Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20240622

Traditional and in some ways Old Fashioned area of technology, yet one of very rapid and ongoing innovation. Very central to the performance of our military forces as well. And were going to talk about software and the ways in which systems, electronic systems, countermeasure systems that have heavy electronics and i. T. Component have to be thought about today, have to be improved. All of this relates clearly to some big themes in defense, budgeting, Defense Strategy, to what extent is Technology Changing so fast that we need to emphasize pursuit of a revolution of military affairs perhaps even more than we have been. To what extent do we need to get on top of a new wave of innovation and make sure our adversaries dont do it first. Or what extent is this an ongoing evolutionary process and a lot of exciting important things are happening but we dont need to get overly excited or disruptive about our approach to defense resource allocation. And the broadest of all senses it relates to the sequestration of the Defense Budget and whats going to happen to some of the innovations were trying to facilitate or promote if indeed, when Congress Returns in a few weeks it cant figure out some way to stave off the looming budgetary showdown with the president and the possibility of sequester or even shutdown, which these things are perhaps, in a cosmic sense, they dont look all that horrible to the average observer because it typically involves 5 , 7 , 8 of the Defense Budget, but the disruption on programs can be much greater than that. Whether we get to all those topics or not in the opening, we hope youll raise some of them in the discussion period. Were going to speak amongst ourselves. Im going to ask each of the panelists a general question about one of the areas of technology, and well talk up here before going to your questions. Let me say a bit of a word about each one. Sitting next to me is Brennan Hogan with the Logistics Management institute. Or lmi. Shes going to lead off the discussion of 3d printing and ill ask her because shes the leadoff hitter to say more to explain what this area of technology is for those of you who dont know, but its an area thats being touted as a remarkable, important area of innovation that, according to some people, could change everything. Because we could produce technologies, manufacture technologies in ways that are entirely different from ever before, relying less on traditional factories. To what extent thats partly hype, to what extent thats real, to what extent it applies to more areas than others, shell help us understand. As will jim joyce, who will speak after her and is seated immediately to her right. And he is with deloitte and has spent a great deal helping the department of defense think through how to take advantage of opportunities from Additive Manufacturing, again, in realistic ways. This is not future talk were going to do up here for the most part. Maybe a little bit of that. Were trying to think practically about what can dod do in the short to medium term to take advantage of these areas of changing technology. Just to the right of jim joyce will be dave logan from bae. Another outstanding defense company. And he is going to talk about software and Information Technology and countermeasures. Hes sort of going to be the electronics guy, and ill look to him to explain how he explains this area, what part of the Defense Budget and sector hes most focused on and what he recommends. And finally, jimmy kenyan, to my far right, with pratt and whitney. Hell talk about engine and Propulsion Technology and also, our bryce harper of the team, have a chance to say whatever else he thinks needs to be done to clear the bases and get ready for your questions as we try to preserve the lead that the nationals enjoy in the American League east and america enjoys in Defense Technology but neither lead is safe if we get complacent. Thats the general framing. Thank you for your indulgence as i went through a bit of background. Now i would like to begin with brennan and really ask her not only to help us understand what 3d printing or Additive Manufacturing is, but to help us understand what its realistic prospects are in the short to medium term for helping the department of defense. Over to you. Absolutely. So first of all, thank you very much, mike, for having me. Its wonderful to be here today. Beautiful day outside. Luckily not too humid. And i appreciate all the baseball analogies. Im sure we can keep those going. Quick, to baseline, Additive Manufacturing is not a new technology. Its been around for over 30 years. There have been numerous organizations both in the private and Public Sector that have been using it. For those of you that arent familiar, though in the audience, how many of you have gone to build sand castles at the beach . Either recently or in the past. A few of you. Okay. So you can build a sand castle two ways. You can either fill up the bucket with sand and then put it down and then row have parts of the sand castle or an entire sand castle if you have a big bucket. The other way is you can put sand and water into a bucket and then slowly drip it, a drip castle effect. Layer by layer. At the end, you have two castles. Theyre similar in structure, but they have different makeup and their components are a little different but basically the same. That is what Additive Manufacturing is to subtractive manufacturing. Your old way of making a sand castle and a new way. With that, what were looking at at lmi is we understand the dod, especially their logistics and supply chain, and one of the things we recognize is just because a new technology can provide a service like printing new things doesnt mean it necessarily should provide that service. So were trying to help the department of defense understand at the strategic and policy level what are all the implications of applying this technology. And its not just making sure that you have the machines to print the material or to print the actual parts. Its not just making sure you have material that is chemically able to produce the part and make it the strength and the heat indices that you need, but its what are the training and workforce implications of it. What are the policy implications . What are the standards you need to apply . How are you going to assure quality . How are you going to test these parts . Do you test all of them . One of them . Some of them . Do you test them in the field . Do you test them before they get to the field . What are the implications on essentially turning the supply chain on its head . And our traditional supply chain, you have the parts that are manufactured and then you send them to the depot and they go on to a piece of machinery or the field. With Additive Manufacturing, they have started, the army has started deploying the technology so you can meet the need where it is in the field. Does that work, though . And what are the skills that you need in the workforce that is doing that in the field . So there are a lot of different implications. Another key area is the security piece of it. So if you have if you are printing parts using Additive Manufacturing, you have to have 3d data. The department of defense does not own all the data for their parts. A lot is 2d. What is the conversion process . Is it worth it, and then who owns the data . Is it the department, the oems, someone else in between, and how does that all fit together . Then the cybersecurity aspect, were all familiar with that. So if you have all of this data out there, that can produce critical parts to key pieces of machinery or components, how do you secure that so it doesnt fall into the wrong hands . So, that in a very quick nutshell is what were doing and looking at and how were trying to help the departments think through the actual application of the technology, whether or not its disruptive and whether or not that disruption is effective. Let me ask you one quick followup question and a segue to jim. Thank you for that background. And by the way, oem, original equipment manufacturer. Sorry. So many acronyms. Were going to try to connect, as brennan did very well, some of the very Innovative Technology areas to practical conversation. So let me ask how much of the dod budget could realistically wind up in the Additive Manufacturing realm lets say by 2020 . Just to be clear, we all know that the procurement budget for the department of defense today is about 100 billion a year. The Research Development test and evaluation budget is around 70 billion, and the parts of the operations and maintenance budget that are involved with spare parts and things that involve purchases of hardware is around 30 billion so were talking about 200 billion a year enterprise. Is Additive Manufacturing so revolutionary that were going to see tens of billions of dollars produced in Additive Manufacturing in the next few years, or is it a much more modest incremental effect . I would not venture to guess a number. Im not quite comfortable doing that yet, but the most effective way to apply the technology is in a modest, incremental way. One of the ways were helping doa, the defense logistics agency, and they supply all of the parts to all of the services. Hundreds of thousands of parts every day. Some of those are very, very high in demand. Some are low in demand. Some you dont even need. You might need to replace a part every 10 or 15 years. At that point, the original manufacturer may not have the tooling to create that part. So there is a need or a potential use for Additive Manufacturing, but were trying to determine where it might be most effectively applied. Where we think and this is a project were working with doa on now, is evaluating which parts can be produced with Additive Manufacturing and still actually have the same functionality they originally had, and with that, is the demand signal appropriate to print those parts . So, and then, again, do you have the data . Can you actually print it . Do you have the type of material and machines and 3d process to get the part that you need at the end . So i think that our recommendation is that it is a modest incremental and more of a 10, 15, 20year timeframe, but there are a significant amount of parts in the hundred thousand range you could potentially print if you go through this whole process of evaluating the application of it. Excellent. Jim, if i could turn things over to you to pick up where we are in the conversation, and with one ongoing question, how big of a deal is this . And whats going to happen over the next 10 to 20 years as we see 3d printing come into its heyday. I would qualify it as an incremental deal for right now. But i would qualify my qualification by saying a couple things to bear in mind. The first is that the next hot toy at christmas in the next two to three years is Additive Manufacturing. And sort of democratization of the ability to manufacture things. The breaking of the tyranny of scale of Capital Machinery and people in manufacturing will be the basis of the profound revolution. It wont be such a technical revolution as a logistic revolution, and Additive Technology is a chief factor in that, and thats going to break the tyranny of scale. Now, what turns the spigot on . Whats that hurdle we have to get over in Additive Manufacturing before we can unlock the sort of logistical revolution . Its really part certification. So if i make a part on my machine, can i replicate that process in all its detail and result on another machine and be sure that i did it . Can i predict what the finite attributes and functional characteristics of that part are before i make it, and then when i send it somewhere else to be made. Once you crack the code, and it has been cracked for some materials but not a lot of other ones, you really unleash this technology. Why it will be propelled is because its a costsaver, number one. And number two, it transfers resources from the tail to the teeth. So as an analog, i would say the Industrial Revolution essentially tethers maneuver units to an Industrial Base. Railroads, pretty significant supply chains, roads, et cetera. If you go preIndustrial Revolution and you look at the way a ship of a line operated in the napoleanic navy, it essentially once it was at sea, if it had a good carpenter and a good metal worker, could stay at sea indefinitely, making ports and calls to pick up material to repair the ship, modifying the ship, transforming its abilities. In fact, when a new captain took over a ship, it was the first thing they did was talk to the carpenter, redid the rigging and sails to try to get more speed out of it. So what Additive Manufacturing starts to do is it breaks that tether to a heavy Industrial Base required to support maneuver units. How does it do that . Well, if you look at a machine shop aboard a ship, a field repair depot, they have a certain envelope of capabilities that they currently have to manufacture and repair things. What Additive Manufacturing does, supported by other technologies, is it greatly increases that envelope because youre working more from raw material than you are from already fabricated parts that you have to predict their consumption, have them on hand, carry them. So the revolution comes when you can certify the result of the Additive Manufacturing on a repetitive basis. It comes because of the logistical pressure. It takes off newer units, but it also comes because in an environment