Oh, say can you see what's so proud at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the worst so gallantly streaming? Let's give this talented group one more round of applause. Okay, before I introduce General Brown, president, CEO of AUSA and our host, I do have a few administrative announcements. I'd like to start by thanking Northrop Grumman for sponsoring today's session. This new sponsorship is being offered for the first time here at AUSA, so we're extremely grateful that Northrop Grumman is the first to take advantage of it. When you have an opportunity, please take some time, stop by their booth, and visit with the Northrop Grumman team. They're located in the South Hall booth 303. Again, a big thank you to Northrop Grumman. Let's give them a big round of applause for being today's general session sponsor. Okay, badges. Everyone in this room received our new digital access pass. This great new innovative option provided a quicker way to access these educational forms today without having to wait in line for a printed badge. We are testing this new option for the first time at this year's event, so for those of you that used it, we hope you like it. For networking purposes, though, please note that you do still need a printed badge to access the exhibit halls. So if you came in here with your digital access pass, please make sure you go and get a printed badge at the break or during lunch, and that'll provide access into our exhibit halls. For those of you that are using the digital access pass, we'd love to hear some feedback from you. So if you could flag down General Haley, myself, anyone from the AUSA staff, and give some feedback, good or bad, we'd love to hear it. Proceedings, handouts, slides, and videos from our presentations this week will be available about a week after the event concludes on the AUSA website. Just go to ausa.org. Look for the Meetings tab, and look under Past Events, and you'll find our proceedings and handouts. You can also email me for anything that you see during the week, and I'm happy to send them to you. App. We have a brand new app at this year's Global Force Symposium. I hope you're all taking advantage of it. It includes the latest agenda, our exhibitor lists, our floor plan, and really everything you need to access and have a successful AUSA Global Force Symposium. If you have not already downloaded the app, please do so. We've got QR codes located all throughout the Von Braun Center. It's easy to download. Question cards. I will walk around the room with question cards and take questions for our panels as time permits. I will hand out the question cards as I walk the room, so if you have a question, just raise your hand. I'll give you a card, write it down, hand it back to me. I'll get it up to the panels. For our keynote speakers, we are taking questions as time permits.  Start thinking about your questions now, and we'll give some tough questions to our keynote speakers. Press. We have press at the event, so our ground rules are simple. We are on record and for attribution. We have a lot of our good friends from the press that are here today, so on record and for attribution. AUSA, as you know, is a membership-based organization. Who here is a member of AUSA? Raise your hand. All right. For those of you that raised your hand, thank you for your support. For everyone else, that was a little bit of a trick question because when you registered, unless you opted out, you became a basic member of AUSA at no cost. So thank you. Now has over a million and a half members worldwide. Let's give AUSA a big round of applause for that. A million and a half members. We, of course, would like you to become a premium member of AUSA, so if you're not already a premium member, please visit with Angela Quidley at the AUSA membership booth in the South Hall foyer, just next to registration. She can review your membership plan and talk about all the great benefits that we offer at AUSA. And I think, as most of you know, by joining, you will help AUSA be an effective voice for the total army and provide support for the soldier and their families. AUSA store is also located in the South Hall foyer, not far from registration. As most of you know, we unveiled a new logo at the annual meeting, so we have a lot of great items with the new logo. We also have Duke Cannon's big-ass brick of soap in case you need something for Easter. I think really nothing says happy Easter like a big-ass brick of Duke Cannon's soap. So make sure you visit our team at the AUSA store and we'll get your Easter needs taken care of. Wi-Fi. We do have Wi-Fi throughout the building. A big thank you to our sponsor, Noblis. To access the Wi-Fi on any of your personal devices, you select attend underscore AUSA. And the password is Noblis24. Please note that is case sensitive, so it's a capital N and then Noblis24. Lunch, we will be available today and tomorrow in the exhibit halls. Today's lunch starts at 12 o'clock and is sponsored by Huntington Ingalls Industries. A big thank you to Huntington Ingalls for being our lunch sponsor today. I'd also like to thank all of the companies that are exhibiting with us. They are, without a doubt, an integral part of the learning process. This year we have more than 200 companies displaying the latest products and services in South Hall and East Hall. Please note that because of the weather, we did plan to have some outdoor exhibits. We brought them in. They are all now located in East Hall. So if you're planning to visit any of the exhibitors that were located outside, they're all in East Hall and they're eager to say hi and meet with you. And last but certainly not least, I'd like to thank our sponsors for supporting this event. Simply put, we can't do what we do without the tremendous support of our sponsors. And with that, it is now my pleasure to introduce the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Association of the United States Army. Let's give General Bob Brown a big round of applause. All right, well welcome. Before we start, I just wanted to acknowledge the tragic accident that happened early this morning. Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. And I would just ask, please keep those involved in your thoughts and prayers. There's still search and rescue going on. So please keep those folks in our thoughts and prayers here before we begin. But welcome. Great to have everybody here. And it's going to be a great three days, I guarantee you. And so great to be back here in Huntsville, an amazing city, and really appreciate the tremendous support. We're really happy this year to theme continuous transformation to deliver combat ready formations. So there's a lot in that. And the panels will get after that. And we'll have a lot of great discussions. And I would just encourage you to participate in all those you can. And then on the exhibit hall as well, you'll see a whole bunch of exhibits that get after that continuous transformation delivering combat ready formations. You know, with the world and warfare changing rapidly, the Army must iteratively adapt. And as Chief of Staff Randy George says, build agility into our Army. So critical, building agility into our Army. And Army must always be ready, set priorities and power leaders and reduce the complexities. And these are all exactly the areas we'll cover this week in our tremendous lineup of keynote speakers, educational panels, and fireside chats, as well as the Warriors Corner, which is at the Army exhibit on the exhibit floor. Warriors Corner, always popular and great discussions going on there for sure. But before we start, I would like to recognize a lot of hard work was put in to pull this together. And I wanted to recognize the City of Huntsville and the Huntsville Convention Center. It's tremendous support. It looks fantastic this year. A lot of construction finished in time. We really appreciate all those efforts and making this just absolutely top notch here for the show. Also, the AUSA Redstone Huntsville chapter, an award-winning best chapter. Thank them for their tremendous support. Volunteers that did so much for us. We really appreciate that. And of course, we can't do this without the coordination of the Army leadership. AMC appreciate the tremendous support and Army Futures Command. Just amazing support. For example, this will be the first time ever we'll have all cross-functional teams here from Army Futures Command, and that's incredible. We'll have all the cross-functional teams here. I just look forward to so much getting done in those areas. And again, thanks to our sponsors, Northrop Grumman, for sponsoring this morning's event and the general session. I really appreciate it. Can't do it without the sponsorship, that's for sure. So please take advantage of the networking time. We built in networking time to get out on the exhibit floor. Fantastic exhibits. And I was just talking to some individuals before coming in. You can see more. If you travel two years going to all these companies, you wouldn't even see as much as you'll see in a couple of days right here and the ideas and great discussions and educational programs. So take advantage of that on the exhibit floor for sure. And as Alex said, the outdoor exhibits have moved inside, so you don't have to deal with the rain. So that's a good thing. And I apologize. I know it's made things a little bit tougher this morning.  