FORT BRAGG, N.C. - Years of innovation and hard work were officially recognized March 15, when Preston Short, a training specialist at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, was presented with the prestigious dL Maverick Award at the ninth annual Army Distributed Learning Conference.
Created in 2007 by self-professed "maverick" Dr. Connie Wardell, the director of the Individual Training Support Directorate for the U.S. Army Training Support Center, the purpose of the award is to salute fellow mavericks in the field of distributive learning.
"(The award) is to recognize personnel who are out-of-the-box thinkers," said Trientje Tippens, Army dL Conference coordinator for the ATSC.
Short, one of eight dL Maverick finalists Army-wide, serves as the supervisory training specialist for the Office of Interactive Multimedia Instruction in the SWCS Directorate of Training and Doctrine.
In less than five years, Short brought the concept of using gaming in SWCS distributed learning from an idea to reality, building a team that has the capabilities to make it happen.
"I surrounded myself with people that could get me to the vision of where we were going," said Short. With another former SF operator and gaming enthusiast Andy Brittenham, and two programmers lured from high-end gaming companies, Short's office is creating dL materials that they hope will compete with commercial video games.
Short credits that team, the products they have created and many others who made the gaming division possible, with winning the dL Maverick award.
"I felt proud initially - then awkward," said Short. "Those are the guys that bring it to life. For me to accept the award as if I'm the only one that completed the race ... it's just awkward. To me, dL has always been a team effort, not an individual effort."
Col. David Witty, director of DOTD, nominated Short for the award because he is a recognized pioneer in his field.
"It's just phenomenal what all he's done," said Witty. "Anything that happens in the battlefield we can recreate digitally with very good effects in VBS2."
Virtual Battle Space 2 is the program Short and his team use that allows for realistic battlefield simulations.
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