of constrained resources, youre likely to see innovation going on in the way that it used to be done, again, which is with maneuver units in the field. For example, with Additive Manufacturing, many of the socom will deploy with it and theyve come up with a number of innovations that includes things like the bone to keep antennas apart. Field hospitals needing unique equipment to treat wounds, printing specialized clamps and surgical guides to take care of those as well. So youve got this logistical component to it, this innovation component which is really, i think, tremendous. And there are sort of First Derivatives of both of those, which is theres this notion of hacker. So i have been around for a while, and i can remember cutting down grenade launchers and putting pistol grips on them so they could be used as a sidearm. That sort of innovation, all of a sudden, not only has a much wider capability of manufacturing options, but also through social media and communication, can be spread a lot more quickly. So i think youll see a lot of innovations start to come from the units themselves and bubble up that way. So let me follow up with you with one quick question before i go to the next subject and with dave. You emphasized in a very vivid way, very helpful way, the benefit for expeditionary units of Additive Manufacturing. Is that the primary benefit . Or are we also going to see traditional manufacturers here at home move in this direction just because they can somehow make something more economically, more flexibly with less tooling in their factory, or is that whole set of changes going to be more gradual than the benefits to the expeditionary units. That change is going to be more gradual. Simply because manufacturing Accounting Systems work against Additive Manufacturing. The way you can equate the benefits of Additive Manufacturing runs contrary to the way a lot of traditional manufacturers calculate economics. They have to take a broader perspective to it. What i think will happen is youll see the rise of innovative individuals and companies that are producing, beginning with obsolete parts, and then frankly going into mainstream parts as we start to sort out what is protected, what isnt protected legally. And manufacturing increasingly becomes a commodity where folks can just get in. They dont need as much money. They can set up a very capable machine shop and manufacture things that traditionally were done by very large defense companies. So i see that change coming as a result of internal Competitive Pressures within the Defense Industry as opposed to an evolution or revolution in how Large Companies act. Thank you. And dave, if i could go to you. Youre going to now bring to the discussion a little different area of technology, but of course, jim and brennan before have been talking about how Additive Manufacturing is really part of a broader set of changes, and so maybe you can help connect what youre going to talk about to what we have been discussing. I know youve got the whole i. T. Software and Adaptive Software world and subject matter to address. Please help us understand that, a little introduction and how you see the opportunities going forward. Sure. So i think that many of the motivations for these adaptive, sometimes called Cognitive Software systems, share a similar inspiration. We want to be able to reduce the cycle times, we want to provide capability much more quickly than we have had to in the past. In the past, we were able to analyze, for example, threats that are out there in Design Systems that give us a competitive advantage. Work through our acquisition cycles and get out there with some of that advantage preserved. Based on the time constants. Our adversaries are increasingly migrating to commercial technologies. Like us, theyre moving away from intensive exquisite kind of Hardware Solutions and driving more of the content in these Weapons Systems into software, which makes them inherently more agile. So were doing similar kinds of things, right . If you look at radio systems, if you look at Electronic Warfare systems, were getting digital closer and closer to the front end of the systems. Were also investing in sort of all the buzz words you hear about modular architecture and spiral development. But thats only going to get us so far. Were still going to get to the point where we are fielding capabilities that are going to run up against environments, threats, that are ill characterized at the time of design. And so the thought here is that you architect systems that, you know, draw from the cognitive kind of analogy here where they have an ability to sense the environment. Maybe ill motivate this for the communications example. So if you were to take a radio of 15 or 20 years ago and crack the lid, even a radio like you have at home, what you would find is circuits, transistors, ics in there. If you were to look at the state of the art radios today, most of the functionality that they provide, actually lives in the software. Softwaredefined radios. And so we have the ability to upgrade them over time very quickly. But when we put one of those out in the field and maybe we get exposed to interference that we didnt anticipate, the desire and the potential of things like cognitive learning is to go out and figure out mitigation strategies in realtime. Hence the environment, explore options within the trade space of the as Design System to configure it in different ways and be able to mitigate that interference whether its from an adversarys jammer or whether its just environmental interference that youre running up against, and learn over time which approaches actually work. And do that in mission time as opposed to acquisition time. So this is, you know, probably falls broadly under the umbrella of autonomy and some of the key areas of investment that the dod is pursuing. Were applying that across many of our products in our portfolio. The radio example is one example that is real. And the idea there is that we can come to the field with systems that are inherently adaptable. Most of that adaptation right now we see occurring in the software base. You can build systems that characterize the environment, understand how they can operate in different configurations and optimize their configuration in realtime. But you could think about taking that same kind of design pattern and asking, is the limiting factor on the performance of the system an algorithm or configuration, or might it be, again to the radio example, might it be the antenna were actually using . That was designed much earlier. If it is the limiting factor, then we can look to things like potentially Additive Manufacturing to be able to rapidly prototype, potentially even in field situations, alternatives that we could then integrate into the system and allow the cognitive processing to figure out how to better exploit a more tailored version, for example, of that antenna. So this sounds like a realm of activity that could influence a large fraction of dods systems in the field today, even though it may not im trying to, as you know, simplify by using the amount of dollars at stake as one of my metrics for the conversation to help unify the different themes. It sounds like youre talking about the wide array of systems that bae and other companies manufacture. So the software and electronics guts of most of our advanced weapons today are the realm of discussion here. Yeah, as i said earlier, increasingly, the amount of content is driving towards the Software Content. Theres no magic bullet in the sense that, you know, with that adaptation you inherit other challenges you have to address. How you make sure the systems as theyre adapting in the field continue to provide the behaviors and performance you want. So there are some issues that still need to be resolved, the predictability of the performance, the stability of the performance, those kinds of things. When were in an environment where our adversaries are able to increase their cycle times or decrease their cycle times very quickly, we need to respond just as quickly. Could i ask, too, one more question that occurs to me, as i hear you explain this subject is the difficulty of writing Good Software for modern Weapons Systems. The complexity is what youre talking about a partial response or solution to that in the sense that are you maybe im getting it wrong, but it sounds like youre talking about an ability to continually modify and adapt and therefore not be locked into the system you started with. That could be beneficial if your adversary did things you didnt anticipate, and it could be beneficial if you made mistakes in the original incarnation, i dont mean bae, but in general, if there were Software Problems or other problems, that we could fix them more easily as we discover them in the field. Is that a fair i think what we see is many of the software challenges we find today are complex systems that need to be implemented. I dont see it as a technology thats going to make our Software Better than our coding disciplines, but there is often a challenge associated with how well we have characterized the objectives or the desired performance. At some point, we have to lock that down. Today, thats locked down in a fairly ridged kind of way. I see this as an opportunity for us to have a broader ability to adapt perhaps to environments we couldnt perfectly anticipate. Thank you. Jimmy, pratt whitney, very important Engine Manufacturers across the defense and civilian sectors in the United States and the world today. You know as much about engines as anybody. Youre kindly offering to help us understand trends in engines and propulsion. Ill turn it over to you. Thank you. Thanks. It builds on what we have heard already. As an engine manufacturer, thats what we do, we make jet engines. We use things like software, and we work on how we improve our software, make our software more adaptive. We look at techniques like Additive Manufacturing and how we can make our jet engines faster and better and less expensive. But at the end of the day, we also see this adaptability, if you will, rolled up at a higher level. But i think to really understand it and to put it in context, i want to talk a little bit about Defense Strategy. What were looking at is in 2012, the dod released what was at the time a very new and different Defense Strategy that called for, among other things, a smaller, more agile, more flexible, more technologically advanced force. And now even as were transitioning toward the third offset strategy, we see a lot of consistent themes there as the department tries to get more and more out of the systems that it buys and fields. Were seeing the same thing in propulsion, in jet engines for aviation. And thats important. If you follow along, of course, i do jet engines because i love the thrill of the roar when the jet engine goes. But it is a bedrock of our National Military strategy, and really part of how we do power projection around the world. And aviation has advanced tremendously over the years, but every really significant breakthrough weve had in aviation, especially in tactical military aviation, has been built upon an advancement in Propulsion Technology. Right now, as a result of investment in the strategy, were on the cusp of another breakthrough with the introduction of adaptive engines. So what do i mean by an adaptive engine . Let me give you an analogy, a timely analogy. If you watched the tour de france, you have watched cyclists from around the world trying to negotiate a 3,300kilometer course across france. Widely varied terrain, sometimes its flat, sometimes its hilly, sometimes its plain old mountainous, and all of these guys have the same goal, which is to get there first. To get there first, they have to be efficient because they have to sustain themselves and their bikes 3,300 kilometers. Thats a long way. How do they do that . Well, they manage, if you will, the gears on their bicycles. They change the gears. They optimize the performance of the bicycle and the performance of themselves to adapt to whatever the terrain offers wherever they are on the course. And thats how they make it work. They do it obviously at a level that we cant, but thats a different discussion. Were trying to do effectively the same thing in jet engines. And were partnered right now with the air force on a Major Program called aetd or the Adaptive Engine Technology Development program. Traditionally, a jet engine consists of two main streams of air. You have a core stream, which goes kind of through the center of the engine, and its primary purpose, it produces thrust, but its to power the rest of the engine. Then you have bypass. Thats really what produces trust. When you design an engine, its a single point design. You say what is the most stressing requirement i have to meet, you make sure the engine meets it, and everywhere else, you take a penalty, usually in efficiency. It means range, pay load, fuel burn, all those sorts of things. What were doing in this adaptive Engine Program is introducing a third stream of air that we can modulate, and by modulating it, i can adapt or optimize my performance no matter what the flight conditions are. And by doing that, i get tremendous improvements in Overall Mission capability, mission flexibility, range, payload capability overall. Its a big deal to be able to do this. Now, that doesnt come without challenges, as you can imagine. Adaptive engines arent new. We have been doing it a