No better way to start than with the Honorable Gabe Camarillo, the 35th Undersecretary of the Army. Really grateful he's here to kick it off. He's a senior, the Secretary of the Army's senior civilian assistant and principal advisor on matters related to management and operation of the Army. He is also the Chief Management Officer for the Army. He's a small task, all those in that sense there. Prior to this, Mr. Camarillo served as the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs and Principal Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology. Before entering government service, Mr. Camarillo's career included significant experience in law, government, national security, and private industry. And he received a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Georgetown University and a law degree from Stanford University. So please join me in welcoming our opening keynote speaker, the 35th Undersecretary of the Army, the Honorable Gabe Camarillo. Well good morning. I see from the number of folks in the audience that we probably still have some folks that are getting through parking. But all kidding aside, it's great to be back here with all of you one more time at AUSA. I want to thank General Brown and the rest of the AUSA team for doing such a fantastic job of putting together this conference every year. And I want to thank the City of Huntsville that always does such an amazing job of hosting us. I want to also just mention upfront that, you know, the reason why these events are so important is because the dialogue that the Army has with industry is critically important. It provides a great opportunity for all of you to hear where we're headed, where we're placing emphasis in our modernization, what investments we're making, and it also provides, I think, very crucially an opportunity for the Army to hear from all of you. Hear from you about your capabilities, what challenges you face, and also, you know, where you all are placing bets for the future. I think what's great is, as General Brown said, is we bring so many folks together from all over the country to the conference, so you have an opportunity to hear from us in one place and we have an opportunity to learn from you in one place. So all to say that this is a fantastic opportunity. But I do want to spend some time today talking about what's at the heart of this event, which is the two-way dialogue that the Army has with our industrial base. It's a dialogue that's been running for quite some time, and it's a conversation that's important to remember is always focused on maintaining a key pillar of our national security, really since World War II. It's a conversation about ensuring that we retain our technological advantage over other peers or near-peer states, and it's also about ensuring that we have the capacity to surge as needed over time. This conversation, which is reflected in the audience here, are not just the traditional defense primes. You all also represent systems integrators, small businesses, commercial companies with a growing share of defense-related work, and not to mention, of course, the vast network of suppliers and vendors that come together to create our tanks, helicopters, advanced missile systems, and so much more. So the reason I wanted to discuss this relationship today, and to talk a little bit about how we can continue to work together, is because I think that we have a tremendous legacy of success, and I think an important focus on how we move forward. I do believe that the conversations about the defense industrial base are poised to take a new turn. Just consider what we've observed over the past three years. First, there's a culmination of a 10-year period of emphasis on disruption and acquisition reform, focused on bringing in nontraditional suppliers in defense, getting speed in our path to production from prototyping, and in recognizing that we need new processes to deal with software and software-defined systems that change too quickly for our traditional processes to work. We also witnessed a COVID pandemic that stressed our supply chains and highlighted the need for resilience in our manufacturing capacity. And then, of course, when I started this job, or about two weeks afterwards, was the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which ushered in a new period of security assistance in which our industrial base and the capabilities that it produces would take the lead to a response to this act of aggression. And with the bipartisan support of Congress, we have greatly accelerated our investments in production capacity amid a resurgence in global demand for U.S. Army systems. Just consider alone that U.S. Army Security Corporation went from about $14 billion in fiscal year 22 to $35.8 billion in FY23. That's a two-and-a-half-time increase that attests to the value of our systems and how well they perform. And as the conflict now extends into its third year, America's arsenal of democracy is once more making its presence felt in global security. So, in light of these challenges, though, it's important to take stock of what we have accomplished together. First, working with the Congress, we succeeded in making key investments in manufacturing and production capacity in areas like our critical munitions. And this is followed by investments of about $3 billion in prior supplementals in FY23 that supported not only our defense industrial-based partners but our Army organic industrial base as well. Second, we've leveraged new authorities given to us by Congress. Middle-tier acquisition, rapid acquisition authority and software pathway as well as other acquisition pathways have been leveraged to enable capabilities like the mid-range capability to go from an MTA prototyping effort to an actual capability that we are feeling with soldiers this next year. We've used rapid acquisition authority to buy counter-UAS interceptors on an urgent and expedited basis to get them to the point of need anywhere we need them around the world. And I think it's also really important to remember that we've done all of this while maintaining momentum on one of the most ambitious modernization efforts that the Army has ever undertaken. Modernizing several platforms across key war-fighting portfolios and actually getting success in fielding them. Examples like the next generation squad weapon, the aforementioned mid-range capability that provides the ability to engage maritime targets from land. The AMPV the M10 Booker all of these systems are getting to the point where they are being fielded or they are in full-rate production and we are delivering on that promise. Of course, we can't do any of this without the funding and support from Congress. And I do want to thank our supporters on Capitol Hill for passing appropriation this last weekend. Where's General Brown? General Brown. I bet you never thought that both AUSA conventions would come down to the wire the threat of a shutdown. Yet here we are. If for no other reason, we have to pass appropriations on time to make sure that this man's blood pressure can be stabilized. But all kidding aside, the FY24 appropriations will provide critical funding to areas that will allow the Army to continue to invest in key capabilities. $23.7 billion in procurement. $17.1 billion overall in Army RDT&E. It will sustain Army modernization with key investments that I would point out include our multi-year authority for Gimlers in PAC-3 over a billion dollars for Patriot in PAC-3 at MSC Interceptors almost a billion dollars for Gimlers over a billion dollars in continued development of the long-range hypersonic weapon procurement of the MRC and a little shy of four billion dollars in the appropriation for combat vehicle programs including over a billion dollars for Abrams, Striker vehicles, Hercules, Bradley, the Joint Assault Bridge and other critical investments in that portfolio. Looking ahead I was very pleased earlier this month to be able to roll out the Army's FY25 budget submission and it builds on the 24 budget in some critical ways. It will continue our focus on modernization with a combined request of $38.5 billion in RDT&E and procurement. It will enable us to buy new counter-UAS systems, continue to buy the multi-year procurement of Patriot and Gimlers and deliver increment one of the precision strike missile which is our ATACM's replacement and it sends a strong demand signal to industry on critical munitions requesting new production funding for CH-47 Block II a new multi-year for UH-60 and a new compound emphasis on tactical UAVs. The reason I bring this up on the heels of enactment of 24 is because we need Congress to pass this 25 budget in a timely fashion. As we have learned this last year without the budget we will not have the ability to start key programs and we will not be able to implement changes and shifts that are required by changing conditions on the battlefield and the future of the country. We will not be able to implement changes and shifts that are required by the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. One good example of this, we all know that the threat of small UAVs is real. The need to be able to procure and adapt counter-UAS systems on an ongoing basis is vital. With the supplemental, we would need to get another $150 million in that legislation to be able to procure additional interceptors to be able to meet those requirements urgently on the battlefield today. So I know I don't need to explain all of this to the people in this room, but these investments are not only vital for us, but they are really vital to all of you as well. They will create demand for U.S. systems. It will provide resources, revenue, and most importantly create jobs across the network of all of our domestic suppliers here in the United States. That's everyone from large traditional defense primes to small businesses and non-traditionals. And clearly it will provide the Army upgraded capabilities through those replenishment funds. So I hope that Congress will act quickly to give the Army and provide the capabilities that we need. This is why Under Secretary of Defense Bill LaPlante referred to production as deterrence recently. Because winning the conflict is not just about what you have on day one of the conflict, it's about what you can bring to the battlefield at the end of the first month, into the first year, into the second year, and beyond as we've learned. So we've made tremendous progress in increasing our production capacity across the Army and achieved success in showing that we can develop and field new systems. But the landscape continues to evolve and shift as quickly as technology does, at an increasing pace, and our adversaries continue to innovate as well. So I mentioned earlier that we come off of about a 10-year period of acquisition reform that really focused on two things. Getting it easier for the department to buy commercial technology and getting from prototyping to production a lot more quickly. All of the reforms have enabled us to do this and it's translated into a significant amount of success. I would argue that we have had more change in the way that Army acquisition works in the last five years than we did in the prior 25 years. But in order to retain our competitive advantage, we have to focus on what we need to do over the next five years. And ensuring that the Army and our industry partners can deliver for our nation will require answering a new set of challenges. And the questions I think have evolved. For an example, it's no longer just a question of whether we can do business with commercial or non-traditional vendors. It's how do we integrate the innovation that they provide in an ongoing way. The challenge now isn't just getting access to innovative technology. It's a challenge of how do we adapt our processes to ensure that we can continue to receive the benefit of those ongoing innovation cycles well after we start procuring new systems. All of what I'm talking about will put pressure on our current incentive structure. Vendors, both new and established ones, rely on the certainty of production contracts to offset investment costs in the development of new warfighting technologies. This is where that development in R&D pays off, and it allows the industrial base to plan for sustained