Wanted to let you know about three upcoming professional development opportunities you might be interested in:

·         Air Force Logistics Officer Association (LOA) Symposium (October 19-22, 2015) in Arlington VA.  Overview: According to their website, the LOA Symposium is a premier event dedicated to enabling interactive exchanges among senior logistics leaders, industry, and logistics operators. This year's theme L.I.V.E. (Leadership, Innovation, Velocity, Excellence) exemplifies the mission of the Symposium to offer a forum where senior leaders and career minded logisticians and logistics operators can collaborate to identify challenges and discuss real solutions to rapidly improve the logistic capabilities and standards of today's U.S. Air Force.

·         DoD Diminishing Manufacturing Sources & Material Shortages (DMSMS) 2015 Conference (November 30-December 3, 2015) in Phoenix AZ.  Overview: with a theme of “Innovation, Technical Excellence, and Quality through the DMSMS Enterprise”, the focus will be on better DMSMS management and investments can actually deliver increased readiness while freeing funds for modernization of critical systems, thus resulting in a net gain. The critical issue at hand is how to best balance investments in readiness, such as DMSMS mitigation, with modernization of defense systems where needed for capability or life cycle cost savings The best practices in DMSMS will continue to push awareness and mitigation early in the design and development cycle, applying improved forecasting analytics and parts management across the services, utilizing the digital thread throughout the life cycle,   and providing visibility into potential DMSMS threats along the life cycle.  Anti-counterfeiting technologies and standards will comprehensively track inventories and actively provide trusted components.  This conference will provide a balanced spectrum of DMSMS practices to improve DoD affordability. Note: this event is being held in conjunction with the Defense Manufacturing Conference (DMC).

·         2015 DoD Maintenance Symposium (December 7-10, 2015) also in Phoenix AZ. Overview: with a theme of “Achieving Uncommon Results through Innovation, Collaboration, and Leadership”, the mission of the 2015 DoD Maintenance Symposium is to create an environment that enables attendees to share relevant information, identify critical issues, discuss key topics, and increase their awareness of Department of Defense maintenance initiatives. At this event, attendees have the unique opportunity to influence the future of the maintenance community. Attendees will include military, government and industry leaders, and maintainers from all levels at this distinctive, first class event - the maintenance community's primary venue. The DoD Maintenance Symposium is also co-located with the Defense Maintenance and Logistics Exhibition.