Gayle S. Shull served her Nation in support of operational testing for more than thirty-nine years. She served as an early leader and innovator in the areas of information technology and test technology.  Her leadership, and the contributions of the teams she led, contributed to the successful operational testing of the Army’s most complex systems during those four decades, to include multiple iterations of test events for the Future Combat System (FCS), Network Integration Evaluation (NIE), Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), Distributed Common Ground Systems-Army (DCGS-A), Army Battle Command Systems (ABCS), Stryker, and many other major Army and Joint programs.

For twenty-six years, Ms. Shull served in senior leadership roles with early leadership of two different technical areas of vast importance to operational testing -– information technology and test technology -– representing a unique contribution to the Army’s test and evaluation enterprise and the evolution of the art and science of operational testing.

Over the thirteen-year period of 1975-1988, Ms. Shull progressed from GS-5 computer intern to GS-15 Director.  She led the development of data reduction and analysis systems to support more than 25 field evaluations, two modeling/simulation projects, three military intelligence evaluations, an Army Aviation Reorganization Study, the personnel information system for the Army's New Manning System Evaluation, and numerous office automation projects.  Her talent and tenacity were key to her success as an information technologist and allowed her to advance to the highest levels of leadership.

She led the Army Training and Doctrine Command’s introduction of early distributed computing resources as well as leading efforts to provide automated data collection and analysis support to test teams.  Some of this early work included the deployment in 1983 of a first-of-its-kind automated “clipboard” to allow the collection of data at widely dispersed field sites during a nuclear weapons command and control systems test.

From 1988 until 1999, Ms. Shull served as Director of Information Systems for TRADOC’s new Test and Experimentation Command (TEXCOM) with responsibility for network operations supporting the Combined Arms Test Center at Fort Cavazos, Texas, the TEXCOM Experimentation Center at Fort Hunter Liggett, California, the nine former test boards located nationwide, direct test support at Fort Cavazos, and staff support for TEXCOM.

From 1999 until 2002, Ms. Shull provided visionary leadership to information management and information technology for the newly formed Headquarters, U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC), one year as acting Deputy Chief of Staff for Information Management (DCSIM) and facility manager, and two years as Associate Director of the Information Technology Support Activity.

In 2002, re-assigned to what was now the U.S. Army Operational Test Command, the OTC Commander asked Ms. Shull to design and implement a technology planning and support directorate using personnel assets from three directorates.  She managed an annual technology budget of $20 million per year and led an organization of 26 military and civil service engineers and simulation specialists augmented by support from more than 50 contractors.  Ms. Shull had oversight responsibilities for the command’s test technology investment, acquisition, sustainment and development efforts, as well as providing direct support to test teams during test planning, preparation, and execution.

Her passion for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) included mentoring countless government employees and an equally countless number of those not yet old enough to work for the government.  Her support to STEM and robotics programs at local schools contributed to a generation of local school children being encouraged to pursue STEM educations.  Ms. Shull remained the Director, Test Technology Directorate, as a Department of the Army Civilian employee until her retirement on June 1, 2014.

She has left a legacy for the operational testing community as a continual leader for information and test technology.