revenue and high-margin returns over time. At the same time, the iterative technology refresh cycles, particularly in areas where there are strong commercial markets, think software, small UAVs, make it very hard to ensure that the Army keeps on buying the best stuff. In some of these cases, new market players and new solutions appear more quickly than our processes can keep up with. One example I'll point out is IVAS, our integrated visual augmentation system. We initially planned several years ago on fielding a capability to the entire Army at once, but we needed to account for continued improvements in both the software and the hardware integrated into that capability. So we restructured the program. It will now field in waves with soldier feedback continuously incorporated and enabling rapidly iterated designs. It's one example where you have to think not just how do you get to production. It is what happens after that. How do you continue to adopt and embrace innovation well after those production cycles have started? And the threats that are posed by near-peer competitors and lessons learned from Ukraine show that accelerating our buying cycles isn't just an opportunity that is born by technology. It's actually now a necessity in order to remain competitive. Now let me be clear. There are still large systems that we will still buy and field incrementally across the entire Army in the traditional pattern. But for some capabilities that we need, those buying models will not get us what we need quickly enough. But the good news is that we started changing some of our approach and innovating the way that we acquire them in critical areas. I always like to point out this started out several years ago with our tactical network where we began developing a tranche buy approach through capability set feeling where vendors would compete for successive lots of production and we would enable those team of vendors to be able to continue to iterate and upgrade capabilities over time. And we had about a two-year cycle. Another example is small commercial UAV systems. We've innovated the buying models there to keep pace with the rapid rate of innovation. For example, using more capability-based requirements and multiple award task order contracts to ensure that multiple vendors can keep innovating and compete for task orders. But at the same time, for example, on the UAV side, we recognized that some of our lower-level units needed some ability to start experimenting with small UAVs to inform their TTPs and we wanted to encourage that and make it easier. So we added some of the COTS-level UAVs to our contracts and created an easy pathway for units to buy UAVs that are NDAA compliant. We refer to that as the blue list to be able to get them in the hands of these soldiers for experimentation much more quickly without having to do a whole full competition. We're exploring ways to drive adoption of these systems much more iteratively and adapt our processes to be able to match the pace of need. All of this shows, though, that our innovation challenges aren't technical. They really are institutional. We need to work with all of you as we both learn how to adapt our processes and become much more creative in how we structure our approach. I always like to point out that the reality is that our processes are designed around two relatively fixed constraints. The first is the two-year appropriations process. And second, the limits of how long it takes to run the competitive contracting process, which is required by law. We can work on flexibility in both of these, but in reality we have to design strategies for a subset of the capabilities that we need that utilizes creative approaches around both of these hard constraints. I know that most of our industry partners that rely on traditional buying models might think that some of this is a big shift. Some programs may only be profitable once you achieve a large run of production over several years. But if the Army is going to keep changing its technologies, and if it's going to adopt new innovation, we need to ensure that there is incentives in place to continue to invest in the new generation of capabilities that we need. Changing our buying models is really not just a luxury. It's actually an imperative in order to deliver the warfighter what they need. And we understand that as we look ahead to the future, we have to be good partners with all of you to ensure that industry can make an appropriate profit and remain resilient. And it's a two-way street and a conversation we are continuing to have to ensure that we find creative ways to allocate incentives to achieve the outcomes that we both rely on. And we'll do a lot of market research, have a lot of dialogue with industry in those particular areas where this need is most acute. And don't get me wrong, there will be changes on our part as well. I mentioned before that there's a quiet revolution in the Army when we realize that for some of our capabilities, we don't have to field it to the entire Army. We can field different capabilities to different types of units and different formations over time. I also think that as we look at smaller production quantities of certain items, we have to be willing to accept higher costs in order to keep pace with the investment required to upgrade them. All of this for some could be new and it could be uncomfortable, but I think it can definitely work. And there are significant upsides, I think, both for industry and certainly for the Army to adapting our buying models to keep pace with the changes that I've described. So before I take your questions, I wanted to highlight just a couple of examples of how we're changing ourselves to adopt that innovation and how we're learning from best practices from industry. On some of our key platforms, we are now separating both the hardware and the software baseline of our programs and competing them separately. A good example of that is our recent award for Titan. The RCB would be another example where we're looking at those refresh cycles differently. Secondly, we're changing our policies to adapt to this pace of technological change. Secretary Wormuth announced earlier this month a new software development policy that comprehensively changes our approach in the Army to buying software and software-defined products. It promotes faster, more flexible acquisition processes that include everything from requirements generation to sustainment. And some of the key tenets of the policy include establishing, for example, a new contracting center of excellence for digital capabilities at Aberdeen with expertise in the types of contracts that are needed for software. Reciprocity of industry test data so that we don't recreate it at significant cost in time. And my favorite is authorities to operate. ATOs, as they're known in the industry, promoting much more reciprocity within the Army. So the idea is you don't have to get authority to operate from one part of the Army and then go seek it again for several months from another one. And requesting that kind of reciprocity across DOD. And changing the way we buy. For example, utilizing more vendor demos in source selection, not just relying on written and oral submissions. And also, of course, bringing in more software development expertise in the Army. We can only be as good of a buyer as we have expertise in those particular capabilities. And then, of course, I wanna also point out that we will continue to work with industry on doing market research and exploring alternate ways of getting where we need to go. As-a-service buying models is one I've talked quite a bit about. And we'll continue to do research on radio as-a-service, looking at our mission command capabilities, modeling what we've done already on the SATCOM terminal side where we're no longer buying individual terminals, we're paying for it on an as-a-service basis. And we're experimenting with similar models in other areas like counter UAS on for fixed sites where we're thinking about that as another area where we'll look at as-a-service buying construct. We're going to keep building on the successes we've had and we're gonna implement and change policy as needed to keep pace with change. But it will require a strong partnership and continued collaboration from all of you. There's many things that have to be figured out. I think there are a lot of questions at this point and only a few answers. But the important thing is that we're gonna do this in a dialogue with industry. And we look forward to meeting that challenge head-on. Of course, if we don't succeed, the challenge is that we will not be able to give our soldiers the capabilities that they need at the moment that they need it. And the reason we're here talking with all of you and the reason that this relationship has been so successful is for decades, we have never faltered in that task. I look forward to continuing that legacy of success. And I now look forward to your questions. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Secretary. Yes. Dave Lockhart, really appreciate your remarks and comments. It covers a lot of ground. And as you cover this gigantic space that's army and all the challenges, and then we will often ask a question about something it almost in some cases seems inconsequential, right? But the one I would like to ask relates to something that you talked about, about policy changes. And I noticed that we've got policy changes associated with innovation, policy changes associated with working with allies. As a matter of fact, Army Futures Command recently put something out on FedBizOps to leverage foreign investment, foreign technology and sharing of information. And so policies that happen at a level, how do we as we engage at both the higher levels and the lower levels, when we identify disconnects between policy and execution, how do we get at those in a way that doesn't necessarily negatively impact the folks that are executing because they're just trying to do their jobs and bring that full circle, if you will. How do you create a pathway to clean those out such that policy and execution are a little bit better aligned? Thanks, Dave. It's always a challenge, especially with an institution as large and as diverse as the United States Army. There's always gonna be a challenge in getting policy changes to get down to the execution level. I think that it requires two things. I think first, we really do need to hear from industry about acute challenges, sticking points, barriers that you all encounter, and I think we need to hear it at every level, not just from the contracting officer all the way up to the more senior folks to include Secretary Bush, who's sitting here in front, myself, other folks that have the opportunity to effect the policy changes that are required. I think the second thing is, and