Michael B. Nott served his Nation for more than forty-five years, retiring in 1992 as an Army officer after twenty-four years, then serving another twenty-one years as a Department of the Army Civilian.  He began his support to operational testing while on active duty from the late 1970s to mid-1980s with assignments as a test officer for the Communications Electronics Test Board (CETD) at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and a test officer for the Battlefield Automation Test Directorate (BATD), TRADOC Combined Arms Test Activity (TCATA), Fort Cavazos, Texas.

In 1992, Mr. Nott continued his career in operational testing as an Army Civilian for the Test and Experimentation Command (TEXCOM), where he served as a test officer for the Command, Control, Communications, and Computers Test Directorate (C4TD).  Over a fifteen year period, Mr. Nott worked his way from a Test Officer (1992) to Deputy Director, Mission Command Test Directorate, and serving three years as the Director (2008-2011).

Mr. Nott was responsible for the operational testing of many programs on the DOT&E Oversight list and ACAT ID programs, such as the Brigade Subscriber Node (BSN) and Joint Network Node (JNN), both predecessors for establishing the communication backbone of the Army, now known as the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T).

Additionally, his leadership helped build the Army's Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) in 2011.  With his test directorate as the lead, he paved the way for NIE to become a world-class venue for conducting tests at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, and Fort Bliss, Texas.

At the beginning of NIE, Mr. Nott led the teaming effort of the Brigade Modernization Command (now Joint Modernization Command), Army Test and Evaluation Command, and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology (ASA/ALT) System-of-Systems Engineering and Integration (SOSEI).  This partnership was crucial to ensuring new capabilities could be evaluated without impacting the entire test network.

During his operational testing career, Mr. Nott championed the importance of objective data for testers and worked with OTC’s Test Technology Directorate to ensure test instrumentation was at the forefront for test planning, which ensured a live virtual constructive environment (LVC) was an integral part of the NIE design.

His strategic direction during the formative stages of the NIE helped ensure a dynamic operational environment that included all of the enabling components required for operational realism, such as Electronic Warfare, LVC, instrumentation, a competitive OPFOR, and Cybersecurity.  Mr. Nott’s trailblazing work was the foundation of today’s NIE processes, which are also used for the Joint Warfighter Assessments (JWAs).

Mr. Nott’s leadership was the driving force behind the collaboration with DoD and DA partners, resulting in the delivery of systems that have been tested on an integrated network prior to putting them in the hands of Soldiers.

His knowledge and mentoring of Soldiers and Army Civilians in the testing arena was recognized on a national level in 2011 when he was named the National Defense Industrial Association’s Government Tester of the Year.

Mr. Nott’s total Army and Army Civilian careers spanned forty-six years, always with “what is best for the Soldier” in mind.

Mr. Nott remained the Deputy Director of MCTD as a Department of the Army Civilian employee until his retirement on December 14, 2012.  Mr. Nott has left a legacy for the operational testing community as a continual leader for the conduct of mission command and network integration operational testing.