Personnel Requirements for Implementing the New Triad

Robert B. Barker

December 15, 2005

Personnel Requirements for DoD and its Industrial Base are equally critical

• DoD Civil Service

• DoD Military

• Industrial Base

Recent DoD Activities

• Implementing Science Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART)– $4.5M for FY05

• SMART/National Defense Education Act (NDEA) Phase I– $10M for FY06 (Authorization TBD)

• Future actions– Establish mechanism to refine critical skills & disciplines needs

• Operations / Battlefield of the future – J7, Operational Plans & Interoperability

• Acquisitions, logistics, others?– Improve reporting of ongoing programs– Track Science, Mathematics, and Engineering (SME) participants– Examine efforts to make the labs more attractive

A Human Capital Management Strategy Process is a Must!

• SEC. 1106. STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPITAL PLAN FOR CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.

• Strategic and operating plans that include knowledge management

• Definition of critical skills required

• Assessments of critical skills, risk of departure, and technical agility development needs of personnel

• Development of individual knowledge transfer plans, execution of plans and monitoring of status

• Baseline knowledge management in company operation plans and processes on an on-going basis to manage knowledge and critical skills

Service Strategic Strike Skills

• Navy Strategic Systems Programs (SSP)– Centrally managed, internal military and civilian career progression– Lifecycle responsibility

• Army – Despite lack of nuclear strike weapons, Functional Area 52 provides

career path for nuclear effects expertise– Assignments to DoD agencies and joint commands maintains vitality

• Air Force– The Air Force in 2003 established the community of Air Force

Credentialed Space Professionals– Air Force Nuclear General Officer Steering Group has a program to

develop and sustain a pool of officers and non-commissioned officers to support the Air Force nuclear mission by ensuring sufficient training, education, and experience.

Industry Skills

• Industry is aware of the demographics of the current skills base

• Vitality of strategic skills base is dependent upon long-term DoD vision, including planned programs and funding stability

• In some critical ballistic missile technologies, the industrial skills base is very thin and nearing retirement

Defense Industry Perspective

• Industry Demand Data

– Survey responses highly indicative of a high demand/low supply market place with future negative trends for US Citizens

• Workforce Demand Thematic

– Perfect Storm Analogy is real – not just anecdotal

– Focused on cleared and clearable engineers

• Employment Considerations

– Priming the pump is only first step – effective utilization and retention are critical!

Quick-Look PresentationAugust 31, 2004

Report onAerospace Workforce

March 26, 2004

• Immediately reverse the decline in scientifically and technologically trained US workforce…

• America’s breakdown of intellectual and industrial capacity threatens national security and our capability to continue as a world leader

• Substantive, long-term US Gov. investment in SME education and training at the undergraduate and graduate levels

Typical Ballistic Missile Industrial Base Employee Age Distribution

Reentry Systems Skills

Assumptions based on programs of record

Recommendation

• Identify areas of the strategic strike industrial base whose capability is in danger of being lost and quantify the rate of loss of capability, the cost of capability retention, including via exploratory development programs, and the time and cost to recover capability once lost, with the objective of permitting a conscious decision of whether to fund retention or reconstitute at later time.

Expertise can only be maintained with real work

• Active defense and non-nuclear strike are actively engaged in creating new capability, challenging workers and training a next generation.

• Nuclear strike is in a sustainment mode that will not preserve design, system engineering or production skills or attract a next generation of expertise.

• Industry universally expects that 5-7years will be required to reestablish a capability once lost and then expects cost overruns and mistakes to be likely.

• In the absence of work on next generation systems, exploratory development programs are not “white collar welfare” but a must for the preservation of competency, but more importantly to be prepared for surprise.

• DoD does not fully understand what it is losing or the cost or reconstitution if capability is lost. Analysis is needed now!