long time. We invented or recreated the j58 in 1958, really the worlds first adaptive engine, and the reason we did that is so that airplane could take off mach zero taking off and propel to incredible flight speeds sustained above mach three. More recently, were getting ready to fuel the f35. If you are watching that, you know the marine corps version the f35b is able to operate in conventional flight as well as transition into a short takeoff and vertical landing mode. What happens when you make that transition, you introduce profound changes in how the engine operates, but the engine adapts to that. By adapting to that, is able to seamlessly accommodate the changes in what its doing. Today, whats different about what were doing is where you look at those two programs or those two engines, they were meant to adapt to specific parts of flights whereas this aetd Program Adapts everywhere. So it adapts across the flight envelope and really gives you the full benefit of efficiency throughout. You can maximize the capability of your airplane. It has a lot of technology challenges. We had some design and architect challenges. We have a constrained configuration. It must be three strains and fit in a certain size. By doing that, it forces some tradeoffs you might have to make. Were pushing the envelope on temperature. We have technical challenges on how we work on the materials and codings and things to withstand the temperatures. We have challenges in software. We have to work on the software. Challenges in manufacturing. Some of the parts are very complex. They require some new ways to make components, and we evaluate those, and in the bigger scheme, we evaluate all sorts of advanced manufacturing techniques including Additive Manufacturing. And then, of course on top of all the technical challenges, were doing this in a time where we have tight budgets and a lot of things going on in terms of acquisition policies and procedures. But were being very successful. Were being very successful. The Program Overall is proceeding well. Our design is proceeding well. Were projected to meet all of our performance goals and cost targets and those sorts of things. On top of that, we are right now working with the air force to plan the next program, the Adaptive Engine Transition program, or aetp if you like those acronyms. Thats a 2 billion investment by the air force with ourselves and ge to develop and mature these designs even further. The reason i mention is that it underscores the importance of this Technology Going forward. And as a recognition of the importance of Adaptive Technology at the how do i make things work level all the way up to the system level as part of this overall Defense Strategy. Its really exciting. There are a lot of great things going on between adaptive, Additive Manufacturing, Adaptive Software, and how these play into the systems we field, and i think were on the cusp of really big breakthroughs that are part of the Defense Strategy that emerged just a few years ago. Thank you. This sets up, i have one more broad question. Maybe a couple of smaller derivatives of that. I would like to broaden the scope. You have done a great job of explaining a certain number of specific Technology Areas, but i would like to ask you to reflect on what it all means in terms of the overall character of Defense Innovation today. Are we in a period of revolutionary change . Are we in a period where there are a lot of exciting things in various specific domains but they add up to sort of more or less continuous rapid evolution . Thats going to have implications on how to think about the Defense Budget, whether we should be fundamentally rethinking how we allocate resources, whether we should be you mentioned the third offset. And to explain, this is the idea that now at this day and age, we need to think about how to take advantage of our Technology Areas of excellence just as we did with Nuclear Weapons in the early cold war period, just as we did with socalled air land battle and precision strike in the late cold war and desert storm period. The third offset would ask to what extent can be do the same kind of thing with the rise of china and iran and cruise missiles and other kinds of threats to our systems and take advantage of a lot of the things were hearing about today to give america yet another leap forward in technology excellence. Maybe you would define it differently. Im going to invite you to in a second. But the question really, and i would like to just work down the panel on this and ask anybody who wants to venture an opinion, how do you think about where we are today in 2015 in Defense Innovation . You know, viewed in broad historical sweep. Is this a period of revolutionary change or is this a period of sort of important but evolutionary change thats more or less continuous with what we have been seeing in the past . New things are constantly happening, but the pace of change is similar to whats been the case in the past . So im not sure if thats, you know, an overly philosophical question, but it has real world implications. Thats why im putting it on the table. Ill turn it over to you, my friend. I think that if we think about just generally the Way Technology has evolved in the last ten years, you think of the invention of the telephone and how we have gotten to smartphones but then the invention of the cell phone and what we have gotten to today with Handheld Computers in our pockets. Things are moving at a much quicker pace than they did since the Industrial Revolution. The other part of it is that i think there is a recognition that with all of the problems that the Defense Department is facing with constrained resources, transitional workforce, you have a great deal of people who are retiring. Theres a Knowledge Transfer issue. You also are faced with new threats abroad. The changing landscape of foreign policy, National Security, isis, rogue foreign states, all of that. You cant just throw technology at the problem. Thats not the solution. Its not you cant throw money at the problem, you also cant throw technology at the problem. I think that there is the potential for revolutionary change. For it to be most effective, it should be a careful and thoughtful and considered evolution and it should take into consideration from a strategic level, all of the implications across how you support the war fighter and how you support the mission and how the new technologies whether it be new jet engines or Adaptive Software or Additive Manufacturing or nanotechnology or different ways of securing our cybersystems and how you do those in a way that is actually considerate to the mission youre trying to support and the new threats that you see both internally and externally. So i think there is definitely a potential for revolutionary change. But in order for it to be considerate, it should be an evolutionary change. So the revolution might be what you get when you look in the Rearview Mirror but its not the goal you set out initially . You dont try to make a revolution. Things like what jim was talking about, one of the key factors where it might be revolutionary with Additive Manufacturing is the innovation aspect. When you deploy a machine in the field and have the capability at the point of need, so at an outpost base or depot or on an Aircraft Carrier or on a submarine or in the International Space station and you can actually create things that you didnt already have, because you have realized that you have a need for them and they didnt exist in the supply chain and now you have this new technology so that you can create them and use them right away, i think thats where the revolution could potentially come from. Thats where we see the greatest potential currently. I think the evolutionary change for things like determining which parts out of the hundreds of thousands of parts doa provides to the services are the ones theyre actually going to additively manufacture is more of an evolutionary change. Jim, if i could turn to you for the same question, where do you see the current pace and character of Defense Innovation in the United States today . I would characterize it as were on an evolutionary path. But we better get on to a revolutionary one. There are structural impediments within the procurement process, within the funding process, within the way we look at r d, that really keep us from the speed and scope of innovation, this potential is there. Thats been recognized among certain corporations that ge, for example, saw that their household products were taking too long to develop. That they didnt really exactly fit what customers wanted, so they set up whats called a hacker space, which is a combo of a playpen of machines for people to try and innovate. Youll see these dotted around major cities now. So there is a sort of democratization of ideas, of manufacturing capabilities, innovation that is really what is driving the next wave in the commercial economy, and the revolution will come, i believe, on the defense side when they start to tap into that. And the best ideas can come from anywhere. So one of the ways that i talk about it is, i spend a large part of my earlier life disagreeing with people who thought the worker should control the means of production. Now, the workers do control the means of production, and we have to recognize that and unleash that. So that the best ideas, the innovation, the adaptability isnt coming through traditional hierarchical organizations and structures. Its coming up through a bubbling up of these new innovative very freeflowing ideas, and oddly enough, as i work with these hackers, one of the things that comes up consistently is a lot of them are former military. Usually from some kind of a socom background where the value of just getting stuff done is extremely high. So i think were on a path which is evolutionary. I think we need to get on one which is revolutionary. And i believe that comes when we start to relook at the way were fairly hierarchical and rigid in the way we innovate and procure. And that needs to change if we are to really take advantage of the potential of the countrys economy and the people. And this raises the subject of acquisition reform which is Something Congress is trying to work on this year so i hope we come back to that later in the discussion. In the meantime, dave, same question to you, how do you describe the nature in broad historical perspective. I think there is an opportunity and a compelling need for us to accelerate the way we are driving new capabilities, leveraging the technology. But the challenge is we need to be more deliberate around the way we are experimenting with the technology in the hands of the war fighters. And the dialogues im having with the leadership in the dod, there is a renewed sort of enthusiasm around taking Emergent Technology and the war fighters getting them together putting that recipe together and doing some experimentation. Were trying to figure out, what does the potential of the technology hold . But in many ways the Technology Like myself, i dont anticipate how they want to use it. They are far better ways of using that i can conceive. It is this brainstorming process that allow you to adopt the evolution of the technology the evolution of the techniques and technology that youre going to employ and the capability to feed that back in the acquisition process. And basically tighten up that cycle time. So it is a thought around the coevolution of the solution where the technology and the war fighters are working together through experiments to drive new capability out into the field. Do you have an example of the kind of thing you could be talking about, just a practical way to think about it . Yeah. A good example of that. So one of the other areas of technology is multisensor fusion of data where you take feeds of data from radar, imaging sensors, all kinds of different sensors and bring those together. And typically the technologists will want to wring every ounce of information out of the sensors we have there. And what we find when we engage more strategically with the operators is first of all, that is a fairly attractable problem, to try to get all of that information out of every sensor all of the time everywhere, right . But there is this nice sort of positive feedback when working with the operators, they dont think about the problems that way, they think about areas where they need more information and less information and tips and cues from one area to the other. And it drives a different thought process around how you architect things when your customer, the war fighters here, visualize and conceptualize the environment differently than where the technologists would go which would maximize sort of everything in the capability. And listening to you two, i thought of armed drones. Because armed drones were something that the air force didnt want to do a lot with in the traditional period of the 1990s and it took a war environment which was sort of the real world version of experimentation and evaluating war fighter need to push first the cia really and then ultimately the air force and the services to overcome the bureaucratic resistance to think creatively to bring together technol gists with the far fighters. But were not going to have as much fighting to do, god willing, in the next five, ten or 15 or however many number of years so we have the innovation without the war time push. Is that a fair example . I think that is a good example. And jimmy, same