There has never been a time when training military forces wasn’t a necessary and critical aspect to preparing for battle. Yet over the decades, the way the military trains, and the technology that has enabled training, has evolved rapidly. The Modern Military Training team is looking at the industry over the years and talking with industry veterans about their exciting careers finding innovative ways through modeling, simulation and training, and live training to prepare warfighters for the mission ahead.

In this Faces of Training series, we are talking to people across the industry, including leaders at the Department of Defense, former warfighters, engineers and innovators, and academics and researchers, who are at the forefront of training our forces. In this video, we talk with Nick Scarnato, Director, Strategic Development for Training & Mission Solutions at Collins Aerospace. Scarnato has been in the industry for 39 years, with a passion for building partnerships within the industry and bringing together the best and the brightest to create adaptive, innovative, high-fidelity training solutions to help warfighters train like they fight.

During his time in the industry, Scarnato has seen many innovations, but for the most part, he is seeing that solutions are “getting a lot smaller and faster.” From mainframes, to PC’s, to handheld devices, the training industry and the solutions that have been developed have continued to see transformation and revolution. Those technological innovations continue to develop, which is what excites Scarnato the most.

“When you think about the head mounted displays and how they were just in their infancy not so long ago, and to see the leap forward with increased field of view, near-eye limiting resolution, and the ability to connect it into a simulation environment with non-perceptive latency issues, it has the promise to eliminate large format displays,” Scarnato shared with us. These types of innovations are what keeps him excited about the market and where it is going.

As for a younger generation of professionals looking at STEM related professions, Scarnato advises them to “go running, full steam ahead, into the simulation and training field. Every discipline of engineering is utilized in this marketplace.”

Watch Scarnato’s full interview on the importance of simulation and training here: