The Founder's Award is a highly prestigious award presented annually to one distinguished member of INCOSE who has made a major contribution to INCOSE. The award recognizes outstanding individual contributions to INCOSE, be they a single event or a lifetime of significant efforts. These contributions are of a highly significant nature and contribute positively to the advancement of INCOSE or an INCOSE Chapter. Examples of such contributions include extending INCOSE's international growth, developing new Chapters, significantly advancing INCOSE's professional status and making significant personal commitments to INCOSE such as long-term service in a leadership role.
Barney Morais , bernard.morais@incose.org
The tradition of the red sweater came from the first meeting of "The Gang of Thirty" that met for the initial forming of NCOSE in 1990. There was a very stimulating individual who would not let any vague statement pass without his challenge. This encouraged other attendees to either defend or add some additional data that may reveal other facts that supported a different conclusion. The first Red Sweater was awarded at the First Symposium with that acknowledgement of how his drive (the initial red sweater wearer) for facts and goals that could be achieved formed the thrust that went into creating the vibrant and dynamic organization that is INCOSE.
The INSIGHT editorial staff searched through their archives and located an article by Larry Pohlmann that fills in the details of the history.
Larry Pohlman, pohlmann@incose.org
Why is a red sweater a part of the INCOSE Founder's Award?
The founding meeting of INCOSE (then it was called NCOSE) occurred in July of 1990, at Battelle Northwest in Seattle. A team of two people, Mr. John Howe of TRW and Mr. Carl Spiegelberg of Boeing coauthored our charter statement at that meeting. During both days of the meeting, John wore a bright red sweater - bright enough to be noticed and commented on by several of the 34 attendees at this founding meeting. When the first Founder's Award was made to Carl Spiegelberg in 1992, it was decided to include a red sweater as part of the award. Again the brightly colored sweater drew comments. Our leadership at the time, which included Dr. Jerry Lake, decided that the red sweater tradition should be continued. So, this summer as a Founder's Award was presented to Dr. Lake, he also received a red sweater. We hope that Jerry, and all future Founders Award recipients, will enjoy their red sweaters!