question to you. But let me precede it with one vignette from an event we had here in april with bill and frank kendall. Frank kendall is the undersecretary for technology and logistic and bill lynn the former secretary of defense and now ceo frank went first and i asked him how would you evaluate the strength of the american acquisition system today and he said it is good. We make the best weapons in the world. And i would say it is a bplus, maybe an aminus. Obviously he is pushing reform, and im not saying hes complacent but he thought we were doing well. And bill lynn got up and said i agree with secretary kendall for major platforms and maybe for engines. He didnt say that but im surmising that is what hes thinking about. But i dont think we do well with electronics, where Adaptive Software might be relevant and on that kind of a thing we need the revolutionary reform. So im blending here and paraphrasing. But to put the question to you, is it fair, because were hearing a couple of different things, this is a period of rapid innovation in some sectors and it should be even faster, but youre talking about ongoing improvements in propulsions your company has been doing for decades. That strikes me as impressive but not more rapid than five, ten, 15 years ago. So help me understand, is the pace of innovation fast paced in some areas and slower in others and how should we think about this holistically . I would argue that would argue that the potential for revolutionary advancement is absolutely there. And i think weve heard that already with some of the things weve talked about. Where we are though is we have an acquisition system that is ill suited to deal with that. Why . And you can assume it up in one word and that is complexity. All of the things we talked about this morning introduce complexity and other things that introduce complexity. We heard about the various things you can do with Additive Manufacturing. How do you manage that strategic strategically that adds complexity to it. Everybody would argue the more software, the more complex and therefore Software Means complexity. The engines were talking about are more complex. And when you look at all of these things together and in a whole myriad of other technologies and other things were doing it adds complexity. And add to that globalization of of the Industrial Base. Globalization of the structural base and the Customer Base and these various things. All of that adds complexity. Add to that many of the new threats and things that are moving at different paces around the world. That all adds complexity. And when you put all of this together and then, oh, by the way, add the budget environment were in and the uncertainty of funding from year to year and the uncertainty of requirements from year to year, that all adds complexity. And what happens, as you begin to add complexity, we have a system that doesnt handle complexity very well. It is very risk averse in that sense. And why . Because these things cost money. And these things cost taxpayer money which the department is trying very, very hard to manage as effectively as it can. But what that does, it adds a risk aversion into the acquisition process that makes it hard to introduce some of these more complex but much more revolutionary capabilities very rapidly. We have no tolerance for failure. We have a system that is more willing to tolerate a budget increase than a performance shortfall. And we just keep adding this and adding this and so things take longer and they cost more and as a consequence we end up, instead of getting the revolutionary things out there more quickly, we take more risk averse approaches and go for off the shelf type of approaches because they are theoretically less risky, and we take more incremental approaches because i have more confidence that ill get there. But even at that, i end up taking longer and costing more because of the complexity of what were dealing with. Thank you. And thats going to lead i have one question derivative of that before we go to all of you, and it does relate to the ongoing acquisition of reform as its being considered on capitol hill. This will give a chance for anybody who wants to weigh in a to do so. s its been explained to me, one way to think about the debate on capitol hill and why the problem is hard to solve there as well as for the broader Defense Community is that there are at least two competing ways to think about the number one priority of Acquisition Policy, and one is to make sure that the taxpayer doesnt get ripped off and we minimize any kind of potential for the 600 hammers of the chuck spending days of the 1990s and we want as much oversight to make sure that doesnt happen and another strand says if you do that, youll have so much regulation and so much dead weight sitting over Corporate America that its not a lot of companies arent even going to want to work for dod and those that do are going to spend most of their creative juices figuring out how to comply with regulations rather than designing new technology. I think i just heard you said that you would probably concur with the school of thought that says we better be careful about overregulating and and overmonitoring, not that were trying toencourage a lax environment, but if we put too much regulation and too much restriction on companies they will fail to innovate so i want to make sure i heard you right and give you a chance to see where you stand with acquisition reform today and then work down panel for others comments. Well, mike i think the truth is somewhere in between. I think if you deregulate too much you do run the risk of the taxpayer getting ripped off. I like to think certainly on behalf of my own company, but i like to think most defense contractors, are very mindful of of their responsibilities to our ultimate customer the war fighter and the american people. We take that commitment very seriously, but by the same token we dont always agree on a business basis with what our customer wants to do and thats a natural thing thats going to occur in any sort of relationship like that but that being said you clearly dont want to create the government has a responsibility to the taxpayer to be fair and to be transparent. You have to do that. Now the question becomes how can you do that but at the same time give industry the flexibility to do what they need to do. I dont know that theres a good answer which is why acquisition reform has been a buzzword for decades and continues to be something that we continue to strive for and continue to struggle with. But i would say that thats probably the hard problem of the century, but nevertheless its something we have to strive to get better. There is a balance there. There is a balance between letting industry innovate and letting industry take responsibility and put goods into the hands of the war fighter that meet the war fighters nodes and making sure that the responsibility of the taxpayer is upheld. So before i go dave, let me just follow up with a very specific question. Is there one word base on your current understanding of where congress has left this debate, as its leaving town now, july 31st, 2015. Is there one word of advice you would give them to push this process to the next realistic level knowing were not going to have a Silver Bullet were hot going to solve it once and for all and based on where you think the understanding is right now, one word of advice you would like to provide. Understand the difference between business and government, and in understanding the difference between business and government, understand that you cant run government as a business, and you cant run business like a government. And if you can understand the differences between the two and draw the differences between the two, that helps to settle that relationship. Thank you. Dave, any thoughts on acquisition reform policy where we should be going with that . I think likewise we take our responsibility there very seriously, as most of our peers do. I think its also its about balance, right . And either extreme you get the kinds of behaviors that none of us want, right . So in addition to finding where that right balance is there, i think we also need to step back and reflect a little bit on the kind of acquisition objectives that we want to have as we see the cycle times and the kind of technologies coming in all right . Being able to acquire things that, you know, incrementally add capability over time, right . Its a different kind of acquisition that you do there. And so in addition to kind of getting that set point right, you know, and we have a joint responsibility with our customers to help make that happen, its also sort of reflecting a little bit more on how these incremental enhancements help us with our budget pressures help us get capabilities into the hands of the war fighters more quickly, but theres challenges associated with how you acquire those kinds of systems. And where does that have to happen . Wheres the number one roadblock now . Is it in existing law . Is it in the culture of the military services . Is it in the nature of the acquisition work force . Im sure youre going to say its a little bit of all of the above, but if theres one community, one part of the process thats most in need of fixing today or innovation, what would that be in your mind . Yeah, i think it is, and a little bit in all of those areas there. I think, that you know technology and the future capabilities that dont necessarily respect the organizational constructs that we have right now so increasingly, you know technology is forcing us to think about acquiring things that involve you know, varied stakeholders in ways that we havent had to bring them together in the past. Its just the way it is and so part of it is just the communication across folks, both in industry and in government that form that Stakeholder Community that have not regularly actually been working to acquire those kinds of systems. Jim, you called for more revolutionary change. Do you see a way to make that happen, to catalyze that in the context of this conversation . I think we just heard a Million Dollar comment here which is that the technology doesnt respect the current kind of organizational structures and the way that it was adapted, so i dont know when i, you know could you have a pretty good argument about what era our procurement system harkens back to and some people would say its a civil war essentially model. And and its about mass and resources. Well, we need a procurement system which isnt about mass. We need one thats about the adaptability and knowledge continent effectiveness of what were procuring and to do that what we really need to do is look at the procurement system not so much in terms of whether we have enough regulation to protect the taxpayer or not or, you know, are we acquiring the right Weapons Systems. We should look at it in terms of how do we widen the base of the sources and the resources being uses for developing and delivering these systems . So when i talk to some of the leading folks on in private industry about their technology and how its being used by the department of defense, they repeatedly say to me, you know, there are a lot of folks out there, folks like the chinese, that are much better at taking innovation wherever it is and effectively militarizing it and bringing it in. So i think our system is some ways archaic procurement. Its about acquiring Large Capital expenditures. Its not driven by innovation or adapt adaptability, so if i were, you know to counsel the folks who are going home on vacation i might tell them not to come back but i would also but i would also say the games changed here okay . Its not about massing resource and allocating budget. Its about accessing the full continuum of innovation and effectively militarizing it as required. You know, ultimately their responsibility is not around protecting taxpayer money or executing big programs. Its about winning. And a lot of folks in private industry will say, transition civilian technology or technology wherever it is and into military use, were losing our lead on that and just because of the sheer weight and the wrong model. The model doesnt respect the technology. So brennan over to you for any thoughts that you got, but i guess one question that occurs to me, you know, is the Glass Half Full or half empty because weve got contending themes in our conversation, not really debates one person against another, but there are themes that are saying, you know were making the best stuff in the world. Weve got the best stuff in the world. Were doing interesting things ais cross the domains that you all have been discussing this morning and at the same time were bureaucratized and we oscillate and dont innovate really well during peacetime. Do you have a bottom view of whether the glass is half full or half empty . Thats actually a perfect segue because i was trying to think of one word that i would apply and i think its two words and i would counsel congress on being realistically optimistic which is a way of life that i try to ascribe to. You cant have everything all of the time and you cant think that everything is going to be going well all of the time but you can be realistic about the potential, and i think that all of the organizations that we represent, we really do have the taxpayer in mind, and there seems to be a struggle between those of the current leadership on the hill and their understanding of what the