Sustaining Forces Through Acquisition and Innovation

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Rob Wavra:

So, we are here in a panel that strangely starts with the word sustaining and is really about acquisitions and sort of the broader end-to-end acquisitions process. There’s a bunch of sustainers in the audience who are maybe a little disappointed at hearing that. But I think we wanted to bring together the acquisition leaders of the department to talk about this confluence of acquisition reform, about all the pushes for agility that are going on and really try to figure out how we can sustain that technology advantage that I think we all would say is the thing that is going to change the outcome of the next conflict or deter the next conflict. But to do that, we have to buy capabilities, we have to get them fielded, we have to get them integrated with the rest of the force. And so, instead of hearing me opine on that and how we align the palm with that and all the other fun topics that we could talk about, I want to make sure that the panel actually gets to spend the next 40 minutes having this conversation.

To my left, General Dale White, who I keep calling the [inaudible] of all things cool, but is the director of critical major weapons systems at the department, HB, who’s the new SQ, and then, Mr. Bailey, who’s the AQ. And so, maybe we get started with the question about acquisitions and what they really mean for the war fighter and for capabilities, because I think we do a lot of conversations about cost, schedule, and performance still in a world where we all know it’s about the mission impact of those technologies, but still talk about it from a program metric sort of perspective. And so, how do we break down the silos between all of the different parts of the acquisition community in order to deliver a capability and not just manage programs? And maybe I’ll start with you, Mr. Bailey.

William D. Bailey:

Great. And I think it’s a very timely question. We’ve spent a lot of time focused in on the operations of, let’s say, a program office or a lot of effort into that portfolio acquisition executive, but there are so many functions that have to come together and integrate in order to deliver a capability like you mentioned. Hey, what happens out in test? What happens in sustainment? And I think key to that is for us to shift our perspective and shift the focus from maybe some of the traditional points in time and space that we look at and instead, focus in on mission outcomes. Our focus in on those mission outcomes. So, the thought there is for your program office out there, if your whole goal in life is to get to that next milestone, I need that design review done or I’ll get that review completed, and I am not worried about what kind of effect I’m having out in the field.

Again, changing that focus to that mission outcome. Now, let’s shift and talk about maybe the test community. I’ve got to get through that clearance to flight or I’ve got to hit a certain time on conditions or sortie tempo. If that’s my whole goal in life, I am missing the impact I’m supposed to be having out in the field. So, you get a chance to see the change in focus for every one of those, and we can extend it into the sustainment community and them looking at work in progress. I think there’s some great acts going on now when we work with Global Strike on North Star and hey, how is our B-52 fleet doing, knowing we’ve got to support test, we’ve got to support the depot operations as well as stuff out in the field? I think all of us across that whole community looking more at the operational impact that we’re having vice our traditional incremental targets, three meter targets that we’ve been chunking through.

Gen. Dale White:

Yeah. So, I’m going to pile on a little bit to what Bill said. I think to integrate the thought process across the department, Secretary Feinberg constantly refers back to the idea that we are operating on a wartime footing. And so, asking each and every leader wherever you sit, whether you’re on the acquisition side, the operational side, the requirement side, to think like and act like we are on a wartime footing. And I think that by and large, to Bill’s point, we have trained our force to focus on… And again, let’s calibrate ourselves. We are living in a two-peer global nuclear rival kind of environment. And so, when you think about that, how does that change the construct of how you think about challenges? And so, we came through a period of time where we were focused on cost, schedule, and performance, and all those things are still critically important. They are mainstays in what we do, but they are a means to an end.

And so, I think that wartime footing piece really puts a fine point on it. Would you think about this problem differently if we were at war? And if you would, what might you do? What risks might you take? How might you approach the problem? And so, I think that’s critically important. That wartime footing piece, I think all three of us hear it a lot. I know you and I hear it a lot from Secretary Feinberg. I think it’s the perfect kind of catalyst to get us going in how we should be thinking about these problems, which is, frankly, a departure from the way we’ve typically done business.

