ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. (June 22, 2016) -- The U.S. Army held a mission command network industry day at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland on June 22 to lay out upcoming tactical network program needs.

The goal of the event was to assist industry partners in identifying and aligning their efforts with Army network modernization priorities and to provide updates on potential contract opportunities within the tactical network portfolio. The biannual event is a result of industry feedback asking for updates on the portfolio and ongoing procurements of the Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T), which fields the Army's tactical network.
Attended by more than 270 industry partners and government staff, the forum included a presentation and two panels, which provided industry representatives with a leadership overview, an update on the status of PEO C3T programs, ongoing procurements, and the opportunity to request updates on specific procurements of interest in a question-and-answer format.

Lt. Gen. Robert Ferrell, Army Chief Information Officer/G-6, opened the industry day as keynote speaker, providing the leadership overview on network readiness and modernization priorities.
"We are moving in the right direction on our network priorities," said Ferrell, who outlined progress on areas such as network convergence, data center consolidation, cloud architecture, unified capabilities, Windows 10 migration and distributed mission command. "We're trying to make the network more agile, more scalable, more deployable at a moment's notice...Innovation is going to be the key to achieve it."

The day also included two panels, one with senior leaders discussing Army network imperatives, followed by a presentation outlining the status of the PEO C3T portfolio and Science & Technology focus. Panel two provided an update on contracting opportunities for the remainder of 2016.

"Having applications and a network transport layer that is intuitive to Soldiers is absolutely critical to maintaining the readiness level we need," said Mr. Doug Wiltsie, executive director of the Army's System of Systems Engineering and Integration Directorate.

The sessions also provided a way to enhance Government and industry communication and enable industry to respond quicker to critical emerging requirements with innovative technology solutions and partnerships and to provide key insight into direction of Army tactical network communications efforts that support the operational force.

"As a result of operational force feedback, our team is taking a hard look to reduce Army network baselines. We are working a plan across the Army, Army Reserve and National Guard, and it is our goal to get down to two fielded network baselines--one current baseline, and another with select enhancements," said Mr. Gary Martin, Program Executive Officer for Command, Control and Communications-Tactical.

To help facilitate industry success, three technical breakout sessions were provided, focusing on: expeditionary communications within the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) portfolio; the Command Post Computing Environment; and the Vehicular Integration for C4ISR/EW Interoperability (VICTORY) initiative.