Industrial Base is trying to do, and whether or not they have actually the war fighters best needs in mind. Lmi was founded because secretary mcnamara recognized the need that somebody outside of the pentagon needed to look at the logistics issues facing the military 50 years ago and see it in a different light and try and solve those complex problems and we have since continued to support that mission, and one of the things that we continue to try to do is look at innovation as a atto support the mission constantly. Theres a great sfrirt not to get philosophical but i will, in this country of entrepreneurship and innovation and that is what will drive the potential solution and the potential evolution and revolutionary opportunities that there is, and i think that trusting that entrepreneurial and innovative spirit is actually going to be okay and if you fail and at least fail forward and learn from those mistakes, it is an accurate and efficient investment in the technology then its all worth, it and the process and the structure, as everyone as the gentlemen to my right have recognized it does not facilitate that process. It ties up the process to the people who might actually have the solutions dont even want to participate so i would counsel congress to be optimistically realistic about the future and to have a little bit more trust in the private sector and bringing these technologies to bear on Public Sector problems. One followup in. What way is the congress not trusting private sector enough right now, because it pushes dod to use the traditional bureaucratized regulated methods of procure president and needs to encourage congress to take advantage of the federal code and the options for commercial acquisition style you know of procurement . Mean, whats a specific way in which Congress Gets in the way . Think that the acquisition proses is so cumbersome and the requirements dont actually meet the needs of what things are being proposed so a lot of times the questions that come out and the problems that are trying to be solved, if theres a new way of solving them there isnt a recognition that you have to look at it and evaluate it in a new light. Youre trying to apply old regulations and old Acquisition Policy to new solutions and there isnt theres a disconnect between how you do it. And there is also i think sometimes a fear of the unknown. If you dont have all of the answers at the beginning or if if the evaluation process isnt educated enough for the individual evaluators that are part of the acquisition process dont understand it, instead of asking questions again and again to better educate the Acquisition Policy process there is a fear and just a shutdown of the process so i think its just the general purksypurk sy and jimmy said it, i would characterize it more of red tape and the complexity in the acquisition process that prevents these new solutions from being applied. Great. Lets go to all of you. Ill take two questions at a time. Please wait for a microphone andive yourself and if you can pose your question specifically to one person it would he. Its not obligatory but preferred. Well do two at a time. The woman here in the fourth row and the gentleman i guess in about the seventh row, both on the aisle. Good morning. Thank you for your comments. My name is margaret cope. Im an independent consultant and i have a background in Life Cycle Management in the air force. My question has to do with pma, product manufacture approval. Where is that with regard to this whole process . I know when you talk a bunch of constraints, that was an area that we were looking significantly at, and i would just like to know if you have an update. Probably, jimmy, youre the one who would know most about that. And before we do. Well get two on table. That way we can pick and choose. Go ahead. Im john wartman with the association of american geographers. My question is probably for brennan. Weve been real advocates for Stem Education here in the United States. As we talk about things like agile systems complexity revolution, evolution, what are the implications for the 24th century war fighter . How has the Defense Department been thinking about what war fighters are going to need to be able to do with these new technologies in mind . Jim well start with you and then go to brepan. Sure. So pma becomes a very interesting discussion and especially in light of things like what we heard earlier with Additive Manufacturing. I can take apart and i can figure out how to do it in the field and there you go. The problem you run into particularly with aircraft systems, is that there are certain characteristics of those parts that you have to have. Its Material Properties as well as qualities such as surface finish and dimensionality and things like that. If you dont have them, that part can fail and when it fails, it will be spectacular and not in a good way. And so one of the things you worry about when you go through the pma process, the whole idea is that youve proven that you can produce that part to have the right quality so that you have the quality part that can do what it has to do. If you decentralize that and take away that thats an authority that youre given. Things like Additive Manufacturing can challenge because how do you then maintain the authority in the challenge for us at manufacturers is we stand by the quality of our products, and if you start flying around products that have parts that we cant stand by then it makes it very difficult for us to stand by our products any more. So i think right now where we are on pma. Its bureaucratic ashoreuthoritative process and things like that, and where you can successfully do it it can drive competition and can try cost improvements but you have to be very very mindful of the quality issues and looking ahead as we look at things like Additive Manufacturing, that may become yet even more complex. Brennan . Sure. So with regard to some education, we actually work very close which with the universities in our research and development program, do internal r d and do academically funded r did projects and one of the things weve been looking at with regard to Additive Manufacturing is how do you provide the work force that can actually use the technology, and a key component of that are what are the skills and capabilities that they immediate . And there is in some areas a misconception that when you use a new technology, can you kind of throw all the other stuff baby out with the bath water and you dont need to know traditional engineering aspects. Physics is not changing. It is the same. The technology that is going to be have to withstand those physics when you produce a part and put it on a plane or an aircraft careerier or a submarine, you have to understand the traditional engineering aspect because you have to know how you prodies that part in the past and then how you have used this new technology to create a new part whether its the same part or whether its three parts that you can now print as a singular part. But you have to have that background in engineering, and you have to have that capability to understand how to use it. With regard to how that applies to the war fighter, it is a question that continues to need to be answered, and thats what were working with the dod on the training and work force perspective. If you put Additive Manufacturing in the field Forward Operating base or combat outpost and have an infantry unit that is 30 guys, who within that team has capability to actually take the software, to pryne the part, to create a part as its needed to use cad filed and 3d data to print the parts . So what are the skill sets . And i think the stem piece continues to be an area that there is a growing need, and i think that there will be a need for having specialists and generalists who can facilitate the process so that the technology can be applied in a forward or deployed setting. Thank you. Lets take two more. These two gentlemen here. Thank you. John harper with National Defense magazine. I guess this question is probably for brennan and jim. Can you give some examples of the ways in which the services are using Additive Manufacturing now and what some of their plans are for utilizing that technology in the coming years . Sure. Im Randall Doyle from georgetown university. Id kind of like to look at this from a different angle listening to the process of acquisition. I want to talk about the external factors with the advancements of fighter and manulife planes in china. Im wondering how much pressure is on you to be able to produce these products for the military and so forth and whether maybe because of chinas vast advancement in weaponry and so forth, whether that will be part of the process of breaking down the red tape that you talked about and maybe would make you happier with congress . Ill add one more and then potentially we have a question for everybody so well see. Thats what im hoping. Thank you. Im elliot horwicz former member of the Intelligence Community and the state department and the world bank. For mr. Kenyon i have a question. What is the rate of progress of our meshajor adversaries the peoples republic of china and Russian Federation in terms of adaptive propulsion . Why dont we begin with jim this time and then well work across the panel. I would characterize the use of Additive Manufacturing amongst the services as islands of experimentation, and in many ways driven by either individuals or programs or units that i have an inherent interest in the innovation so were the concrete examples of how its being used in the field would be the deployment of Additive Manufacturing machines with socom. I mentioned the dog bones with the antennas. Theres been a lot of innovations of weapons so rather than being mass produced they are more custom fit to individuals, and theres been theres an example of something a was used for a sling underneath the helicopter that was made in the field. Again, i would say that this is not in any way new and, in fact, when you Start Talking about the navy its inherently in the navys dna to do this kind of stuff. A ship is out there in the middle. Ocean. Its going to keep going and the machine shop will come up with a solution and what this particular technology does is it widens the envelope of possible solutions, that that machine shop can execute on. So the adoption path within the services is really a function of need and frankly of immediate need. Theres nothing like having to solve a people that causes you to propel a Technology Forward. Now in the Industrial Base, the adoption of the technology is really kind of bifluctuating. The machine and the materials the Price Performance envelope on them is crashing and effectively within that class of machines they are xhodizations going on both in the material and the machine. Theres also a group of machines and materials that are becoming highly specialized and are regarded as a competitive advantage. Though if i would turn to jimmy and say, hey, would you tell me how youve locked down your processes and have eliminated variability, well, how do you guarantee your final element analysis . He wouldnt tell us because that is the competitive vac so theres a limited number of folks usually with a lot of capital that are truly differentiating themselves in Additive Manufacturing and frankly they are having to build the machines themselves. The machines that are available just arent up to snuff. So in the commercial industrial sector it really is playing out is this a commoditytype capability with commodity materials or is there an opportunity to create a distinct competitive advantage, and what were seeing so far is it takes a lot of money to lock down the processes on metal side and create parts but when you do you have an advantage over other companies that is significant and justifies that capital investment. Brennan, do you want to add an example or two before we go to jimmy and then dave . Sure. I think theres two key examples that are helpful to jims point. The navy has been using addtive manufacturing for a number of years. The naval of dental school has been printing bridges for people in their mouths for many years, probably almost 30 years. With the evolution of Additive Manufacturing the customization to an individual persons physiology. Theres a great opportunity there, and and the medical Services Continue to provide that. Theres a lack of infection when you have customized prosthetics or skull caps when you have drumtic brain injuries and so thats a growing area. The other example that i like to use pretty often is the Rapid Equipment force that i mentioned earlier. Socom special Operations Command that was deployed in afghanistan. Infantry units were given flashlight and there was an exterior button on flashlight so they would put the flashlight on the pocket or back and every time they would walk it would click on an off and any of you familiar with night patrol know thats rule number one and they came back and said we need a cover for this and they actually produced a cover. Produced a cover for the flashlight and printed them in the field and provided them immediately to the infantry units so that is a key example of the innovative aspect of it. And there is that is continuing to go on and to jims point earlier about the service. At the services they are pushing envelope constantly because they are primarily there to support the war fighter and sometimes luckily they dont want to put up with the impediments that i mentioned