Dr. Erich Hernandez-Baquero:

Yeah. And I want to amplify the table stakes element of cost schedule performance. That is a discipline that we have to get right if we’re going to go deliver our systems to the commitments that we set for our war fighter and for our stakeholders. So, that is something that is table stakes, and we just have to continue to drive that discipline. But this concept of war fighting, at least in the space domain, one thing that I want to amplify is in a number of cases, we’re actually bringing in new missions, new capability… It’s not just new capabilities, it’s new missions. And that requires inventing how do we drive operational excellence with that? And we need to do that in partnership with our operators who are also learning this new domain, and it’s changing very fast. And our threat, the threat that we’re facing is rapidly accelerating, and that’s why the focus is on speed.

And I’ll tell you in my entire career, I’ve never seen such a paradigm shift of what we’re trying to implement here with the acquisition transformation that puts speed front and center, which drives agile execution. The way we’re laying out the PAEs on the space side very much borrows from what we’ve learned works in space acquisitions, which is empowering a single accountable leader to deliver a mission capability. If you look at all of our PAEs, by and large, they’re all aligned around mission. There’s some elements that we need to do that are cross-cutting that go across all of those. And so, that’s the new culture shift and we’re going to need to… As any culture change, we need to drive that day to day in our actions and our behaviors and how we deliver on those capabilities.

Gen. Dale White:

Yeah. I want to pile on, and Bill, I’m probably going to ask you to… I’m going to drag you back into this conversation a little more. One of the things that we get really uptight about is we constantly talk about speed. We talk about cost and all of these things. And I think one of the things I’m going to challenge every acquirer and even operator in the room, to do what? To do what? It’s not enough for us to be on that wartime footing. We need to understand, and the expectation, I think, that Mr. Bailey and I have pushed out to the PAEs is you need to understand what your capability does for the fight, why it’s important, and that should inform your decision making.

Too often, you find that we’re so focused on the tactical aspects of acquisition, we’re not focused on the operational aspects of mission. And so, when you start asking yourself, “Hey, why am I doing this? What does the B-52 bring to the fight? How many rails does it provide?” Those are questions we typically have not taken into consideration. I will tell you when you think about people like Tim Helfrich, or Jim Mapp, or even somebody… Josh Williams, they know exactly, exactly what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and what it means to the fight. That has to be the standard. I don’t know, Bill, thoughts?

William D. Bailey:

Yeah, I think one probably not-as-obvious aspect of that is that outlook. When we talk culture change here, that slight change that General White just talked about, where I’m not waiting. I’m not waiting for the requirements. I’m not waiting on the staffing. I’m not waiting on the money. I have a problem. I need to move out on it. I need to have an impact on it and figure out, approach that as a problem that must be solved. Again, perhaps too much training around, well, I need to wait for a well-stated requirement. I must wait for adequate funding, et cetera. And that doesn’t reflect the urgency that we would expect to see in conflict.

Rob Wavra:

Yeah. I mean, I think that across this sort of concept of approaching this with a wartime footing, being agile, trying to not wait for requirements, but in a world where maybe an ML, somebody somewhere in a program office has imperfect sort of understanding of where does this fit into the global fight? What is the threat and how is it changing? What is sort of a smart acquisition risk to take? How do you help the leaders throughout your organization really understand what smart risks are and what is just a risk?

Gen. Dale White:

Yeah. I think for so long, we had this conversation about risk, and Bill has heard my pitch on this and many of you in the room have as well. It’s this idea that we’ve never been able to explain. We’ll take more risk, take more risk. Well, what does that actually mean? And so, finally, someone had asked me in a crowd one too many times, and I basically responded with what I thought was the way to bound the problem. And it’s simply this. You fail forward, you don’t fail recklessly. And if you don’t know the difference between those two, you may not be in the right job. Here’s the thing. We have spent an enormous amount of time, and Bill, more so than I, and certainly Secretary Meink, even more so, and Secretary Feinberg empowering these PAEs. And the ones we’ve chosen are phenomenal at what they do.

They will set the tone, and they will set the standard for that ML and help them understand what the vision is. But at the end of the day, these boarded positions, if you’re an ML or an SML, be the expert. We want you to be the expert. And when you’re the expert, you can fail forward. You know what the risks are. You know what the stakes are from a acquisition versus operational balance. You are the expert. Be the expert. And there’s been a couple of occasions where they did fail forward, and we covered their six. Now, the first time we don’t cover their six, and they take that risk, they take that shot because the operational system demands it, and we don’t back them up, that’s a different scenario. But I’ll tell you right now, the people sitting on this stage, we’re going to cover your six. As long as you’re doing smart things, be the expert.