I've really tried to do this, for example, in the area that we just talked about in terms of software, is to align domain expertise at the point where you're actually executing this. It's one thing to understand how to do software contracting a little bit better, but have it be done all over the Army by every contracting organization would be very challenging because there are some organizations that their expertise is in contracting and combat vehicles or in installation services, for example. So having, for example, a digital contracting center of excellence in Aberdeen, where you can concentrate that expertise of what's required by that vendor base, I think is a good step in that direction. So we'll look at other areas to make sure that we have the requisite expertise dealing with those types of execution challenges. So hopefully that will set us up for success. Sir, this is some first class elements. Yes. So I'm all into AI and thinking deep into rabbit holes and one of the things that you're talking about makes me ask this question. At what point in time do you have individuals that are in a mathematical professional trader mindset to do the projections of this is gonna be the high point based off of, let's say, Elliott Wave or the Pippa Knotts, your whatever pattern analysis system that they use along with based off of, hey, we now have this new system that we can do like quantum computing, whatever to basically come to say to the conclusion, at this time frame, this will be the high point and then we gotta figure out how to adjust from the high point and then figure out what the new low points can be after that. And based off of the budgeting and the pricing of the incentives for the research and development to see how from the military side to compensate for the low, to compensate for the high and to find an equilibrium, if you have any professional financial advisors, I think maybe the best way to say it in terms of how that would be forecasted, sir. No, I thank you very much for your question. It's a compelling argument. How do we follow the technology cycles effectively, especially when we have limited resources in order to place bets? I'm a believer in the fact that certainly I'm not in a position to be able to pick what those technologies are. There are many better expert people in the army who are empowered and trained to do that. But I think one of the great things about what I'm talking about is it should be fairly obvious in what subsets of our weapons systems and our capabilities lend themselves to that type of analysis. And the good news is a lot of that technology is mature. It's extant today. And the only thing slowing us down is our ability to put the resources on the right contract and be able to make those pivots and shift as quickly as we need to. So I think identifying the technology won't be the challenge. It is, again, just getting our processes to work very effectively in order to get us there. And we are very much open to full and open competition from every vendor, every source. So I think that as mature technologies come to bear, they should make themselves pretty much available to the army. We should know where those right bets are to place. Next question. Yes, sir, William King back up here in the back, straight front of the area. Yes, sir, as you pointed out, this is a technology-driven world. And the reliance on data and access to data is driving a lot of the innovation where we see going today. How is the armies embracing that from an institutional perspective and taking advantage of the innovation labs that are in the industry, as well as what Army Futures Command is doing in creating their innovation labs to bring warfighters into those environments for brief periods of time, one, to get exposure to what's in the realm of the possible, but two, to get that direct feedback and then get it back out into the force, since, like I said, that is what's driving our future capabilities. Yeah, it's a great question that I'll actually expand it a little bit further. I go back to maybe about 10, 12 years ago, there was a very rigid set of relationships between the Army and industry. I was here in ASOL at the time. We felt that the conversations had to exist primarily in the context of industry days, kind of through the contracting process. And now I think you'll see that the conversations and the dialogues are much more free-flowing and I think much more diverse. Part of that has been the emphasis the last several years on involving our soldiers and our formations into the experimentation with technology. I think that's played a very valuable role in helping us to get things right. I think it is a standard way that we're gonna do business moving forward. I think the other part of it is doing a better job of understanding what investments industry is making. And I think that the way that we have worked across the Army between ASOL and Army Futures Command with the CFTs has done a tremendous job of that. And I know you're gonna hear a lot from General Rainey over the course of this conference about human machine integrated formations. But it's a lot about doing exactly what we just talked about, which is bringing the best of breed of what industry has, putting it in the hands of soldiers, letting us figure out how to employ it, how to use it. Not only will that help us to figure out how to place our bets and place our investments, I think what's great is, because I've also been on the industry side, it is understanding how is the Army gonna utilize this technology in what particular connobs? What are the constraints with the way it's currently configured or designed? That feedback for all of you as an industrial base will be incredibly valuable as well. Because the thought here is that it's not a static one or two-way transaction. It is an ongoing set of relationships. And as I've said many times, a set of technology refresh cycles that we need to work on together. Sir, thank you for being here. Thank you. Let's give Secretary Camarillo a big round of applause. Thank you. Thank you, guys. What a great way to start and encourage. And thank you, Mr. Secretary. Tremendous words and it makes me realize we're really getting closer never before to getting our soldiers exactly what they need. The technology, the equipment, better than ever before. So they're prepared for whatever they may face and that's absolutely critical. So thanks, Mr. Secretary, for those opening remarks. For all the credentialed media here, there'll be a media roundtable with the Under Secretary in section one right after this. So the exhibit hall is now open and I would encourage you to take advantage. Again, tremendous technology, great networking that will go on there and take advantage of that and get out to the exhibit hall for sure. We're gonna grab a quick cup of coffee, come back here for the first panel at 9.45 and special thanks again to our sponsor, Tritium for the refreshment break outside. So we'll see you back here at 9.45 for the first panel. Thanks. Good morning and welcome to the first panel of this conference, delivering precision sustainment in support of ready combat formations. I am Susan Hawkins, Director of Strategy and Mission Solutions at Northwick Grumman and I'm honored to be with you today. Northwick Grumman has been a proud sponsor of AUSA for over 20 years. We value the relationship building and communication these forms provide and we are stronger as a nation because of this. We have an ongoing partnership with the Army in solving the hardest operational problems, whether it be providing space-based intel at the tactical edge, building an integrated missile defense framework or making the aviation fleet simultaneously lethal and survivable. We at Northwick Grumman are intensely proud of the capabilities that our partnership has created and we continue to build with you into the future, including in areas of sustainment. The words that call out to me in this panel title are precision and ready. The synonym for precision is exactness and you have to ask yourself how can one be exact with a sustainment in a vast AOR? Precision sustainment to support readiness requires a full lifecycle view of the capability across all phases of implementation. Who, how, and when sustainment can be performed is dependent on decisions made in each phase of the lifecycle, not simply at the end. I look forward to hearing what our esteemed panel members will share with us today. It's my honor to introduce Major General Retired Clark Lamasters. Major General Retired Lamasters is a consulting employee and former Vice President and Managing Director for the LIDOS UK Logistics Division, responsible for a six and a half billion pound logistics commodities and services transformation program within the UK Ministry of Defense. Prior to joining industry, Major General Retired Lamasters held many leadership roles in the US Army. He retired in 2018 from commanding the US Army Tank, Automotive and Armament Lifecycle Management Command. And prior to that was the Logistics Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Logistics US Army Materiel Command. Major General Retired Lamasters served our country overseas in Germany, Iraq, Qatar, and Afghanistan during his career. But before the panel begins, I would like to welcome Lieutenant General Chris Mohan, Deputy Commanding General, United States Army Materiel Command to the podium for a few words. Well, good morning, everyone. And I would say welcome to sunny Alabama. Not so much. So I really want to say thanks for joining us in this very important discussion on how our Army, along with our industry partners will continue to deliver precision sustainment in support of ready combat formations. Before I share brief thoughts, I want to thank our panelists, and I know all of them very well, and we're gonna have a great panel. Major General Michelle Donahue, the Honorable Sean Manasco, Dr. Chris Hill, teammate from AMC, Shane Upton, my neighbor, and of course my moderator, and at one point, mentor Lieutenant General Retired Lamasters. We shared a lot of good time out at NTC together, and I think both of us probably flinched on some of those memories, but they were good memories. This is a phenomenal panel with decades of experience in both leadership and sustainment. And I know that they have some very valuable information to share about our ongoing transformation efforts and our efforts to develop a lean, agile, and resilient logistics capability. But to frame this very specific discussion within the larger scope, I want to share a few comments that the Chief made a few weeks ago when he met with the Defense Writers Group. He opened up his talk by saying that the battlefield is no longer local. The interconnection between everything that we do from space to cyberspace has already transformed how we will fight