Farewell to Kalphat and Dere – STTC Engineers
Michelle Kalphat, STTC Science and Technology Manager retires after 27 1/2 years of Federal Service
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Story Highlights
- Michelle Kalphat retires after 27 1/2 years of Federal Service.
- Troy Dere retires after 25 years of Federal Service.
- STTC bids farewell and best wishes to two engineers from the Blended Simulation Branch.
The Simulation and Training Technology Center (STTC) in Orlando bids farewell and best wishes to two engineers from the Blended Simulation Branch. Michelle Kalphat and Troy Dere were honored during a combined retirement ceremony on Sept. 19, 2012 officiated by Col. Matthew Clarke, the commander of STTC.
Kalphat served as a federal Employee for over 27 years beginning in 1985 with the Federal Aviation Administration as an aspiring air traffic control Trainee. She then went on to graduate with honors from the Army School of Engineering and Logistics Red River Army Depot Texarkana, Texas. Over the years, she held various positions working for the Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM), the Naval Air Warfare Center - Training System Division and the STTC.
During her tenure at the STTC, Kalphat became a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) agent working various programs to include the DARPA Grand Challenges I and II and cutting-edge holographic programs in which one of the holographic programs was featured in Time Magazine as a Department of Defense 2011 Top Invention.
Finally, she is the first person to serve three consecutive terms on the Association for Unmanned Vehicle System International (AUVSI) Board of Directors and the only women on the AUVSI Foundation. Kalphat is the founder of the Florida Peninsula AUVSI Chapter.
Dere is retiring following 25 years as a federal employee. He graduated from the University of Central Florida (UCF) in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering. In 1989, he accepted a job with the Navy at the Naval Sea Combat Systems in Norfolk, Va., working on surface-ship sonar systems. He later transferred to the Naval Air Station Oceana Virginia Beach, Va. (the Navy's Top Gun School on the East Coast).
Dere's next position brought him to Orlando and the Naval Air Warfare Center - Training System Division. He then made the jump from the Navy to the Army and joined STRICOM working Combat Training Center Instrumentation Programs and the Synthetic Theater of War – Europe Program better known as STOW-E in Hohenfels, Germany. Following STRICOM's realignment, Dere became part of the STTC family.
While at the STTC, he initially worked on Embedded Training Projects and implementing Linux. At the time, Linux had just become a new open source computer operating system. He also took over a research effort involving ultra-wideband technology; groundbreaking research for the time that set the stage for much of the target sensor data and personnel locating we see today.
Dere worked closely with UCF researching topics in the area of High Performance Computing. Their collaborative efforts are widely published to include pushing the idea of placing projects such as OneSAF on the cloud. Throughout his career, he was the lead author, co-author or principal investigator on more than 60 technical publications. Over his career, he managed approximately 243 contracts worth approximately $953 million.