Dr. Erich Hernandez-Baquero:

And yeah, I think that expertise comes in terms of mission domain expertise, and then, the technical expertise of the systems that you’re building. You have to deepen that knowledge in order to really know how to take on that risk. It’s like a race car driver and a race team. They know how to take those high-speed turns in order to win the race. That’s because they know the limits of what the car can do, and they’ve learned that through experience, and design, and rigor. So, we have to apply that rigor upfront. And one of the things that I’m emphasizing with all of the PAEs and the program managers in my book, the number one function that you play as an acquisition professional is managing risk. And so, what I’m going to be asking out… And really for industry, you’re delivering these capabilities, we need you to be putting risk up front, managing it actively, and making that your primary thing.

All too often, what I see is programs that are focused on tracking. How are we doing against the plan? How are we going to… And then, blocking and tackling to solve issues. And a lot of that is needed to execute, but your priority ought to be keeping your eye on the ball and what the risk is, how you’re actively managing that risk.

William D. Bailey:

These are excellent points. I know that when we talk about risk, we used to have a saying, “Hey, there are a lot of laws out there. There’s 55 miles an hour, and there’s gravity.” I need troops that are smart enough to know the difference with what they’re dealing. 55, you can come up with a plan to figure out how to safely go 65, 75 if required. Why? Because I understand what’s going to bite me trying to go that fast. Is it a safe place to drive? You got visibility.

All those things, you would expect. That’s somebody going after smart risk, going after gravity. If I don’t know the difference, you’re not going to fool gravity. So, back to the expertise part, we need leaders that are smart enough to know what they’re dealing with. And to HB’s observation there, like, “Hey, we’ve got to be managing that.” We’ve got to be managing that, seizing opportunities. We had a team… How about concurrency risk? I think we’ve all had to tangle with that one. I’m still waiting for GAO to tell me what bad concurrency looks like or good concurrency. But I had a group come in and show-

Gen. Dale White:

Congrats, Bill, you just made the media.

William D. Bailey:

I think that’s it. Yeah. But coming through that, it was an opportunity for them to go ahead and place that order, place that order at a considerable savings. And they came through with their plan as to, “Hey, how do I know that the riskiest parts of that configuration, we understand well enough, it’s stable enough to make that order?” And we were able to go ahead and lean forward and make that decision. Groups like that… Because it won’t be as obvious. It won’t hit you at a blinding stream of light there as much as there’ll be 100 decisions in there as you’re managing that risk. And again, leaders in there that are looking forward, understanding what they’re dealing with, making those decisions, those are the heroes.

Rob Wavra:

So, I mean, I think even in the last few minutes, we’ve talked about everything from B-52s to the most new, new kinds of things that are happening. I think a lot of times, people look at an RCO or they look at a B-21 program or another program like that, that’s fenced off in some way, or at least they feel like they are. And it makes sense how they can take risks and how they can fail forward and take that kind of an approach. But how does that move out to the entire enterprise, to legacy programs, to programs and sustainment, to modernization efforts so that that same kind of a mindset might flow through? Should it? Maybe the answer is it shouldn’t, but how does it flow through?

William D. Bailey:

I’d say, I mean, just consider our conversation after that last question there, right? So, if you take a look at the work on B-21 and you look at the short chain between the person with authority and the person doing the work, in that short chain of decision making, you’re able to respond quickly. You’re able to recover quickly. And now, think about, for the Air Force, it’s certainly been a concerted effort to delegate that authority closer to the person doing that work. Now, it’s at that PAE level for so many things. Again, short chain in there. So, then when something is surprising as something is off plan, the person with the authority to seize that opportunity isn’t three or four levels removed.

Gen. Dale White:

Yeah. Bill, I think you nailed it. One of the things that I’ve said over and over again is we don’t drive transformation from the Pentagon, period. But what we do is we set the conditions. And I think that over the years, the Big Safaris who I actually have served in, I love the RCOs I’ve served in. I love the ADOs on the ground floor of helping stand that up. But the reality simply is this. What we needed to do, and this is exactly Bill’s point, we needed to recreate that same environment in which those organizations exist. We know that access was the key thing to be able to make that happen. So, we’ve empowered the PAEs so the MLs and the SMLs can get access to someone who has decision making authority and can execute on that authority. So, that was step one. We set those conditions.

