REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- A group of senior Team Redstone scientists came together to share ideas and discover ways to improve technology with goals of supporting the Warfighter and defending the nation at the quarterly Chief Technology Officer Roundup March 20.
Dr. Steve F. Pierce, chief technology officer, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, began the quarterly meeting with all CTOs on Redstone Arsenal to provide a forum for the senior scientific officers for each command to come together and glean information from each other.
Participating in the CTO Roundup were technology officers from Army Materiel Command; USASMDC/ARSTRAT; Missile Defense Agency; NASA; Program Executive Office -- Aviation; Program Executive Office -- Missiles and Space; Missile and Space Intelligence Center; Defense Acquisition University; Threat Systems Management Office; and others located on the installation.
"This started back in the summer," Pierce said. "I had an idea to get all of the chief technology officers as well as science technology directors located at Redstone Arsenal together because in my mind we have a very unique situation on the installation. We have got an awful lot of high technology-focused organizations, so why not try to leverage that.
"We want to leverage efforts that are already going on and to take advantage of core competencies in all of our organizations here," he added. "SMDC has core competencies in areas like directed energy, space and high altitude technologies and there are related efforts going on at AMC, NASA and others. So why not try to leverage each other and take advantage of each other's core competencies. That is the whole idea of the efforts behind the CTO Roundup."
Pierce said every meeting is held somewhere different. The first meeting was at Defense Acquisition University, the second was hosted at the Threat Systems Management Organization and the current one at the MDA, and they will continue to rotate so everyone has an equal seat at the table.
"We have to be able to link together different efforts going on around the installation. We are all responsible, not just for development and acquisition of technology, but also for combat development and force development," Pierce said. "We want to look at and share technologies that are out there. A lot of that ties into the intelligence of what other organizations are doing. We need to be more proactive than reactive and to start looking ahead at what we can do.
"A goal is to provide the capabilities that enable our forces out there to be better," he added. "We need to make sure that we keep up with the technology we have currently, and then look forward to see what potential there is out there in technology that can help our capabilities to provide support to the Warfighter."
In each of the commands, science and technology officers lead in the development and set direction for weapon systems and cutting-edge technologies. With the responsibility to lead their respective organizations, they are using the CTO Roundup to gain insights and different perspectives from their peers.
"We hope to be able to make the best use of the resources we have available here in Huntsville to be able to solve some of our problems," said Dr. David M. Burns, Missile Defense Agency science and technology officer for advanced technology. "We each have unique test facilities. We can come together here, share ideas and hopefully be able to cut costs because we don't have to travel to meet like this. We have smart people all over Team Redstone, and when we have problems, it is great to be able to go to our multiple organizations here and try to see if there is a new solution for it.
"I always enjoy learning something, and I always learn something in these meetings," he added.
Pierce said the roundup has been very positive. At the last meeting, he said, participants said they need to formalize the meeting so it is ongoing and they are currently working on a memorandum of agreement.
"I believe we have a number of great capabilities around Team Redstone," said Daniel Schumacher, NASA director of science and technology at Marshall Space Flight Center. "One of the things we want to see is that there is collaborative technologies that we can work on together. We are looking for opportunities to maximize the use of capabilities in various areas.
"This is my first time at the roundup," he added. "This area has one of the highest percentage of people with PhDs for a city in the country, so it is one of the most 'cerebral' places you will find in the country. The interaction of missile technologies, rocket technologies and satellite technologies that we have here today is a great opportunity to interact in both a formal situation and informal as well. We should have been doing this for a long time."
Pierce took time to thank not only his command, but also thank those participating to make Team Redstone a leader in future technologies.
"We could not have done this if installation and SMDC leadership had not supported this," Pierce said. "From the very beginning of all of this, the commanding general and deputy commander have really supported and endorsed it. It has really taken off because of their support.
"I have been very impressed with all of the members who have come," he added. "It is at the SES level and I think everybody there has probably the ultimate objective that we had when we started this and that is to work more effectively and more efficiently in science and technology development so it has been a win-win for the installation and ultimately for the Warfighter."
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