the next large-scale ground combat operation. You've heard us often talk about the Joint Strategic Support Area. That that's everything back here where we generate, project, and sustain combat power. This area is, as we all know, is a key center of gravity for our nation's military forces. But the battlefield is no longer local. It stretches from the Joint Strategic Support Area all the way down to the tactical edge. And so we know that the Joint Strategic Support Area is going to be under pressure. It's going to be under pressure from our own adversaries, from benign characters, from criminal enterprises. And so over the past 20, 30 years, we have had the exceptional ability to move in and out of theater almost at will. And we have to ask ourselves, is that the way it's going to be in a future combat scenario, in a future combat contested, or in a future combat scenario? But then the chief also said that no matter what, this is going to be a contested environment. So we know that sustainment in the future is going to be definitely contested. And it's going to be contested, as I said, across every stage and every domain, land, sea, air, cyber, and space. We should expect that our operations, our facilities, and all of our activities will be targeted, detected, disrupted, whether here in the homeland, in transit, or in theater. So how are we going to remain successful in such an environment? And that means we must transform the sustainment warfighting function. And modernization is more about weapons, more than about weapons systems. We must transform and modernize the sustainment warfighting function, including infrastructure, training, processes, and skill sets necessary to support next generation warfighter capabilities. Part of this is translating battlefield lessons learned into actionable innovation now. We must work closely with our industry partners to ensure that the defense industrial base remains postured to be responsive, capable, and can maintain pace with our efforts. Think about this. If our adversary or us can fly a UAS with a precision munition, we should be able to fly a UAS with precision sustainment, either a critical repair part that is necessary to generate a combat sortie or a critical load of munitions that is necessary to prosecute a high value target. We must also operationalize data so that we can predict what our forces will need and then provide it with precision on the battlefield. And we must exploit advanced manufacturing capabilities, autonomous capabilities, robotics, and new methods of storing and using energy. All of these efforts combined to reduce our overall logistics tail while increasing the speed and accuracy of sustainment. That is how we'll remain successful in a contested environment well into the future. We've come a long way in those endeavors, but we've got a long way to go. But with your help and our continued partnership, I have no doubt that we will continue to deliver precision sustainment in support of ready combat formations. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time and thank you for your continued support of our great profession of arms. And now I'm going to turn it over to our panel. Thank you. Well, great, gentlemen, and thank you for those very appropriate comments and what a great setup to this panel that I hope you're always excited to hear and learn about as I am. So just some administration, we'll do a quick introduction to our panel members. Our panel members will each have some brief opening remarks and then we'll open it up for questions and answers and I know that'll be the exciting part of the panel where we're really going to learn some new things. So without further ado, let's get on to the most important part. Sitted to my right are our great panel members, Major General Michelle Donahue, the current commander of the Combined Arms Support Command, Sustainment Center of Excellence in Fort Gregg Adams. She took command December 14th of last year during more than 27 years of service. Major General Donahue has held many key command and staff positions and provided sustainment support to at the tactical operation and strategic level, affording her many unique opportunities and experiences in the area of sustainment. As you all know, Cascom in the Sustainment Center of Excellence is dedicated to educating, training, developing adaptive sustainment professionals for the total force while generating, synchronizing and integrative innovation for both the Army and Joint Sustainment capabilities, concepts and doctrines. That's a mouthful. Cascom is also helping to ensure that the Army can sustain large scale operations and multi-domain operations is key to the discussion on precision logistics and the contested logistics and the support to joint and multinational partners in 2030 and beyond. General Donahue, welcome to the panel. Our next panel member is Dr. Chris Hill. Dr. Chris Hill is the chief of data and analytics at the Army Materiel Command. Dr. Hill was appointed in May, 2017. And as the director of the Army Materiel Command Analysis Group, Dr. Hill is the principal assistant to the commanding general for analysis and study and is responsible for ensuring credible, timely and independent strategic level analysis of material life cycles, logistics, systems, modeling and simulation and data support, equipping, sustainment and war fighting decisions. Dr. Hill also serves as the command chief data and analytics officer and is responsible for execution of data and analytics activities across the entire command. I also wanna mention that he has had a team forward in Europe since the summer of 2022, providing predictive logistics support to the security assistance group, Ukraine and Ukrainian military. Dr. Hill, welcome. Many of you know our next panel member. He's your best friend when it comes to congested logistics, Colonel Shane Upton, the director of the Contested Logistics Cross Functional Team located here at Redstone Arsenal. The Contested Logistics Cross Functional Team was formed in 2023 to address the need to sustain the force and equipment quickly on the future battlefields, including those disparate and dispersed across multiple domains and closed critical sustainment capability gaps. During an interview, General Rainey stated that the team will be focused on the division and below aspects of all things that have to do with contested logistics. And inside his portfolio are four major areas, precision sustainments, human machine, integrated supply and distribution systems, advanced power, leveraging new technologies and demand reduction utilizing many capabilities that we'll talk about today. Colonel Upton has also recently been nominated for and approved for appointment to Brigadier General. So congratulations, Shane, to that. Well earned. And last but absolutely not least, the honorable Shane Mancuso. Currently a senior consultant and counselor for Palantir Technologies, focused on advancing leading edge software to meet US government involving in complex needs. Mr. Mancuso is a former acting undersecretary of the Air Force, former assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs. He is also a co-founder of a product design and engineering startup after having served as an executive vice president at one of America's largest and leading financial services company. Throughout his career in the private sector, he has held executive leadership roles in retail, investment banking, insurance, and the energy industry. He has also led global teams across functional areas to include technology, digital design, cyber security, corporate development, sales, human resources, and many, many other things. I might mention that he is also a US Army veteran, serving in numerous staff and leadership positions in support of worldwide operational activities for joint special operations. So welcome, sir, to the panel. And with that, let's get started, please. General Donahue, you wouldn't start with your opening comments, please. I can't see the green light here because I'm being blinded by these lights. It's working. It's working, it does. So, sir, thanks so much for that introduction. I have fond memories of our service together almost a decade ago when we were the 13th ESC commander at then Fort Hood and now Fort Cavassos. And thank you to AUSA as well for allowing me to participate here this morning. So you heard that CASCOM and the Sustainment Center of Excellence work every day to deliver effective sustainment solutions to ensure we'll win on the future battlefield. Solutions to what, you might ask. In conjunction with many teammates, we work closely to identify sustainment gaps, develop concepts, conduct experimentation, and then transform our sustainment capabilities to keep pace with maneuver force modernization. The Army's MDO challenges, specifically, sustainment gaps are a current threat to the Army's ability to open and set theaters at the speed of relevance. We have to think differently about how we generate readiness and sustain large scale combat operations tomorrow, next year, and over the next decade. As the sustainment force modernization proponent, it is my job to develop and integrate solutions for sustainment doctrine, organizations, material, training, leader development, and personnel, all while influencing facilities and policies to set conditions for Army transformation. While each of these categories involves its own processes, developments in each category have a ripple effect across the spectrum. Frankly, this is where I spend 70% of my time ensuring sustainment and the Army are postured to win. We don't do this in isolation and we're tied at the hip with Army Futures Command, Army Material Command, the Army G4, CAC, and all of our TRADOC COE commanders. While we develop solutions that will sustain future combat formations, we also train and educate soldiers, thousands of soldiers to fight and win. Each year, nearly a third of the military and civilian personnel who attend TRADOC courses are taught by a CASCOM instructor on Fort Greg Adams, Fort Jackson, Fort Moore, Fort Sill, Fort Eisenhower, Eglin Air Force Base, and across our reserve component, one Army school systems. Fortunately, I inherited and now command an all-star team of leaders, educators, developers, trainers, and analysts who understand not only those processes within their own lane, but also work with partners across the spectrum to provide the Army with synchronized solutions. With a slew of capability gaps to address, my team and I have a full plate, but we're not tackling these challenges in a vacuum. We work on a daily basis to not only identify and prioritize issues, but also to build and resource effective solutions. I'd like to spend a few minutes to talk about one of those gaps and the journey that we've been on to field predictive logistics capabilities, improving the