Step two is the culture piece, right? And that’s the part those out in the field, they have to embrace. They have to believe the importance of mission outcomes. They have to believe they don’t need to be in the RCO, the ADO, Big Safari, pick your favorite organization, to be able to execute that way. They just got to be willing to be the expert, take the necessary risks, keep the mission outcome out in front of them. And I will tell you the PAEs, I talk to all of them all the time. My favorite, if you ever have a minute, go talk to Bob Lyons. I think I saw Bob here earlier. Where are you, Bob? Yeah, there on the front row. When you talk to that guy, there’s no question about the vision that is set, the expectations in that munitions environment, right? You know exactly what you need to get done. There should be no one in that organization that is confused about what we’re trying to achieve, and the rate at which we’re trying to achieve it, and the importance of it. All we need is folks to grasp that culture and execute.

Dr. Erich Hernandez-Baquero:

Yeah. And one of the things I’ve personally seen, as I spent about 20 years of my Air Force career supporting the National Reconnaissance Office and the work that they do, and some of the best practices and the things that you gain out of that are… We talked about the mission clarity that when you’re there, you understand exactly what your mission’s going to be. That’s why we’ve aligned the PAEs around mission. We’ve talked about this culture of excellence, that you have to be at the top of your game in terms of your mission and technical expertise knowledge. And then, the third thing we haven’t talked about is the teams that are executing this are actually relatively small. They’re not huge teams. And actually, you don’t want to have big teams because as you grow your team size, you grow complexity and just the communication and interaction of your team and the roles and responsibilities of different people.

So, we actually want to keep teams lean where everybody has an outsized contribution to the mission, and that actually elevates the responsibility that comes with the job that we’re allocating, and people are like, “Oh, I’m it. I’m the one that everybody’s depending on. Nobody else is going to do this but me. So, I have to drive forward on that commitment.” And that’s really critical for the culture change we want to make.

Rob Wavra:

I think throughout this, we talked a little bit about the authorities that PAEs have gotten, the sort of closeness to the teams from that decision maker to an ML who’s delivering something. A bit of a just ad lib question of what is it that you’re hearing though that they need? So, they’ve got new authorities. They’ve got the ability to make a whole set of decisions that maybe weren’t pushed down to PEOs before, or at least they didn’t feel like they were pushed down to them. What are the things you’re hearing that PAEs need to be able to do this kind of agile and risk-taking acquisition?

Gen. Dale White:

I’m going to tell you what I believe, and this is really more in HB’s and Bill’s lane, but the thing that I’ve constantly heard is they have the authorities to execute from an acquisition perspective. I think it’s getting after that OT&E piece to be able to make sure they can build the teams the way they feel like they need to build them. And we have a very large… The civilian personnel process because acquisition of the Air Force is… A big portion is civilian. And then, of course the military side. How do we provide them that greater flexibility in building the team? And I know for a fact, Bill has been an enormous amount of time working that.

Dr. Erich Hernandez-Baquero:

Yeah. And Dale, I’ll just very quickly say that you hit it right on the head. We’ve got the authorities. We’re forming the teams right now. What’s pacing that? I’ll just share as I started, just got on the job and started looking at this, and it’s like the first thing I’m focused on is let’s get that team built. And it’s the realignment of all these people and programs around these missions. It’s very complex. There’s threads that go all across different organizations, different elements. And actually, what that does is it shares why it was so difficult for somebody to stay focused on the mission before because our structures, our processes were not aligned to those missions. So, we’re going through that process now and getting all that realigned, and that is my top priority right now. I am thrilled to have General Schiess as a partner in doing this. We’ve been great partners right out of the gate. Later today, we’re going to be on a fireside chat talking about this, and I am confident that we’re going to get after that and empower our PAEs with the people and the resources they need to execute.

William D. Bailey:

That’s a really interesting point because I know that those activities that span PAEs, the enterprise solutions that are delivered, there are as much authority as we give a PAE inside their portfolio, we have portfolios that have connections, dependencies on others. And our ability to now turn and focus in on how do we manage this after we have created two very empowered leaders that need each other, how do we manage that or how do they manage that between themselves? So, that’s certainly a next phase for us to work on.

