas."

AMRDEC Executive Director McCorkle has been at Redstone Arsenal for nearly 50 years. He, too, expresses long-term satisfaction with the Huntsville lab's work.

"It's certainly true that we're happy with GTRI's work," McCorkle says. "Over the years, it's been a very good thing for both us and for Georgia Tech.... You have done important technical work on the Hawk system and assisted us in the air-defense arena, and that's been a good arrangement."

McCorkle adds that he visited GTRI recently and was impressed by a new Georgia Tech application of surface response methodology. "It's a very interesting new application in which Georgia Tech is the leader," he said.

Richard Stanley, HRL's first full-time director (1984-1998) and now director emeritus, recalls that McCorkle was indeed a major factor in bringing Georgia Tech to Huntsville.

"In the 1970s when GTRI was still known as the Engineering Experiment Station (EES)," Stanley relates, "its personnel would often travel from the main campus in Atlanta to Huntsville to support Army technology."

"During that period, World War II-era Army engineers were retiring in large numbers, and Redstone Arsenal needed additional technical support," Stanley says. "McCorkle considered the issue and came up with the idea of a permanent Georgia Tech presence in Huntsville."

Bob Shackleford, director of what was then GTRI's Electro-Magnetics Laboratory, worked with McCorkle's senior staff to make the proposal a reality. By early 1979, six Georgia Tech research faculty and co-op students had settled into government offices at Redstone Arsenal.

"It gave Tech instant accessibility to the government sponsors who were in need of expertise," says Stanley.

Larry Schaefer, who has been serving as an HRL research engineer for nearly 29 years, remembers those early days. He recalls that the new Georgia Tech lab already felt stable and established when he joined in June 1979 as a new Purdue University physics graduate. He also remembers that the government-supplied office space was pretty basic.

But Schaefer was highly impressed by the research taking place at Redstone. He was soon working in the Army's Radio Frequency System Simulation building in Huntsville, which he describes as being truly state-of-the-art.

"A place like that was impressive," Schaefer says. "I was impressed not only by the technology that we were developing but also by what we were doing for the country."

Among other things, Huntsville Operations helped bring Georgia Tech to the daily attention of the Army. Stanley - who in 1979 was a Redstone-based Army officer with little knowledge of Georgia Tech - says the Huntsville office helped introduce him to Tech's capabilities. So did his acquaintance with George Ewell, an EES principal research engineer who served with Stanley on a Department of Defense blue-ribbon defense panel.

"In getting to know George, my knowledge and respect for Georgia Tech grew significantly," Stanley says. "And so some years later, when a stranger named Bob Shackleford called me about becoming director of the Huntsville office, he had my full attention."

When Stanley took over as the Huntsville lab director in March 1984, the staff there was already expanding rapidly.

"We had the full spectrum of research-faculty titles over here, as well as a large number of co-op students," he recalls. "That helped us broaden the scope of our research."

HRL has also worked closely with other GTRI labs and has helped establish new research collaborations for them. In this way, HRL has acted as a kind of GTRI liaison in Huntsville, as well as a research facility in its own right.

"Huntsville Research Laboratory was a factor in GTRI's becoming an University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) in 1995," Stanley recalls. "GTRI's accomplishments at Redstone Arsenal added to Georgia Tech's reputation within the Department of Defense."

Another significant role played by Georgia Tech in Huntsville is that of what Stanley calls "an honest broker."

"By utilizing GTRI, the Army was bringing in someone who was not part of industry or part of a governmental agency," Stanley says. "We could sit in between the various parties and give an objective, informed opinion about what would work and what would not."

Says Bullard: "The first 30 years, productive as they have been, may be only the beginning, and we look forward to growing in Huntsville and assisting the nation with its future science and technology defense needs."