earlier about support supporting that mission and they are pushing the technology from a strategic perspective. Where were trying to help docd as you push the technology across the services having a comprehensive strategy for how you apply the technology. I dont know if youre comfortable about stalking about Global Trends and propulsion. Yeah. That that its a little hard to answer directly but heres what i will say and i actually touch on both of those questions. Theres been a lot of investment a lot of work going on poet in russia and china and thats been fairly public. Theres been a lot of art californias in the press lately regarding chinas desire on commercial side to develop propulsion capability and so clearly thats something that bears watching. If you were to watch secretary kendalls remarks we have a 1 billion investment in propulsion and even while were struggling in other areas and why is that. Propulsion is recognized as a differentiator for the United States. Its something that sets us apart and thats why keeping that technological lead is a big reason for that. Thats an interesting thing and looking at your bigger question, its remarkable in this nation historically. Weve been able to rise to the occasion when we have a national imperative imperative. When you go back to world war ii we had this thing going on in europe and this thing going on in japan, and result of that was just a tremendous blossoming. Defense Industrial Base and particularly the aviation base. Weve produced airplanes, punching them off the production line day after day after day because we needed them in the fight and we found ways to do that, both the government and the Industrial Base. Fast forward a little bit, and once sputnik was launch and detected, boy, we took off, and and not that long later we were putting people on the moon, and that was just one part of what turned into the cold war and the Technological Advancement that was the cold war because of a compelling National National imperative. Where are we today and when we consider what we see going on in russia and what we see going on in china, and when we look at the Defense Strategy that we hear about, is it a compelling national imperative . Well, when you look at our defense acquisition system today you might argue not yet. But are we headed in that direction . Maybe. Thank you. Dave, anything you want to add to that . Maybe ill hit on both of those as well. From the Additive Manufacturing kind of perspective, you know, i spend my organization a lot in the r d spaces, right, but were using that very extensively. In there its really about being able to respend you know prototypes very quickly and far more cost effectively. I was in a proposal review just a couple of weeks ago, and were talking about how were going to modify a system going phase two and in they walk with an aluminum version of what were use as the infrastructure there and were also experimenting with far more sophisticated materials as well beyond the aluminum as an instance in that particular case. When it comes to the pace of our adversaries and what were doing technologywise and capabilitywise im actually very optimistic in the sense of some of the dialogs that i think are occurring right now. You dont have to be more than a few minutes of conversation with secretary kendall on this kind of a topic before he asks a question. Are you getting data you need . Are you in the conversations with our folks about where our adversaries are going . Where our deficits are and what were doing to potentially overcome those . All right. Same thing mr. Stackly and the navy, they are very keen on making sure that those conversations are occurring and are substantial conversations around data and security and the like being and they are not just operating within stove pipes either. Ive seen good conversations coming across services so you know, im not suggesting that those conversations werent occurring before, but they are occurring now with a severance intensity that i i can actually see the difference. I think were going to do one more round of questions and well allow everyone to make a final comment. And im also going to say we have general campbell coming from afghanistan to be here tuesday at 3 00 to talk about the state of play there. But that also is an opportunity, and im sure everybody in the room would probably want to join me. We may or may not have another opportunity in short order on cspan to say thank you to a departing group of military leaders that as many of you now are leaving en masse and were seeing the cheryl and vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff as well as the chief of staff of the army and chief of Naval Operations but certainly all those appear to be change in the coming weeks. The navy part is still in transition, as i understand it, but im sure we all want to thank not only general dempsey general on the other handio and the admirals and all those who served with them through this intense period of service to our country. I wont ask them to thank them now but when we thank panelists lets give the round of applause for all the military leaders as it is an historic moment as the United States transitions out of war and seeing them all leave simultaneously brings it home for me. Sorry for that little aside. Lets get three last questions and well do a final wrapup. Ill take the question at the very back and then you two here and then well just go across panel. Matt jones from the boeing company, and i want to thank the panelists for a very informative session here, thank you very much. My question is related to i guess ill aim it at jim. Youve talked about the application of Additive Manufacturing to logistics and other aspects of it. Do you see much evidence of how Additive Manufacturing is changing design philosophy . In other words, are people starting to really design for Additive Manufacturing . The gentleman here in the fourth row and then Ryan Sturgell with the cohen group. I wanted to ask what initiatives you see either dod funding or potentially even other departments for Additive Manufacturing, and, for example the white house has, you know, moved to set up this National Network for manufacturing innovation and the first center is on Additive Manufacturing, i think based in Youngstown Ohio and dod kicked in a fair amount of money to fund that initially. Other and maybe you can comment on sort of how thats going, but are there other initiatives like that sort of coming down pipeline that we might see. Thank you. Over here. Im sean lingus with federal computer week magazine. Dave you mentioned a versery are moving away from a hardwareladen approach to more software to having digital things early in the cycle. Thats kind of like maybe a crude summary of what you said, but can you elaborate on what you need by that and implications for how the u. S. Does business in that field . Because the three questions were put so succinctly. There was one more hand and ill bring that into the mix and then well just wrap up. Hi. My name is steve barron. Im a soldier and defense fellow though my remarks are my own here. Would i like to see if i can get remarks specifically as they relate to 3d printing and energetic materials. As we look forward we head a lot of discussion about cold. Ry and carts i was wondering with airdrop munitions so they can be more tailored and adapt adaptable and more efficiently placed in the hands of the war fighters. To kind of zero in, opportunities and efforts, whats going on right now that you know of merits of this kind of research and effort and lastly Defense Industry and academic partnerships, things that we can leverage our graduate students to do a lot of lifting on. What are the opportunities there . Thank you. Why dont we just work from brennan downward and well see if we can cover most of these questions as we conclude. Okay. I think i can kind of speak to the to three of them. With regards to logistics, the the key part that we see in terms of applying Additive Manufacturing as i menned earlier is youre essentially turning the supply chain on its head so you create the part and and at a Manufacturing Base and then you send it to a depot and it gets put on a component or it gets sent out into the field. If you push the entire supply chain forward and you actually put the ma she be in the field and youre printing in the field, youre actually just trunk agent entire process and meeting the need exactly where it is, so the potential there is great and significant in condensing the whole supply chain and all the logistics that support it and looking at reduction of inventory and reduction of all of the money that is spent on the space where all of these parts are housed, but, again, it has to be a thoughtful process and which of those parts actually is there a Business Case to trunk ate that with logistics and supply chain and then with regards to the question about academic partnerships, so a lot of the universities work with organizations like myself and then the youngstown, ohio, its america makes that youre referring to, it is an initiative that was borne out of the dod and it brings together industry academia and the services and and department of defense to have a conversation and continue to push the Technology Forward and to facilitate the process of the acquisition process and introduce that entrepreneurial spirit that you have in the small organizations that focus primarily on technology of the 3d print and the potential implications. They may not have a familiarity with the dod contracting process like most of us do and so america makes and organizations like it are helping to facilitate that conversation. There are a number of investments that dod is making directly with schools somen state and Virginia Tech will two of the schools we work with. Sim iii is the lab at penn state and dreams lab at Virginia Tech is the 3d arm and the different organizations that dod is making to look at them collaborativelily to look at the potential implications and what the processes are, where can you find efficiencies, what parts or components might be able to be printed and then we do a lot of work we also facilitate that conversation so taking the questions and investing our own funding and answering those questions and using the academic expertise. The graduate students in those programs, again, till have that traditional manufacturing and engineering pc ground and then are advancing it to understand better how do you design in 3d . How do you look at a part a was subtractively manufactured or three or four part and put them together and look at how they could be printed so those are some of the things and i hopefully covered all three of those. Jim. Would i like to address the question around design for Additive Manufacturing. I could characterize it right now as being an art and not an engineering science that the Software Design Software Needs to take a jump forward before it catches up with the technology that theres a lot of lack of understanding or just frankly knowledge about how you design the digitally optimal part that its sometimes referred to. So, in many ways i compare it to when composites came in to aerospace and everybody was a metal person there was just an incredible adoption cycle a cycle and had to totally reorient themselves, a cycle of getting composite education into engineering schools before it really flourished. That took decades really. Theres some of that going on with designs for Additive Manufacturing. I would say theres really two interesting things though in the design for Additive Manufacturing space. The first is where designs are coming from that weve all heard about competitions being run on jet engine brackets or parts coming from design and art schools used in industrial applications so theres theres this democratization of designs already occurring. Where do you go for ideas and solutions to include the actual users of the product . The second thing is that my experience is that folks embark on design for Additive Manufacturing path often veer off and start designing for their own supply chains because as they lay out economics and the needs they revert back to i dont want to change the part. I just want to be able to build it at the point of use because of what that does to my logistical requirement, my inventory requirements, what it does for a disappearing source of parts, et cetera. Thank you. Dave . So sort of whats the implications for more and more Software Content closer and closer to sort of the front end of these systems . Maybe ill motivate that with an example and take you back a couple of decades or more so theres a set of enthusiasts that sort of have these scanners and they listen to things going on on the radios and if you had one of those 20 or more years ago what you would do is figure out what you want to listen to. You go down to your local Electronics Store and you buy a crystal. You would open the back of the radio up and you would plug the crystal in there and you had four slots for crystals so you could pick four if you wanted four and if you could change your mind you go back to the storage and get a different crystal and put that in and then you could use the device to listen to radio frequencies most interesting to you. We take that approach with the product. You get it enter the frequency and, boom, youre listening to it. As new formats come out, in large part that that new system is able to address and receive and understand those right . And