The other thing I would bring up is resources, money, their ability to move out quickly. Over the years, we’ve normalized continuing resolution. We’ve seen the impacts of a shutdown, but I have very skilled operators out there that are looking at, “Hey, when do I think I could safely drop a contract? Hey, how much money am I going to be sitting on throughout that fiscal year?” They will turn themselves into a pretzel to try to figure out how to handle the financial landscape that they’re operating in. Some of that, the service is helping us with. Some of that’s even beyond the department’s control.

Gen. Dale White:

Yeah. And you make a good point, Bill. I think one of the things that has been extremely valuable as I think about looking at our PAEs and how they operate, that relationship they have with the operators now, they’re not making those cost trades in a vacuum. They’re not only just having acquisition conversations as it relates to funding. They’re actually having operational conversations, what impacts they’ll have, where are the trades? And so, that closeness that we’ve created in this environment, I think, has been very helpful. I will end it on the resourcing piece. I’ll tell you from a personnel perspective, never underestimate the value of having the right person in the right place at the right time. And we’re getting good alignment on our PAEs right now, but making sure we build the teams. And there’s a finite amount of talent that goes around. So, how do we spread that out across all of these mini programs that we have, these pretty giant modernization activities?

Rob Wavra:

So, I think that you’ve got this right structure. You’ve got empowered PAEs. We talked about some of the things they might need. Another place where this agility slows down, maybe it doesn’t die, but it slows down, is the bridge from prototyping to sort of a real program of record or to actually fielding a capability at scale. And I think one of the places where people keep flagging, “How do I get this thing that was amazing at the lab or is amazing at a startup actually inserted into a real weapon system and fielded?” And so, I think maybe another place we can spend a little time is what are the things we can do to make that bridge really happen across the services? Do you want to take this?

Dr. Erich Hernandez-Baquero:

Yeah. That’s a really good one because as I said earlier, especially in the space domain where we’re creating these new missions where the technology’s advancing very rapidly, we need to put a premium on innovation. But all too often, we think innovation is just the responsibility of the technologists and the labs. And I’ll tell you as a nation, we have a lot of creative ideas that are coming out of commercial or national labs. I think all of that is great, but historically, where we run into that valley of death is because we have these long cycle acquisitions where what we’re delivering is tied to a very system-specific set of requirements, and there’s no real way to bring that new technology because the plans have already been set, we’re executing to the plan, and maybe 10, 15 years from now, we’ll look at it, and by then, the threats change, and it doesn’t matter anymore.

So, the way we’re moving now on the PAE side with having kind of that mission portfolio, having more of an agile execution where we’re constantly trading off approaches, where we’re not going to lock in on necessarily a system requirement, but on what is going to be delivering that mission outcome, that by itself is going to create a pull demand on that. But even so, I don’t underestimate the challenge of being able to… How do you line up those most promising technologies, get them funded to the level that they need to in order to get to that rapid prototype, and then, insert them into these pathways that we’re going to create with the PAEs?

And for that reason, I’m excited to announce today that we’re going to establish a technology portfolio executive that’ll be a direct report to me and will be empowered just as the PAEs, will be a peer to the PAEs, and will be 100% focused on that valley of death, working with the research and development community to look at the most promising technologies, working with industry to ensure that there’s a pathway into the product lines that the companies are developing, and ensuring that the PAEs have what they need to inform these on-wrap opportunities. So, if you’re interested in that, keep an eye out for a press release that will be coming out here shortly. But that technology portfolio executive’s going to be key to that.

Gen. Dale White:

I think one of the things, building off of what HB just said is we have to do a better job early on, of making sure we choose what we’re going to pursue. And the value, if you look across… And I can tell you all three of us on this stage have seen where we are so broad in terms of how many things we have in the hopper, right? And we can’t carry everything to prototype, and we can’t carry everything to production. With the operational relationships we have now, we need to make decisions sooner about what we take to prototyping. And then, we really like prototyping, but we’re starting to find out we have a limited amount of production capacity. And so, we need to make sure we can scale into production quickly.

