GREGORY GLAROS CEO SYNEXXUS Inc. Arlington, VA
investment assumes that the need will be imminent or takes years to procure. But the time invested in guessing about the future will not produce a better force structure—nor will it matter, if the nation pays for infrastructure designed for the wrong future.
Te alternative approach to ensuring a responsive call to arms is based on invest- ments in the practical sciences—electrical and mechanical engineering, electronic engineering and chemistry—rather than basic sciences. Tese skills serve to ger- minate a community that is available for today and is necessary to prepare a work- force for the future. Lasting employment in these science fields occurs through rapid fielding, constant experimentation and iterative designs for the creation of new products over time.
A lasting industrial base, then, is one that can employ and train these skills. It
is
In my experience as a former DOD executive and combat veteran, deter- mining and defining an industrial base’s near-term and lasting value was critical to deciding how a requirement was established and to what extent the American industrial market could meet those requirements. Tere is a mispercep- tion in the defense community—both on the procurement side as well as the industrial base—that the commercial or defense market should be able to answer all requirement needs if DOD could just write a better requirement or invest in the necessary infrastructure absent a requirement.
Unfortunately, specifying a better require- ment demands that those responsible for authorship are capable of predicting a future threat, and securing infrastructure
one that allows for failure through try- ing, creation through doing, and success by iterating product design—without depending on a single funding source. An industrial base solely dependent on defense funding, making payroll by deliv- ering existing products at a slow, steady rate, will not survive a competitive market.
In my experience as a current corporate leader, making payroll is accomplished by investing in the future through workforce education, steadily delivering new prod- ucts and participating in or creating new markets. Tis is not done through reliance on grants from the federal government or by paying the high cost of doing business with the services, but by preserving and reinvesting profits in workforce skills and in new product development.
Te question should be: To what extent has a company invested in its own future? How much does it cost to do business
ASC.ARMY.MIL 93
with the Army? How long does it take to get on contract? How many innovative, small and agile, product-oriented compa- nies are being nurtured?
Disproportionate payments to training serve to secure a workforce for today; service-related contracts solve current problems; and funding laboratory facili- ties keeps bases open. But none of these fuels a future. Perpetuating a current product base made for a threat that is long past, rather than by investing in the future, serves only to prolong the inevita- ble. Te best near-term protection against an unknown future is through funding the practical science skills in engineering, and more reliance on industrial commer- cial standards as a guide.
AN INDUSTRIAL BASE SOLELY DEPENDENT ON DEFENSE FUNDING, MAKING PAYROLL BY DELIVERING EXISTING PRODUCTS AT A SLOW, STEADY RATE, WILL NOT SURVIVE A COMPETITIVE MARKET.
CRITICAL THINKING
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