sensor to shooter to sustainer loop, and getting this cornerstone technology into the hands of our soldiers. As defined in our soon-to-be-updated and released DEFIN4O, predictive logistics is a system of sensors, communications, and data support tools, and data visualization applications that will enable faster and more accurate sustainment decision-making. Predictive logistics enables decision dominance, greater precision and speed with running estimates and course of action development providing options for our commanders. Our work has evolved from what started as CBM Plus to PPMX to now what we describe as predictive logistics. We are leveraging the CBM Plus work and the substantial progress that is already taking place across multiples PEOs with the digitization of our maintenance processes to improving onboard diagnostic consumption on individual platforms such as the Abrams and the Paladin, improving supply point data consumption, and ultimately improving our strategic ability to manage our combat and tactical vehicle fleets. In early February, our predictive logistics ACDD was approved by General Rainey at the AROC with emphasis and priority on the Abrams and Paladin platforms. We are working closely with PEO C3T, the OPR for PL, and Colonel Shane Upton and the Contested Logistics CFT for this implementation. Last year, our Tredoc Proponency Office for Sustainment Mission Command, led by Colonel Matt Western, started to facilitate quarterly PL summits where stakeholders from around the Army and the Enterprise gathered to synchronize and operationalize our PL efforts. Our next PL summit is scheduled for later this week here at Redstone Arsenal and will be facilitated by the CLCFT with participation from across the Enterprise as we are now laser focused on transitioning from an ACDD to a CDD. Additionally, we are ensuring that PL is fully integrated into both our Enterprise Business System Convergence efforts and network modernization efforts such as C2 Fix and C2 Next. We've also made significant progress with PEO C3T and our PM for Mission Command, Colonel Matt Paul, to develop sustainment applications within the common operating environment and specifically the command post computing environment. Following the divestment of BCS-3 almost eight years ago, our Army senior leaders directed that sustainment move its Mission Command equities into the common operating environment versus developing a separate standalone system. Through the leadership of then Major General Fogg and Major General Simmerly, now Lieutenant General Simmerly, and Colonel Justin Herberman who is now our sustainment seated director, CASCOM developed multiple operational need statements to include the automated log stat, sustainment running estimate, asset visibility, and in transit visibility capabilities. These four ons were approved by the Mission Command Configuration Steering Board. Software development of the automated log stat began in October of 22 and has been conducted by the US Army Weapon and Software Engineering Center up at Picatinny Arsenal. The development of the sustainment running estimate also started in October of 22 and is being led by the US Army Engineering Research and Development Center ERDIC up at Fort Belvoir. Last month, we conducted testing with the first CAV division and received valuable feedback on the min viable solutions for both the automated log stat and the sustainment running estimate. The AV and ITV capabilities will be developed and tested next year. CASCOM has also been working closely with PEOC-3T, the Network CFT, Mission Command COE, and other stakeholders on the C2FIX network modernization effort with regards to sustainment. We participated in the C2FIX TTX at Fort Leavenworth and will be at Fort Campbell next month during the operational assessment. Finally, I can't leave out our invaluable partnerships with AFC Software Factory and their Artificial Intelligence Center. We have multiple AI ML projects ongoing such as Projects Mercury, Griffin, and Pangea that will improve our sustainment running estimates and our logistics common operating picture at Ashelon. Near term, PL will have a significant impact on our ASCCs, our cores, our divisions, our brigade combat teams by 2030. Although better visibility, predictability, and velocity will enhance the entire sustainment enterprise's ability to support the warfighter, it is really setting conditions for precision sustainment by 2040. PL isn't a sustainment capability. It's a warfighting capability that builds combat readiness. At the Sustainment Center of Excellence, we don't have the monopoly on great ideas. Instead, we are counting on your input and your feedback to help us develop those sustainment capabilities necessary to support our warfighting formations. That's why conversations like this one and throughout this week are so important. Last month, Major General Smith commented at the AUSA Hot Topics panel, and I quote, We the Army cannot resolve our problems without our partners and stakeholders in industry, government, and academia. The risks are high and success depends on collaboration, communication, and cooperation, end quote. I open with the depth and breadth of our MDO challenges, but the solutions that are being developed across all our various partners are truly cutting edge and being developed at the speed of relevance. Thank you to all of you, and thank you to your teams of teams, and I look forward to your questions this morning and throughout the rest of this week. Chris, over to you. Great, thank you. Colonel Upton, please, comments from you. I don't have the green light, but I can hear myself, so I think we're good. First of all, sir, thank you, one for inviting me to be on the panel, and really thanks to AUSA. These events are great because it is truly like General Donahue said, a partnership between our national industrial base, our organic industrial base, our military partners, and industry as a whole. So I want to expound a little bit on what General Donahue said.  I was working with Chris Hill two and a half years ago, sitting in another job, so it's good to be up here with familiar faces, but it's also good to see some really familiar faces in the audience. So why the CFT? I think General Donahue hit the nail on the head. We have to develop solutions at the speed of relevance, and quite frankly, our adversaries are not on our timeline. And I think that's an obvious statement, but I think it needs to be stated here in this group because this is a team that's gonna solve these problems, as I said before, our industry partners and those here in uniform and in our civilian workforce. So our portfolio, and General Lamaster mentioned it, PL, precision, sustainment, it is an army. So when you think the past language of core army modernization efforts, PL is now one of those. For our secretary and our chief, and I'm glad to be partnered with, was General Simmerly, now Lieutenant General Simmerly, and now Major General Donahue on that effort moving forward because it is an absolute priority to bring readiness to our combat formations and make decisions at the speed of relevance. It's quite frankly, precision is a must because in the largest force theater where you look at combat forces that may be dispersed of thousands of miles, say Indo-Pacom, you're gonna have to be precise with where we put those assets and we'll need to be able to see that ahead of time as we project power. In a contested environment like General Mohan opened up with that's gonna be contested from our homeland to the Foxhole or in reverse from the Foxhole back to that factory. What are we doing and what do we need industries help with in that place? First of all, PPMX, CBN+, the look at material health and maintenance of our systems, critically important, but I would say also critically important is looking from end to end Foxhole to factory to our ammunition when we consume it and then giving that signature to industry in our organic industrial base when they need to resupply it. Also fuel, things we're thinking about these censored items in the past, we have not censored those. Little reflection on my own career. We were still putting wood sticks and fuel tankers just a couple of years ago in Europe. We need your help. For a lot of our history, the defense industrial base along with our partners was an innovative leader. It's really now corporations are leading innovation and we have to be your partner. Developing sensors to look at fuel consumption, ammo consumption at platform, all the way back to the strategic edge, they have to be low cost. A men viable product. The exquisite solution is good, but I will tell you as needing to develop this at the speed of relevance, we need products that will get to that ability to see ourselves better. You know General Donahue and I talked about an example in fuel just a few months ago and it was really general similarly and I started this topic. I just came from the National Training Center. We just executed what we call Project Converged Capstone 4, which is one of our premier series of experiments and a persistent experimentation outcome that the Army has developed over the last few years to develop and test with our industry partners these emerging technologies and fuel came to the forefront. And I harkened again back to probably some sins of Upton's past of how much fuel we would backhaul in a rotation just at the National Training Center supporting the brigade combat team. It's eye-opening. We will not be able to afford to that when it's contested and we need to be able to disperse those forces just as a vignette. So we need your help. You know, that's why I kind of put this.  