Dr. Marion Bryson was a major contributor to Army operational testing for over 25 years.  As a scientific advisor, director, and technical director of major Army operational organizations, he left a lasting imprint on how the Army of today and of the future will conduct operational and force development tests and experiments.

Dr. Bryson was extremely influential in the realization that the experimental battlefield was a joint military-scientific creation - an enterprise blending military experience with scientific method.  He consistently espoused that battlefield realism was the province of the experienced soldier and that the soldier and scientist must meet on a middle ground of technology.

He was the scientist in the foxhole and tank turret, with the soldiers, using a clipboard and stopwatch to record data, but always with a vision to the future of data collection.  It was under his direction that CDEC quickly evolved into the Army's premier highly sophisticated electronic field laboratory at Fort Hunter Liggett.

When CDEC was reorganized and re-designated as a center in 1983, Dr. Bryson was appointed as the first civilian director, a position he held for nine years.

The civilian equivalent of a brigadier general, Dr. Bryson led the only test organization of its kind that included an armor-mechanized infantry task force dedicated to the test and experimentation mission.  He was respected as "the Commander" of the unique soldier-scientist team of more than 1,000 military and civilians.