Mr. Kelly is often quoted as a Simulation industry expert by the Orlando Sentinel and in the Central Florida Business section of the newspaper.  Excerpts from the most recent articles appear below:

June 3, 2011 – Expert Wants Virtual Training To Get Real
A combat trauma- care expert delivered a message to the virtual-reality training industry:  Make systems that are more realistic and less virtual. Industry officials said such feedback is valuable. “Obviously, the military needs more fidelity, more realism, in their training systems, there’s no doubt about that”, said Ken Kelly, an industry consultant in Orlando and former Chairman of the Board of the National Center for Simulation.  “It is understandable that Dr. Cain and others on the front line can get frustrated.  It often takes time for their voices to be heard”.

November 4, 2010 – Area’s Defense Simulators Face Pentagon Cuts
After almost a decade of unfettered wartime growth, Orlando’s high profile military training industry may be facing a slow down.  So far, the financial effects have not been drastic, said Ken Kelly, an Orlando defense consultant. “There are fewer new procurements available to bid on now, but I think there is possibly more funding available for maintenance, operations, and other services involving systems that are in the field. Everything considered, I think this industry will continue to be a growing industry, but perhaps not at the rate we’ve seen in the past”.
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October 17, 2010 – Orlando Company Battles Back in Training-Simulation Industry
ECS is not alone in its focus on finding new markets for its training and simulation technology, said Ken Kelly, and industry consultant in Orlando and former Chairman of the National Center for Simulation industry association. “You have quite a few simulation companies expending their resources on finding new business in areas such as health care, transportation and other non-defense applications,” Kelly said.  “We’re seeing a lot of that, not only by small companies, but medium and large ones, too.  It’s very competitive other there”.

March 17, 2010 – Lost NASA jobs: Can high tech industry help?
With thousands of Space Coast workers facing unemployment as the space shuttle program winds down, Orlando’s high tech military training industry says it has jobs for many of those who will be displaced. “Our industry is growing at a net increase of about 1000 to 1,500 jobs per year” said Ken Kelly, and industry consultant and past chairman of the National Center for Simulation. “Theoretically, we could absorb much of the job loss at the Cape over the next several years”.

September 3, 2009 – Fighting virtual war here…..
Much of the military’s cultural training of U.S. troops takes place at a military base tucked in rural northeast Florida.  Known as the Camp Blanding Joint Training Center, the sprawling complex has more than a dozen replica villages modeled on Afghan and Iraqi locales.  It is there that the National Center for Simulation, an Orlando-based industry trade group, is working with Lockheed Martin Corp. to develop a multi-million-dollar research center designed to find new ways of training U.S. forces to win over the Afghan people.  “The shift to Afghanistan has been a pretty recent thing and it hasn’t been a seismic shift yet,” said Ken Kelly, chairman of the national center.  “Some of the problems in Afghanistan are the same as those in Iraq, but there are some clear differences and I think we will see the priorities change significantly in the future.”

July 1, 2009 – Army deals in limbo
Many local companies have been involved in developing the program’s training technology – an area of work that’s expected to remain relatively stable even as the military scales back and divides the FCS (Future Combat Systems) into a series of separate contracts.  But industry officials are aware of the uncertainty for all involved whenever a program is scratched, even if pieces of it are to be salvaged and handled as smaller deals.  “That could create threats to our training industry, and it could create opportunities as well,” said Ken Kelly, a consultant and chairman of the National Center for Simulation, an industry group based in Orlando.  The threat to our community is that, if they re-bid these new contracts, the training work could go elsewhere,” he said.  “At the same time, it could be an opportunity for this area to capture more of the work.”

March 2, 2009 – Firms train sights on military contract
The magnet effect: Other moves are also in the works, industry officials said.  More than dozen companies are scouting out new location hear as a result of STOC II, said Ken Kelly, a consultant and chairman of the National Center for Simulation, an industry group based at the Central Florida Research Park.  “A lot of these companies are currently doing this kind of work somewhere else, but now they want to have a presence in Central Florida,” Kelly said.  “They realize they must be here where the customer is so they can get the information and intelligence they need to bid smartly on the (STOC II) proposals.” 

August 21, 2008 – WANTED:  Next generation of defense, space engineers
Nationwide graduation rates have tailed off in the areas crucial to defense and space work, according to a recent survey by the American Society for Engineering Education in Washington.  “It is critical that we replace these retiring engineers; this is not the kind of work that we can just outsource overseas,” said Ken Kelly, chairman of the National Center for Simulation, an Orlando based defense industry group.”

March 3, 2008 – Simulation Right on Target
Few training simulators have been used as extensively during the war years as the Engagement Skills Trainer 2000, military experts say.  “Certainly it (EST 2000) is the most widely recognized small-arms training system there is,” said Ken Kelly, an industry consultant and chairman of the National Center for Simulation, a trade group based in Orlando.