We've got to look how to censor that quickly, how to do it quite frankly and expensively. I think that technology I know is out there and then that data feeds back. AMO is another piece of that. We maintain effects right now in the battlefield with some pretty exquisite munitions. But we're also looking as General Mohan meant, if we can drop something that's low cost from a drone, you've got to resupply that. And we've got to be able to show you that signature as we consume it because quite frankly, we're going to need that at time of need and ahead of time of need. Some other things we're looking at in the CFT, human machine integration. Now, General Rainey will talk later this week about it in depth as we go forward in some of these concepts. But here's a paraphrase. Offsetting risk to machines to enable humans to do what humans do best. What do I mean by that? That's a pretty nebulous statement. Humans will make ethical decisions. I think it's a pretty common opinion or maybe just my opinion that we'll probably not get to where machines have kind of ethic, a decision to make inability. But we need the humans to do that. But they're our task, absolutely in the sustainment war fighting function as we build readiness and deliver readiness that can be offloaded on machines. I'll talk about just a few of them and kind of as a collaborative environment with our partners in industry and our other partners in this fueling. A lot of times we will refuel critical combat platforms very far forward on the battlefield. It's a high risk operation. We're looking for the technology solutions. General Donahue and again, Dr. Hill's team and AMC, it's an enterprise approach to figure out how we do some of those tasks with the human there but also offsetting some of that risk with the machine. Robotic refueling. Looking at how we rearm combat platforms with robots or that technology. When you talk human machine integration, think a concept of multi-domain resupply. So you put an autonomous watercraft on the water. You fly a drone. We did this at Capstone 4. It was a lot of great effort led by Justin Herberman's team in the sustainment seated and our CASCON teammates. And for the first time, the Army and the Marine Corps went out over the beach, out over to the water and used resupply of critical repair parts, small mounts of ammunition and even 3D printed parts from added manufacturing and flew them with drones onto the shore. So what? The so what is, drones are really good over land but we have not really seen when your terrain you're navigating over is just all blue. That was a pretty significant thing. And when I look at the industry partners in the room, we have to not only maintain that momentum and that technology but for logistics, there are tiered approaches as we always have. And that's something I don't think is going to morph away. At the forward tactical edge, absolutely smaller resupply runs, smaller resupply pounds and cube. But as you move closer back to that joint security area, we are going to need capabilities of some of these unmanned platforms to quite frankly have greater range, have a greater payload capability and be able to loiter and turn as we need to redirect that critical sustainment at point of need that ties back to that precision piece. The third thing, advanced power solutions. We, and all this as I talk about it, advanced power and the last one that General LaMasters mentioned the demand reduction, those are interwoven. Really when you talk a contested environment for logistics, we have got to bring to the point where we reduce the demand on our distribution systems because if they are truly contested, we are only going to get windows potentially opened up by our maneuver and combat enabling forces that will be able to move those critical supplies. We experimented that in a joint fashion at Camp Pendleton, California during convergence with the United States Marine Corps Navy. Using simulated joint effects and fires, opening up what they call a multi-domain corridor to move those sustainment assets in. Well, if we can reduce the amount of fuel burned by hybrid technology, advanced power technologies like hydrogen, fuel cells, those technologies a lot of you are working on, then you reduce that point of need at tactical demand and the resupply then can quite frankly occur either less frequently or the combat formation forward can go in a longer combat in an operational endurance before we would need to resupply. Also think hybrid technology of drive systems. If the physical combat platforms consuming less of certain things, same concept. And then demand reduction, but I want to pull just a simple thread on that. Point of need production of commodities. Now as General Rainey, my boss from Futures Command told me and I had these discussions with General Severly and General Donahue, what focus? Well, it's really a fundamental focus. We've all as logisticians been focused on for most of our careers, ammo, fuel, medical and maintenance or as a term goes, and I hate to bore with acronyms, three, five, mic, mic. The ammo and fuel I talked about, the medical is imperative as well. We are fully nested with the medical seated and Colonel James Jones and his team on how we'll also look at critical class eight and bring that to bear on the battlefield moving blood, plasma and those critical class eight and then the maintenance piece of it. But reducing those demands, we need to partner with you all, the team here from our defense industrial base and our partners and across the DOD on how we produce items, think repair parts. Quite frankly, think low cost munitions at point of need. And we've seen a lot of lessons observed from the current conflicts in the Ukraine. Quite frankly, lessons observed from Gaza. How some of that technology is in morphing itself on a very rapid, very lethal battlefield. Hopefully that's helpful. I really again, appreciate being on this panel and being able to speak to you and I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much. Thanks Colonel Upton, I appreciate that. Dr. Hill, please. Thank you, General LeMaster. I appreciate the invitation by you and AUSA to be on this panel. And I can tell you it would be impossible to overstate the honor I feel being associated with this group of fine leaders from the Sustainment and Technology Enterprise. Yogi Berra once said, the future ain't what it used to be. And I can't think of a better quote that better represents the data and analytics space. In our space, it is characterized by constant change. We get change on the way data streams. We find new challenges with what we call non-standard data every day. Technology develops at a rate so fast in this space that it seems like it's just a constant evolution. And on top of that, we have to evolve algorithms to keep up with that. And most notably the artificial intelligence advancements. So it's a very challenging place to live and work. That said, I can tell you today, the Sustainment Enterprise is well on its way to becoming the data-centric part of the Army that the Secretary has envisioned for us. And that we in the Sustainment Enterprise are executing predictive and precision sustainment operations with data and analytics today. We've been doing advanced analytics in the Sustainment Enterprise for a really long time, even including artificial intelligence. But what I would tell you is we've done pretty well at operationalizing it, but we're well short of our objective. That really became obvious to us two years ago when we were asked to support the operations in Europe and we realized what a difference the speed and scale, the volume and the dynamics of large-scale combat operations has on the Sustainment Enterprise and the resulting data and analytics. So it's been for us almost like building an airplane while in flight, figuring out how to adjust our approach to this while operations were going on. And the benefit of that has been, it's forced us to do a lot of learning very quickly and it's allowed us to do a lot of innovation. So what I thought I would do is share a few examples of some of the use cases that we've applied over in Europe to give you some example of where we are today in the data and analytics space. So first of all, we've leveraged forecasting techniques and algorithms to forecast repair parts and ammunition well out into the future. We've augmented this with simulation capabilities that allow us to put some degree of uncertainty on deliveries. This is a very complex coalition in Europe and so deliveries are coming from all corners of the globe and so we have to be able to look far enough out that we can influence the read on whether or not logistics will become a constraining factor to desired operations. We've built simulations that represent the integration of force structure and the development of new units so we could tell if the Ukrainian objectives were gonna be met on time or when problems would occur before they occurred. And then we've morphed that into a dynamic task organization type tool that allows them to not only make changes to task organization, but for us to see what the effects of those changes are in terms of requirements for commodities and supply and also in terms of our forecast for where they will be in the future. We've specifically spent a lot of time forecasting readiness, not just of systems, but of units and as units are conducting combat operations we can see that in forecast their capabilities as they go through time. We have mapped the transportation network from as far this reaches in the joint strategic support area all the way through the transportation network to the point of delivery to the Ukrainians. And this has enabled a lot of things but not the least of which is we can see where things are in that network, in the supply chain and forecast when things should show up on the other end. These impacts have been pretty substantial for us. So first of all, what it's allowed the logistics leaders to do is change their plan of support when we forecast that something's not gonna be there when the operator needs it. It also enables that commander to make decisions. So if we have a mode of transportation that's not gonna deliver something we need in time, he can affect the change in mode of transportation before that becomes a problem. One of our biggest advantages is we've been able to work through the typical challenges of adoption as the security assistance group Ukraine headquarters has adopted these advanced technologies. And I can tell you, culture is always a problem and what we learned in this particular use case is the perfect antidote for culture is the commander. When the commander embraces this technology in these advanced analytics and starts demanding them in his daily battle update briefs, then the staff comes along for the ride. And when you know you've really turned the corner when the staff starts asking you to develop specific capabilities for them. And we certainly got there pretty fast in Europe. We've enabled all this with a system we call the AMC Predictive Analysis Suite or APAS. What APAS does for us is it gives us a platform in which we can integrate the data and analytic tools. It gives us a thread from the tactical to the strategic level. So while all three of those levels have different uses for the data, it shares common data. So at the tactical level, we can see when a specific system is forecast to go down, where parts that would enable it to meet its operational readiness requirements, where they are in supply chain, when it will come up. At the operational level, it's enabled us to have a partnership with the theater sustainment commands to make sure that our stockages are right well forward and allows us to again, consider the entire coalition. So it's been a huge challenge for us as coalition. You know, there's a lot of historical partners there, but there's some new ones too. And bringing all that data to bear and integrating it in the analytic space has certainly been a challenge. At the strategic