And so, I think that is all that to say, it all starts at the very beginning of that process. What are we going to pursue from an innovative perspective? Why are we going to pursue it? And then, have a very thoughtful conversation with the operational community as to what value it brings. And what it boils down to, which is really what we’ve been missing and we’ve been talking around is decision velocity. We got to have greater decision velocity in the system. We can’t carry everything forward. We need to pick winners and losers earlier on, get to the prototyping piece, and then, make sure we can scale to production. We’ve seen a few instances, and I won’t mention any programs, but where we’ve really had a pretty phenomenal prototype, but then when you try to move it over into production, it becomes really, really hard. That’s why I think on the CCA program, we spent a lot of time making sure not only could we prototype it, but we could produce it at rate and scale, and the capacity is there. We have to have more thoughtful decisions like that.

William D. Bailey:

Having that stated intention, and then, following through on that allows you to have that velocity and to respect the fact that if we’re bringing people into our industrial base and working with us, those smaller performers are not going to take well to having to wait on that decision, and we should understand that. Maybe one other piece to add, as we take a look, and General White, maybe you came in with a, “Hey, let’s be intentional about what we’re doing, and we know it.” There are places where we’re interested in expanding our industrial base and seeing more from commercial, or more non-traditionals, or small businesses. And then, how is that reflected in our strategy? Imagine this, and I’m looking at all you PAEs out there. Schedule is king. Bring me mature technologies, demonstrated performance.

What do you think industry heard from you? Give me what you gave me yesterday. I probably will pay you a little bit less for it. So, how do you set those conditions where other people feel like, “Hey, I think I understand how we’re going to go compete on this. I know what value I need to bring to the table.” Everybody should have some level of risk in what they’re proposing. But again, we don’t set up our programs to inadvertently alienate crowds of people that ultimately, we want in this industrial base. We want their innovative ideas. We want their fresh eyes. So, again, let’s not slam the door in their face.

Rob Wavra:

I think it’s a great transition to… We’ve got our room partially full of industry folks that are the other half of this equation, actually building the weapons systems and getting that innovation into a real thing that you all can acquire. One version of what we’ve all just said is move out. Move out without requirements, without dedicated funding lines, make investments in production capacity before you all have sent that signal that that’s going to manifest in contracts over the long term. And so, what are the things that industry should be thinking about to reframe it from, be more agile and take a whole lot of risk because the government wants to move fast, but isn’t doing the things they traditionally would have done to create those clear signals. How does that partnership sort of evolve in this really agile world?

Gen. Dale White:

They’re looking at me. So, I’ll say it. I think that we’re very comfortable in the transactional. Here’s the message. Win. We want to win. The bottom line, if history tells us anything, we know for a fact that the ability of our industrial base to deliver is going to be the X factor. Our ability to not only to have the best kit, but to be able to produce that kit. And so, many of you have heard me say it, I will continue to say it. In the future, we’re potentially looking at a war is not inevitable, but deterrence isn’t cheap. And the reality is just simply this, militaries don’t go to war, nations do. And we have to embrace that reality. And don’t get me wrong, I completely understand and appreciate we live in a market economy and that there is a business aspect of this, but we have to close the gap. We have to close the gap on the relationship we have with industry, and it has to be less transactional in many cases.

And I think that you can look at some sample programs where… I’ll use the example of Sentinel where we’re really starting to turn that around effectively. And I will tell you a key part of that is the relationship we’ve built with industry. Certainly, I think, Bill, you can attest to the relationship we’ve had with the contractor on B-21 is why we are where we are. We got to continue to really explore that space because our industry partners are just as committed to this fight as we are. And so, we have to find a way to build that partnership.

You talked about requirements, you talked about funding, you talked about all those things. Those are very transactional in nature. You can move out on areas of capability. You just don’t want to do it in an uninformed fashion. It may not be perfect, but I will tell you sometimes that pause could be the difference. If you have something… And we’re constantly communicating. I see these guys. We’ve been in every single booth probably since we’ve been here having those discussions, making sure we understand what the best kit is out there and how we can produce it.

Dr. Erich Hernandez-Baquero:

Yeah. I’ll add, having just come from industry and recognizing the immense pressure that every one of our industrial partners are in order to meet stakeholder expectations for your business, and that you’re dealing with a very unique market when you’re in defense compared to the commercial market, has its unique character. And biggest of that is we have an American people that we serve with a Congress that provides oversight and budget, and that’s subject to the politics. And so, that’s just part of the nature of what we do. But what we’re trying to do with our strategy is to create a more stable demand signal through things like multi-year procurements. That’s just one lever of many. But we’re also seeing, you’re seeing our demand for commercial solutions to our systems. So, that should be a signal to industry to say, “Hey, maybe I need to think about my production lines in a way that is not just locked in for defense. How do I address this commercial market, which should be creating growth opportunities for industry, and in turn, bring that back into defense?” So, we need industry to think about those strategies.

