RTC Names New Technical Director

By Christy Barnett, ATECNovember 29, 2017

RTC Commander Col. John W. Jones presented Rob Stone with his Certificate of Promotion upon being selected as the RTC Technical Director.
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

The U.S. Army Redstone Test Center, or RTC, announced the selection of Robert E. (Rob) Stone as the new Technical Director in September 2017.

Stone brings 31 years of experience in lifecycle test and evaluation, or T&E, to the senior civilian position at RTC. His experience spans from aviation and aviation systems, missiles, and sensor weapons systems across the T&E domains of modeling and simulation, hardware in the loop, and open-air test.

Stone entered Federal Service in May 2000 with the U.S. Army Aviation Technical Test Center, or ATTC, at Fort Rucker, Alabama. He served as the lead engineer in the Data Processing Division and was responsible for experimental flight test data collection.

Much of Stone's early work at ATTC paved the way for the capabilities currently in use for aviation flight test at RTC. Stone later served in ATTC as the chief of the Integrated Systems Test Division and of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Test Division.

Stone transitioned to Redstone Arsenal in 2010 when ATTC and the Redstone Technical Test Center, or RTTC, were combined to make RTC as a part of BRAC.

For the past six years, Stone has served as the technical lead for the Advanced Technology Office, or ATO, at RTC, where he became the Senior Advisor and Subject Matter Expert to the Command Staff on the current and future test capabilities of RTC.

Stone and his team developed and implemented a comprehensive Enterprise Gap Analysis Process to enable RTC to sustain current capabilities into the future and to develop plans to close identified gaps with new technology.

The success of Stone's efforts has been greatly invested by the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) in RTC, greatly enhancing its test capabilities for new Army weapons systems.

As RTC Technical Director, Stone will continue to steer future projects managed by the ATO.

Prior to joining ATTC and RTC, Stone worked for Nichols Research, supporting the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Command's hardware in the loop testing of HELLFIRE and Patriot PAC-3 missiles. Stone also worked for Teledyne Brown Engineering, supporting development of the Ground Based Interceptor. While at Teledyne Brown Engineering, Stone was the lead engineer for controls analysis of a NASA Space Shuttle payload supporting the Strategic Defense Initiative, and he performed engineering analysis to support the development of the Patriot PAC-1 missile system.

Stone is a graduate of Auburn University with a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering. He has been married to his wife Kay for 32 years, and they have three children.