DoD Mentor-Protege Program: the department's small business incubator

Defense AT&L, July-August, 2004 by Wynne

It's a great thing to be at the annual Nunn-Perry Mentor-Protege Awards Conference. I was involved with two small businesses and sure wish I had had a mentor. I think it would have been a great path to success for some and that it really represents a great path forward for small, innovative companies to be a success and learn our business--which is not easy. As Frank [Ramos] said, it might take a long time to get experienced enough to know you shouldn't have been in the business at all. But once in, it's really about patriotism and a lot of support and a lot of excitement that keeps you involved. I appreciate the fact that you all have, if you will, broached the door and come in. I welcome all of you--mentors, proteges, the DoD sponsors--to this great event.

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This truly is an important time to be involved with the defense of our nation, striving to ensure that its defenders get the right equipment to do their mission. Certainly the events of the past week are a grim reminder of what we're about. We share the grief for the people in Madrid, in Spain. It actually hardens our resolve in fighting off this attack on democracy, and in democracy's global war on terror. The common purpose extends beyond just the Department of Defense. It includes not only other government departments and agencies, but also American industry--companies large and small who together contribute to our common defense. This is why I wanted to address this annual gathering and am pleased to be here to do so.

Mentor-Protege Program--DoD's Small Business Incubator

I see your collaborative effort as our Department of Defense small business incubator, although many of you are far beyond that and coming out of the incubator as if you are 10 feet tall. This innovative program nurtures and develops a relationship between large and small business. Dynamic partnerships not only help us meet our industrial base goals, they also directly support the secretary of defense's transformational agenda. That is what I'd like to focus on for the remainder of my remarks. This year's conference theme is "transforming America together through innovative technology."

Genesis of Transformation

To put this theme in perspective, let me briefly describe the genesis of the transformation initiative. About five years ago, while he was still a candidate for the presidency, George W. Bush outlined his agenda for the defense of the United States in a speech at the Citadel military academy. He made, at that time, a commitment to missile defense. He talked about accelerating the capabilities of information age technology, making our forces more agile, more lethal, and more readily deployable. He emphasized precision over mass, innovation over tradition, and of course he acknowledged the threat by transnational terrorist groups as they were known then, and promised to engage our military establishment in countering them. In short, the president, at that time, as a candidate, challenged us to transform America's military, a transformation he further described as nothing less than the redefinition of war on our terms. Five years on, the world is a drastically different place, with that division of our defense priorities having been proven to be largely helpful and extraordinarily prophetic. Allow me to highlight the changes that have occurred during this administration.

* We will in fact deploy the initial defensive operations capability in Alaska towards the end of this year. We in the Office of the Secretary of Defense along with the Joint Staff, have rewritten both the DoD 5000 and the Joint Staff's 3170, which are really the rules on requirements definition and the growth to and in program management. Joint interoperability is now the gold standard for the Defense Acquisition Board's review process.

* The Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are restructuring the management of logistics in a major way to speed the acquisition and flow of goods from America outbound to our Services. We have embraced (both Defense Logistics Agency and the Transportation Command) focused logistics within the Services for all inbound/outbound goods and services.

* I've saved the most obvious change since 1999 for last, but it is by no means the least important. In fact, it is absolutely paramount to our transformation. Our American fighting forces and the members of our coalition supporting the global war on terrorism are deployed in combat operations around the world now and will be for the foreseeable future.

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Small Steps, Medium Jumps, a Few Big Bets

In light of the clarity of this mission, the Joint Staff has decided on five functional capabilities that our forces must have in order to deliver operational effects: battlespace awareness, battlespace command and control, force application, force protection, and focused logistics. The Department is using these five capabilities to build a single integrated framework of operational concepts, requirements, systems interfaces, and systems architectures. We see ourselves transforming to these capabilities through many continuous small steps, some medium jumps, and a few of what retired Defense Transformation Director Admiral Art Cebrowski calls "big bets." Our understanding of this new strategic environment tells us that the big bets are not options. If you're not making any, then you're a targeted risk in the future.