And then, finally, we’re not going to be served by a weak industry very well. We need industry to be strong. And that means we need to have continued dialogue for how do we create the right incentives in our contracts so that when you do business with us, we win. To your point, General, we win because we’re delivering the mission capability that our war fighters need, but you win because now, you’re attractive for more investment and more growth that should be a growth cycle for us. That’s the end state that I want to get to. Do I have the perfect answer for that? No, but that is something, a dialogue that I’m going to have with all of you in industry to figure out how do we structure this so we can get to those win-wins?

William D. Bailey:

Think I might hit it with a little more top spin. For industry, if you see the changes that we’re undertaking, whether it’s at the service level or the department level, how we’re approaching things differently, pursuing it with a sense of urgency, we’re willing to empower teams in the field with phenomenal authorities to move agilely. We’ve adopted new technologies, and new architectures, and new business models. What are you doing? You have to come along with us on this. We are sending out the largest signal for change that I’ve seen in my entire career. We need you to meet us there.

Take a look at your own business model. Is that achieving the scale that General White was talking about? Was it getting the resilience that HB was talking about? If it’s not, then why don’t you have those hard conversations yourselves? Because we need better access to what makes our industrial base great. And we’re not accepting excuses from our PAEs anymore. We’ve loaded them up with authority. We’ve positioned them well. We’ve staffed them. They’re accountable for outcomes there. We need you guys to be accountable as well. We’re accountable for a mission outcome and figuring out what is that intersection between how do I do right by my shareholders and I do right by my customer? But again, like you said, you’re seeing us work so hard and changing. We need you guys to meet us in that change. We can’t be working in an ever-shrinking, ever-bespoke corner of an industrial base. Our adversary cannot have better access to our innovation than we do. So, I make the plea, meet us in the change.

Gen. Dale White:

Yeah. And Bill, I think you’re right. I mean, there was a program under HB’s premise earlier, a year or two ago, and I remember it’s something, a capability we really needed. And part of the conditions is industry has to communicate to us what it is they need to make things happen as well. We’ve got to break down that barrier of communication where it becomes, again, it’s purely a transactional piece. Hey, we’re willing to set the conditions if we can get the capability at rate and scale. We’re ready to have those conversations, and I think they are coming along, but I think it’s that mission outcome piece that’s missing. We got to make sure that industry… And I know our industry partners, there’s many I work with that would put their badge on the table to win the next fight. There is no question in my mind. We got to continue to communicate this. This is more than just a military thing. It is a nation thing to make sure we preserve our values. That’s why I continue to do it.

Rob Wavra:

So, in the minute or so that we have left, and Elvis, you already sort of started us in this direction, you’ve got an audience of young MLs, you’ve got industry folks. What is the thing that they should do, if not tomorrow, because they’re probably here staffing you all, what should they do on Monday when they go through differently than they would done a week ago?

Gen. Dale White:

I’ll end it like I did at Wright-Patterson. I said it. When it comes to transformation, us in Washington D.C. and at the Pentagon, we are the ember. Those in the field are the forest fire. Let it burn.

Dr. Erich Hernandez-Baquero:

I’ll just say when you show up to work, what’s the mission outcome that I’m going to be delivering with my capability? If you don’t know the answer to that, start asking questions up your chain, and work it, and make sure that you’re delivering those mission outcomes at speed, and think creatively about how to do that.

William D. Bailey:

I remember we were in Ohio talking this to the crowd as well. For the government personnel out there, we have moved as many roadblocks as we can find. We’ll move more, right? Show us the fire. Move out. For industry, I think you heard me pretty loud and clear on the issue of we are ready to change models. We put sophisticated guys on the other side of the table from you to talk through new ideas. These are our experts. We’re ready to have that conversation about what changes need to be made in order to get those mission outcomes. There’s no reason to wait.

Rob Wavra:

Well, I want to thank the three of you for being up here on the panel, and I’m sure people are going to come and chat with you right now. So, thank you, everyone. Thanks.

Gen. Dale White:

Thanks, everyone.