Apollo 13 Hero James Lovell to Deliver Keynote at itSMF USA's National Conference in September

DALLAS, Sept. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The IT Service Management Forum USA (itSMF USA), the nation's fastest-growing information technology quality management association, today announced that former astronaut James Lovell will deliver a keynote speech at its sixth annual national conference, which will be held September 18-20 at the Salt Palace Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Lovell will deliver the morning keynote -- "Apollo 13: A Successful Failure" -- at 8:30 a.m. on September 19. The conference annually attracts thousands of the world's leading academicians, consultants, vendors and practitioners who have adopted an IT quality management discipline known as the IT Infrastructure Library.

Lovell attended the Naval Academy, learned naval aviation, served a tour of sea duty, and became a test pilot before joining NASA in 1962 as a member of the Gemini Program, during which he flew two missions. He was the command module pilot and navigator on the December 1968 Apollo 8 mission, which circumnavigated the moon. While in lunar orbit the crew made a television broadcast of Earth rising over the lunar plain while they read from the Book of Genesis. It was the most watched TV broadcast in history until that time.

"That was probably the high point of my career," said Lovell. "It was the first time we saw the Earth as it really is, floating in space from 240,000 miles away. You get a very clear idea of just what you've got back home," he said. "The Earth is very small and it looks very fragile. It gives one a sense that we have limited resources. It makes you realize that we are six billion astronauts traveling through space together."

Other lessons came during the Apollo 13 moon mission. "We realized that our chances of getting back to Earth were very slim," said Lovell. "But we didn't dwell on it. As long as we were still breathing and had methods to figure out solutions to our predicament, we kept going."

Can IT professionals learn from astronauts who overcame unexpected system failures? "Sure," said Lovell. "One thing I learned is that you need good leadership to bring out the teamwork. Many brains together can find imaginative solutions. Another characteristic that's important to success is initiative or perseverance. People tend to give up too easily, just about the time they are going to score a touchdown. I learned the importance of all these qualities during that mission, not just aboard the spacecraft, but from the Mission Control team in Houston. Those people figured out solutions to problems we never thought we would face. Later on I carried these life lessons into business and they were just as important there."

The itSMF USA conference includes more than 60 expert speakers from leading stakeholders who will discuss ITIL-related topics in seven separate tracks.

Editors and reporters who want to investigate the entire conference agenda should go to http://www.itsmfusa.org/ and click on the conference link, which is prominently displayed. There is a press registration link on the conference page.