the reason it can do that is because were actually converting from the radio frequency that comes over the air into a format where we do a lot more of the processing in soft way. Much, much earlier and so the the change to accommodate a new a new system, in this case a new radio, that you want to be able to listen to is an up load of software in that system. It isnt going down to the store and buying a crystal so you can sort of extrapolate to there to system that were not listening but communicating and systems where perhaps we want to bridge across different radio formats, right . In the past you might have to have different sub radios for each of the formats that you want to bridge and now you can ingest all of those and in software make that connection occur. Real implication is one of, you know efficiency, cost, ex accessibility and those kind of things. And jimmy bryce harper, jimmy. I appreciate that relationship there because my son is a huge bryce harper fan. And we cant make him with 3d manufacturing, cant yet make a replica. A little one. A little one. So i there are allotted there are a lot of key ideas here. I think going back to the question on design for additive mfrgs, at the end of the day thats the real opportunity. Thats the real opportunity because it opens up a whole new way of making things that can cost less because i need material. They can take less time because i can eliminate some processes out of my manufacturing line. There are a lot of things i can do with that that frankly just make the product better. I can take weight out of products because i dont put things in other places where i cant remove it later on. I have design flexibility. Right now ive got a program where ive got a major component of a military engine on test and we made parts of it use Additive Manufacturing and i was able to lay in instrumentation leads and in doing that or ports for instrumentation leads and by doing that i dont have to add things that disrun aerodynamic performance. It just makes it a lot better so that really is ultimately where we need to go. Whats the catch. What we have to learn how to do as jim alluded to it, its kind of an art right now. Get the way we pose our problems and how we do our al i analysis we have to think not only how we make things and how we design things and analyze them with the physics to take full advantage of that. The opportunity there are things like the america makes initiative, like stem initiatives that tap into Additive Manufacturing. America makes was intended to catalyze the industry. Intended to get this started and apparently its worked because were here talking about it. Companies like my own, like others are really heavily engaged in it and were working and real taking it forward very quickly. The other part of it, universities are a huge part of that. How do i think differently about the physics . We have a relationship that we heard about two universities earlier. We have a relationship naturally being a connecticutbased company and where were working on Additive Manufacturing with them and if you talk to different companies, youll hear similar stories about things that they are forming with their universitieses that they have relationships specifically for that reason so i think theres a huge opportunity there, and i think its only a matter of time before we get there. Wonderful. Well listen thank you all for being here and please join me in a big round of thanks and appreciation for panel. Friday an cspan a look at medicaid and housing policy including toefrts reduce homelessness through Better Mental Health services. Watch live coverage of the alliance for Health Reform at noon eastern time on cspan and cspan. Org. When the senate takes its august break well feature book tv programming weeknights in primetime on cspan2 beginning at 8 001 eastern and at the end of the summer look for two special programs. On saturday september 5th were live from our Nations Capital for the 15th annual National Book festival. Followed on sunday with our live indepth program with former second lady and senior fellow at the American Enterprise institute, lynne cheney. Booktv on cspan2 television for serious readers. Admiral paul zukunft is the newly appointed commandant of the u. S. Coast guard and spoke at the National Press club about challenges facing the coast guard including cybersecurity and increased shipping routing from the expansion of the panama canal. This an hour and a half. Welcome to the National Press club. My name is jeff balew withal jazz rah media netter English Channel networks and our guest today is u. S. Coast guard admiral and commandant paul zukunft. First, i would like to introduce our he had table guest and would ask each of you to stand briefly as your name is announced. From the audiences right natalie de blasio ron haven and a member of the National Speakers committee. Make leaderer, publisher of stars and stripesch lieutenant command mer natalia best of the u. S. Coast guard, jen judson, defense reporter at politico and cochair of the National Press club Young Members Committee master chief steven cantrell, master chief petty officer of the United States coast guard and skipping over, kevin wensing, retired United States navy captain and the press club member who arranged the event speaking over our speaker momentarily, information technicians specialist second class janai, john donnelly, Senior Defense writer Congressional Quarterly and cochair of the National Press club press freedom committee, will Watson Deputy commander of the National Press Club American legion pest and john gallagher, senior americas reporter ihs maritime and trade fair play magazine magazine. I also want to welcome our cspan and public radio and online audiences on press. Org and i want to remind you that you can follow the action on twitter use the npclunch. As 25thndment of the United States coast guard ald miller paul zukunft leads the largest component of the department of homeland security. The nonretired coast guard boasts some 828,000 personnel including active duty reserves, civilian and volunteers with a budget of about 8. 1 billion. Down a bit from last year, right . Members of the coast guard operate ice breakers in the arctic ocean and help mitigate recent events like the migrant crisis coming over, the greenpeace blockade protest against the Royal Dutch Shell execute counterdrug operations in the caribbean and provide security both in the u. S. And even some places as far away as the south china sea. They respond to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and more on how were marking that event here at the club a little later and human cost disasters such as the deep Horizon Oil Spill in the gulf of mexico . Additionally the coast guard rescued more than 3,000 people each year and searches for boaters who go missing such as the two teenagers who disappeared off the coast of florida recently. As the smallest military force and the only one with Law Enforcement authority the coast guard has had a role in the defense of the United States for 225 years. In fact yesterday, was the coast guards birthday. Today admiral zukunft will discuss the challenges for the coast guard such as congressional budget struggles, a welldebated Cyber Security plan maintaining a zero tolerance for Sexual Assault and a fleet in high need of monetization and sheer numbers to tackle the next 225 years. Please give a warm National Press club welcome to the commandant of the United States coast guard, admiral paul zukunft. [ applause ] jeff, thank you for the flattering introduction, and i had a chance to meet many of you before, and i just want to thank you. Theres a lot of places that you could be right now but im just delight that the youre here to learn a little bit more about what i would say the little engine that could, the United States coast guard, whose roots trace back to august 4, 1790 and ill tell a little bit about our history talk a little bit about the present, talk a little bit about the future, and then really open it up to question and answer and just have a very spontaneous dialogue recognizing everything we say is on the record. So this has been a phenomenal week for the coast guard. I just returned from grand haven, michigan. Called coast guard city usa. Its a city of about 10,000, but this weekend it was a city of 200,000. Here to celebrate the United States coast guard, and every coast guard man and woman walking the streets of grand haven, michigan young teenagers not giving us flack but saying we love the coast guard. You cannot come back to washington, d. C. With a better feeling than after spending a little bit of time in coast guard city usa grand haven. Yesterday we unveiled the forever stamp in commemoration of the United States coast guard. 15 million stamps printed because many time most folks dont realize what the coast guard does on a daytoday basis. Im honored to be here with you today. Tomorrow ill be on pitching mound at National Stadium to throw an opening pitch but more importantly on saturday ill be in boston massachusetts as we commission our fifth National Security cutter which is really paying huge dividends and ill tell a little pitt about one of the National Security cutters a little bit later on in my remarks. On monday ill be in san diego for the ship thats going to return, and ill tell you that story later and this is going to be a big media event a very big shoot, if you will, and then on thursday ill be in havana cuba and so well be opening the embassy the following day. Ill be involved in bilateral discussions with the government of cuba with our u. S. Interest section there and then secretary kerry, as you may know will be there on 14th as we open up the embassy in cuba, and so a little bit different than the coast guard that Alexander Hamilton envisioned 225 years ago as i rattled off, you know, whats on my schedule for just the next two weeks, and the good thing is this is a slow twoweek period. It actually picks up after, that and its going to comfort asiapacific region as well. It will will cover the arctic so weve got a lot going on over there as well. The coast guard many times we find ourselves on all seven continents across the globe, including antiarc characters but today weve got two special people who are with us here today. Right now were only on fiveday seven continents, but were well get back to all seven of those. Joining us first of all is Lieutenant Commander natalie best. She was Commanding Officer of a patrol boat serving for Central Command in the straits between iran and bahrain so she was the Commanding Officer of that cutter. And i just want to make a point that since 1978 every military occupational specialty in the coast guard has been open to women, and they literally hit the ball out of the park and very trying. Deployed for a year, young child at home, and its great to have you back and we brought her back to washington, d. C. [ applause ] and you also heard introduced is petty officer janai. Hes an information specialive. He works at an area where we cant say a lot about what they do behind locked doors, but hes also a linguist and served on one of our hamilton class cutters that was involved in a multilateral operation, not an exercise working with china japan, korea russia canada and the u. S. But really u. S. Led, and he was our linguist our japanese linguist because its really hard to do combined operations if you cant speak a universal language. Weve been operating in this domain now for a number of years under the auspices of what we call the North Pacific coast guard forum, and its really a model of collaboration and effort with some of our key asiapacific partners so thank you for your work over there. [ applause ] so imagine, if you will, its august 4th, 1790. The Continental Navy was disbanded. The last ship was auctioned off in 1785 so while we emerged as victors from the revolutionary war, we were very much a bankrupt nation. In our first secretary of treasury Alexander Hamilton probably a champion of the understatement said if we had ten sentinels poefed at our ports might they do some good for the prosperity of our nation. A tariff act was passed before that, but you had pirates. You had people bypassing our tariff laws and so quite honestly were a maritime nation but without any Maritime Governance whatsoever. So Alexander Hamilton had this vision in that we would charter ten revenue cutters and then he wrote a letter to each one of those Commanding Officer. He wasnt so big on specifications of those ten ships. He said somewhere between 36 40 feet, and by the way each one shall cost 1,000 apiece. He sent these Commanding Officers out to build them. The first up came in at 2,500. Two and a half times its initial acquisition cost. Today our acquisition program, our total acquisition portfolio our growth is less than 2 and so we won four of eight of the federal acquisition awards last year so weve come a little bit some way since 1790, but the most important piece that Alexander Hamilton charged those Commanding Officers is to be mindful that we are a country of free men and we are impatient of those who dont have a temperate attitude and abuse the rights of our citizens of the United States. And it was that letter to those Commanding Officers that really lives within the dna of the coast guard today, and its reflected in our core values, honor, respect and devotion to duty. Last year we used aviation use of force where we use sniper rounds to disable