| MICHAEL A. PARMENTIER
Mike Parmentier is the Director of Readiness and Training in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He advises the Secretary on all policies, programs, and budgets for the Department’s education and training activities (individual, collective, and joint training). His current focus is on accelerating the development and application of learning technologies, large-scale use of simulations, and opportunities to streamline DoD’s training infrastructure (bases, ranges, schoolhouses). He has chaired or led numerous activities for a broad range of major studies and commissions addressing readiness and training. Mike also has held managerial, analytical, and technical positions in OSD Program Analysis and Evaluation, in Air Force Studies and Analyses, and at the RAND Corporation.
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The President has signed an Executive Memorandum directing the National Economic Council to develop a Federal Plan and a National Strategy for using learning technologies to improve education and training and to lower costs. Earlier the Secretary of Defense had directed the Department to find ways to develop a strategy for accelerating the application of learning technologies on a broad scale. The DoD’s vision is to be able to ensure that its people have "access to the highest quality education and training, tailored to needs, wherever and whenever it is required." Efforts to achieve these goals resulted in the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative. In developing ADL, it quickly became apparent that the guidelines and standards, implementing technologies, and learning objectives that serve DoD’s needs are almost identical to those of other public government agencies and the private sector. Recognizing this commonality, the President’s memorandum cited the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative as a model for both the Federal and National efforts. ADL brings together the public and private sectors to develop a common technical framework based on several key elements, including:
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