ARMY AL&T
successfully reinvent Army S&T? Do you expect to obtain the funding?
Freeman: The interesting thing is, we have a $2.3 billion budget. Every year Congress, up to this point, has been increasing that by giving an aver- age of $1.3 billion per year. They’ve been increasing the budget by 60-70 percent over the last six years with con- gressional adds. We’ve been working very hard to make those adds mean- ingful to the Army mission. Some organizations have been able to do it better than others. The fact of the mat- ter is, in effect, our budget is actually going to dwindle, as opposed to grow.
I can’t give a number for what the level of funding is until I’ve gone through the process to see what the big ideas are, build the programs to deliver the capa- bilities, cost them out, and so forth. Part of the strategy is that as you’re doing this, you’re also working on a growth strategy. But before you can do that, you’ve got to figure out what’s important and establish priorities.
Army AL&T: Who are the customers?
Freeman: I prefer the word “partners.” Partners are in the game with you, not shopping around for products like customers. Our partners are other DOD organizations like the PMs and PEOs, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, for whom our scientists and engineers are matrix support and/or performing reimbursable work.
In this current environment, there is a real threat that if PEOs or PMs get budget cuts, and as Other Procurement, Army, funding goes away, and supplementals go away, these organizations will likely reduce their matrix support before they get rid of their in-house capabilities. That’s why partnerships and value added are extremely important.
What do we add in terms of our skills, capabilities, and knowledge? What should they rely on us for? Again, it’s not just widgets. It’s people, it’s knowledge, it’s programs. We’ve got to look at the balance. We’re facing some pretty tough things here, not the least of which is being held to the FY10 funding levels or less.
I believe we need more money. I believe $2.3 billion, if we are going to have the impact that the Army S&T community should have, is not sufficient. I can’t tell you we need to double it. I can’t tell you what the magnitude is. I believe we need more. The way to get more is to plan the process of the POM and take these things that are priorities, and identify if we don’t have enough money. Here’s where a trust factor comes into play that says, “Can you deliver?” It is going to be very important to me that whatever this first set of programs are, these technology-enabled capabilities demonstrations, we deliver on them. If we don’t deliver on those, this will all fall apart.
Army AL&T: You’ll have lost your relevancy battle.
Freeman: That’s exactly right. If you lose that relevancy battle, then I believe that it is going to be very hard to defend keeping the laboratories and the scientists and engineers in the Army. In addition, we have to look at the demographics in the workforce and ask ourselves if we have the right skills. Until we have a strategy, we can’t make that determination.
To make things worse, we also have an aging and crumbling infrastructure, and we do not play well in the world of Military Construction. Part of this is, how do we fund the kinds of improvements that we need where we need them? The BRAC [Base Realignment and Closure] process gave us a lot of nice facilities up at Aberdeen [Proving Ground, MD] and other
places where we’ve had BRAC. That is not a long-term solution.
One of my nine strategic goals for Army S&T is a highly skilled and motivated workforce. Well, if you don’t have a reasonably good infrastructure, you don’t have good laboratories to work in, and you don’t give scientists and engineers the kinds of facilities and equipment they need, it is hard to attract them.
Army AL&T: If you had one message to get across to the Army AL&T Workforce, what would you want to say?
Freeman: I’d really like them to embrace these goals and understand from different perspectives, including their own, what this means—really understand what we’re trying to do, to broaden their horizon and start thinking more about the overall results that we’re trying to achieve.
I would really like them to internalize what it takes, at all levels, to achieve this vision and these goals. This is not a ship-sinking message of “get on board or get off.” This is an “understand what we’re trying to do” message. Once you understand what we’re trying to do, be a piece of the puzzle and go figure out the other pieces of the puzzle you should work with to make this happen.
We have such wonderful scientists and engineers who are smart and capable—and not just the scientists and engineers. All of our people, all of our administrative staff, all of the people who make this whole enterprise run need to understand this.
Everybody is a leader. Everybody is somebody who can make a difference. Everybody has a part in this. We talk a lot about the scientists and engineers, but it is all the people who make the laboratory system run. They all need to get this. They all need to get involved and get fired up. That’s what I want.
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