outboard engines, and we did that nearly once each week last year and there wasnt one person injuring during those interactions. Just yesterday there was a boater in seattle shooting weapons at police officers. The coast guard gaim came in. We surround them, and we used the most powerful instrument, the strongle muscle in our body which has the least restraint our tongue and we were able to talk this person down at a point in time. If you go back to alexander hamtons charge be mindful that we are a country of free men. Im very mindful of the fact how heavy handed Law Enforcement tactics play out on cnn and so you to not see the coast guard of yesterday or today involved in any of these heavyhanded laumtd tactics. Its not me but it really gets pack to the dna of our peopler is veng on the front lines of our coast guard today. So i could not be more proud of what they do. Fast forward to present day and i talked about one of our National Security cutters. We have been a member of the national intim jens community for some time now so were not only an Armed Service a Law Enforcement service were also a member of the national Intelligence Community, and when im in san diego this monday, i will meet the coast guard cutter stratton. Its the third of our National Security cutters and they are coming off a four and a half month deployment. They have to come in because right now they are probably their load line is below water because of the 32plus metric tons of cocaine that they have interdicted on one patrol not one bus. These are multiple interdictions over a four and a half month period. All of this driven by intelligence. Last year when i came into this job, we had awareness of about 90 of the drug flow. Ultimately destined for the United States. It doesnt come here directly. Comes into countries like central america, like honduras el salvador and guatemala. Coincidentally those are the same countries of origin where unaccompanied minors were entering the United States so violent crime, Drug Trafficking activity, but all of it targeted towards a demand in the United States. So theres a clear nexus between regional stability and Drug Trafficking but we have awareness of 90 of the flow. Before coming into this job we were able to target about 10 , about 10 . Now, some of this intelligence comes from confidential informants. They are not paid a lot of money from their host nations. It could be a fishermen and he might be paid 300 to provide us very actionable information. If hes found out hell be assassinate. Not only will he be assassinated but his family will be assassinated and yet when we get that information i just dont have enough ships. I dont have enough assets to act upon that information. Now the good news is weve closed that gap by nearly 35 in the last year which means were not doing Something Else somewhere else and i cant tell you what that is but weve doubled down on the transit zone and its making a huge difference today. Were up in the arctic, and i dont think Alexander Hamilton envisioned the arctic. Last week we had protesters in portland, oregon, as one of shells ships was departing. We are rapelers jump off a bridge and held a ship held up and said you cant really be protesting here. Shell is actually drilling as i speak today but into formation but five years ago today i was down in the gulf of mexico where i spent seven months which were like dog months as a federal coordinateor of the deep water Horizon Oil Spill. Oil spills you can measure in gallons, not barrels. And we need to be mindful that shell is responsibility of carrying out its responsibilities up in the arctic. Well have five ships and then we also have several helicopters operating up in the arctic. This last winter we saw the record low sea icics tent up in the arctic region and as ice starts to retreat we may see a record retreatmentment of sea ice 14 of the 15 warmest years in the arctic have all happened in the last 15 years. What i do know is that theres a lot more water than where there used to be ice, and not only that, but about 5 of this region, 5 , is charted to what i would say modernday standards. I was in iceland a month and a half ago. I was on the icelandic coast guard vessel thor what a great name that is, thor. So i looked at their charts, and the datum is from 1915. Thats when the most recent survey work is. So when the thor is operating up there, they send their boat up in front of them with a side scan sonar so they dont stumble upon anything. This year we will have 200,000 tourists that will venture into the arctic. Many of the cruise ships go flying by at 20, 25 knots through the same waters that thor, very used to operating in this area and the reason i say that, when i met the captain a little crusty. I said how many years of sea duty do you have . 58. More than magellan. And so he is uncertain about whats up there, but what happens if one of those cruise ships were to find a pinnacle in 39degree water temperature . We knew what happened with titanic 103 years ago. We know because were still flying the International Ice patrol 103 years later to warn mariners of any icebergs that drift into the shipping lanes, but if you have a mass loss of life up in the arctic, the coast guard will be pressed into service. Were in a very active campaign, i am during my term as commandant, as we look at recapitalizing the coast guard. When you look at an icebreaker, its a national asset. Its not just a coast guard asset, and it serves multiple stakeholders interests, not just coast guard, National Science foundation, department of defense, department of interior. The list goes on and on, but its not like passing the hat or passing the plate at church and say, okay, everyone donate. Well give our tithes and offerings and well have an icebreaker. Theres violent agreement this is a national requirement. We just have to come up with a way to fund this. The next big acquisition for the coast guard is going to be the offshore patrol cutter. I took a Ranking Member from the senate down to visit one of our ships, and when he went on there, it was a 210foot cutter. Its 50 years old. Were now on the nearly fourth generation of coasties that have now served on this very same ship. It doesnt have dedicated ballast, which means as it burns fuel, it rocks around a little bit, so were having lunch and this member said its probably a good time to go out and look at the horizon. And so were only on the ship for 90 minutes, and hes already uncomfortable, but were sending our crews out there for months on end to serve on this very same ship. Then i said, let me just show you the engine room real quick. We go down there and we look at the two main diesel engines that were dropped in there back in 1964. And the engineer of the watch says, senator, welcome to the one platform in our inventory in the United States that is impregnable against a cyberattack because theres not one digital system on this ship. So, yes, we do need to recapitalize these assets, and thats why the offshore patrol cutter, as many may have heard me say, is our number one priority going forward. But when you look at cyber, i was over where riota works and i was over there yesterday to wish him a happy birthday, but in one of those vaults there was a very aggressive nationally sponsored cyberattack that took place. It was a spear fishing attack. I cant say a whole lot more about that, but its had a Significant Impact on a federal agency in u. S. Government, and im not talking about the opm hack. This is highly classified, but it was our cyber watch standers that were able to kill that spear phishing attempt before it even reached our recipients. Had those recipients opened it, we would have had to take them off the net, and its no coincidence that many of the targeted recipients were very Senior Officers in the coast guard. Fortunately, they cant spell zukunft, so they couldnt get my email. I said theres some advantage to having a name you cant spell or pronounce. But were very active in the cyber domain as well. I released a Cyber Strategy and we pushed it out last fall and industry is now coming to us. We regulate the maritime industry and post9 11 probably one of the most sweeping pieces of legislation was the Maritime Transportation security act of 2002. And it required vessels and it required our maritime facilities recognizing that 90 of our global trade moves by sea, that they needed to implement safeguards, physical security at their facilities, so theyve done a great job of that. I happened to be down at an lng facility being built out in louisiana. I wont give you that name because it would be an insider trade secret but this facility when its fully up and running will move more liquefied gas than there are gas carriers in the world to move that product. What a great time to do this at this point when the United States sits on the largest reserves of lng as well and the panama canal expansion project when i was in there last november by all indications will open up probably on or about the 1st of april of 2016. Its 180 feet wide but initially it will take ships up to 160 feet wide. It means lng carriers from the United States can supply the asiapacific market with lng and do so in a timely fashion, which is good. When i talked to the facility operator, and you know youre in southern louisiana when the road kill shifts to alligators. And they have the fences, they have the cameras, they have the physical security, and i said, well, what are you doing about zeros and ones . Zeros and ones. Im not following. I said what are you doing about the invisible attack . He said who would want to attack us . I said youre supplying the asiapacific market. Theres another pure competitor. Its called russia. If you think the ground rules havent changed when it comes to cyber these days, might someone like a national targeted attempt try to shut you down so you dont take their market share away . Whats the coast guards standards for cyber . We dont have those. But industry is now very incentivized of how do they get smart on cyber. We need to be able to leverage cyber as well. Four weeks ago we had six drug interdictions. These are 30foot pangas each loaded with about a ton of cocaine. But over an area from canada, United States, mexico, central america. Six boats over an expanse that large in the open ocean and we got all six of them. We would not have gotten any of those if we were not able to leverage the cyber domain and vector our ships to where we knew these threats were operating. Many of you that have worked in the Intelligence Community probably can figure out how we do that, but if someone compromises our ability to do cyber, then were not able to do that. And when you just look at search and rescue, i only wish those two teenagers had an emergency distress beacon. We would have found them in a matter of minutes, not even an hour. That signal goes up to a satellite, comes down near realtime, and were ready to launch within 30 minutes and we would have been on scene within 30 minutes of that eperb being activated. Nothing is harder for me as a commandant when i tell a Family Member that one of ours has died in the line of duty, but all of our sector commanders, they make those notifications to first of kin. And when we make those notifications, its as though we have lost a member of our family as well. We dont do it callously. We do it in the spirit as Alexander Hamilton reminded us, that we are a country of free men, and so we gave it our best effort. We searched an area of over 44,000 square miles from florida all the way up to north carolina. We didnt find these two young boys, which we always take personally, but cyber is a big enabler in our ability to do that. So a little bit about the past, a little bit about the present, and im very excited about the future of the coast guard. The future of the coast guard is really represented by two of the people sitting here at the head table. This is the best educated coast guard that i have seen in my if you count my academy years, 42 years i have been around the coast guard. I clearly know that i would not get into the Coast Guard Academy today. The new leaders that are coming out of the coast guard are by far superior than where i stood, and obviously i did okay in the coast guard, but youre going to have many more capable future leaders of our service. Not only that, but theyre fully empowered. I talked to bm2 russo on the coast guard cutter stratton yesterday. Hes a pursuit coxswain. He chased down a panga. He was able to interdict a ton of cocaine. And his voice went Something Like this. Well, admiral, i had watch. I went out and we stopped the boat. I said theres more to the story. Come on. Highlights. I said, tell me a little bit more about the stratton. Then his voice picks up. These are the best people i have ever served with. I am honored to be on this ship. This is the best ship in the coast guard. I said, what are you going to do next year . He said, my tour is up, and hes going to be serving on the stratton and theyre deployed for 230 days out of the year. He goes, im going to ask my detailer if i can get a oneyear extension because im going to be a qualified under way ood, which is usually reserved for officers. I have 88,000 bm2 russos in the coast guard. So with that when people talk about budget, i said really the bedrock strength of this service, our backbone as it was going back to 1790 is our people. We just got a little bit more complex mission sets than we did in 1790, but alexander