level, we use that information to make forecasts at the national level to set our supply chain. And as many of you know, sometimes that takes 18 to 24 months to cycle. So it lets us get well ahead of problems and it allows us to optimize our supply chain. I would say we've had some setbacks along the way, but I would classify our work there as a huge success. I think part of our keys to success lie in the fact that we took a strategy based on use cases. So Commander had a specific problem. We used data and analytics to solve that problem. But the real secret sauce to our success is our workforce. Our great soldiers and our resilient civilians who have moved forward to support this, their skills are unmatched. Their ingenuity and ability to innovate is quite impressive. And when you can take a functional logistician who's an expert in the data and pair them with a data scientist or an operations research analyst who understands the analytic side, you definitely have the recipe for success. We could not have achieved this success without a strong partnership with industry. And I can tell you going in that we could not do this alone. Generally we rely on industry for three things. When we don't have the capacity and we need to augment our workforce. When we don't have specific capabilities and then when we need to innovate, a lot of the innovation that we have applied there has come straight from our industry partners. And we've learned a lot in our support. First of all, we have a very distributed and federated approach which allows us to push analytics to the edge and bring multiple vendors into the solution space. We've had a very good hybrid support model where we have organic assets and industry partners developing side by side. And we've even leveraged industry for training of our organic workforce on use cases. So when there's a specific problem, a contractor can help teach an organic analyst and then we can move forward together. This has all been enabled by a very decentralized governance in our APAS system again to push analytics at the edge. So where do we need your help? Well industry, we always need your help on the innovation side. There's no question about that. But the one category I would say we need more help in right now than anywhere else is the advancement of artificial intelligence and specifically generative artificial intelligence. We're doing our best to balance those risks and understand the policy implications that are coming out from the Department of Defense and the Army. And industry is key in helping us negotiate that and still have the trust in those applications when we field them. So I think the industry is a group for your partnership. We could not have done it without you. I appreciate your time today and I look forward to your questions. Thanks, Dr. Hill, appreciate it. To our final panelists, Mr. Minasco, over to you for your comments, please. Well, I promise I will keep it brief here but I would like just to share a few thoughts. The first is Dr. Hill and I and our teams have spent a lot of time together over the last couple of years and so as Michelle, you were talking in chain, I wrote down a quote from my favorite philosopher, Yogi Berra, which was the future isn't what it used to be. So we have that in common. A few things that I would just highlight, I think we all are in agreement that in this world of constrained and contested logistics and supply chains that precision and sustainment is gonna be a real key to deter and if we have to fight and win our nation's wars. The conflict in Europe today for us as a partner to AMC and to what's happening at SAGU has been really interesting to watch. So for those of you that have been in that environment, it's really powerful for the nightly brief for you to see with live data the fusion of intel, operations and sustainment. There's not a PowerPoint slide to be found and I agree with Chris, the anecdote to a culture that might be a little stayed is the commander and so I give the SAGU commander both present and past the highest of accolades for ensuring that the teams on the ground are doing what they can to actually use live information. So and we're proud to be a part of that effort. I would also say that if we're gonna realize our C-JADC2 vision, then what we really need to be able to do is to be able to integrate and our sustainment enterprise and think about it holistically across not only the US and the joint force but also with coalition partners and that's been one of those complexities that we've had to work through in Europe and it's something that we are definitely learning quickly and we're anxious to be able to support and export those learnings across wherever conflict arises. But it's true that software can knit all of this together and that's where I think we as industry oh the United States Army and the joint force are very best in collective thinking in terms of how do you do that and do that well. Because the technology exists today not five years, 10 years in the future for you to get a sensor off of a munition that was expended from a gun tube for that to flow through the warfighter, the echelons and chains of command, to the TSC, to inventories that are managed in the CONUS and all the way back to the manufacturing organizations whether that be manufacturing that we do here in the United States Army or in our arsenals or even in industry. And it actually extends beyond that because industry can leverage these same set of tools to actually see themselves clearly and see their supply chain so that you can look at this really from an end to end perspective and when we can get to that place then I think we're gonna be in a much better place. The emphasis that I would place on that though is it really is a capability that exists today and so there's real progress being made across the joint force and as I look across and have experiences and seeing what other services are doing it's those services that are actually leveraging the highly skilled personnel that they have to develop capabilities on really strong platforms that are highly configurable and highly extensible. All too often we develop point solutions that don't scale and I think that's where we as an industry set of industry partners can and should be doing more to support that effort. We're obviously committed to working alongside Dr. Hill, Andrew Mohan and the AMC team and just as they were there from the beginning of the conflict in Europe so was Palantir and so we're very proud of that work and look forward to that continuing but the bold vision that what we have for this needs to be resourced and if it can be resourced then I think we can make really extraordinary progress and I'll leave you with this as I reflect on this idea that the capability does exist now. Half of our business is not just serving the Department of Defense and other governments around the Western world but half of it is in the commercial space and in the commercial context I would offer that there is inspiration to be found. One particular longstanding customer of ours Airbus does this and does this exceedingly well and so as an example they had an issue with their A350 delivery times. We were able to help them really see their supply chains clearly understand where their bottlenecks were and the results were really powerful. They increased production by 33%. They drove $850 million more in revenue. They avoided $1.7 billion in cost and what I think is really interesting is they have 25,000 users on these platforms and they're developing new capabilities. They don't need us to do that through no code and low code capabilities. They're making really great strides and so as we step back and think about the future I just would say if we can leverage those experiences in the commercial sector we'll be better off and it'll allow us to get to where we wanted to get much faster than we otherwise would be. Great, thank you sir, great comments. So now we're very fortunate we've got about 40 minutes for questions and answers and I've already got a bunch lined up here on the desks that are pouring in. They may be specifically addressed to a certain panel member. Of course the panel, everybody on the panel have opportunity to make a comment because most of them are relative across the board. We'll also have an opportunity to discuss it so if someone in the audience there's a point that comes out on that question please stand and get recognized. You might have to come forward so we can hear you if there's additional point we need to clarify on a specific question. So I'll start with one question from the audience and this is really directed to the entire panel and it deals specifically with contested logistics and the thoughts that the panel has about resupply using recycled parts, locally sourced feedstock, scrap, construction materials, cardboard, et cetera. And he makes a comment specifically that there's been a lot of lessons learned here from Ukraine. So the way I'd like to shape it if we could please is give General Donahue and Colonel Upton an opportunity maybe to talk about some thought work that's going on in that area and then maybe Dr. Hill, you and Mr. Minasco, you could talk a little bit about some realities that we may have seen out of the assistance group for Ukraine because they reference Ukraine here. So please, General Donahue, any thoughts on that question? So we've got a ton of effort right now and partnerships. I'll hit on a couple. We like to innovate with DARPA because they're really kind of 15, 20 years ahead from a technology perspective. They've got great partnerships with academia as well. And so right now we've got a couple of efforts from a demand reduction perspective for both water and fuel as well as food. And so you talked about using things at the point of need. And so right now they've got a project called Project Cornucopia that from a food perspective, our supply chain for food is rather large. So is our water supply chain. Actually, water is probably our greatest supply chain when it comes to requirements for trucks on the battlefield. And so Project Cornucopia is looking specifically at how they use natural organisms in the environment. I'm sure our soldiers will be really ecstatic to be able to drink like a protein, locally produced shake, so to speak. But at the end of the day, we're trying to get after using organic substances. The same with Erdick. Erdick right now is working a lot of things from an engineering perspective, concrete, right? We don't want to move concrete and all of the things that it takes to build and repair runways. And so they're looking at also products out there that can get after that. So those are just a couple of things. I can't speak. Great, crop it. Yeah, Shane over here. Yes ma'am, so just kind of to off of Sean's point. So predictive logistics, kind of the in-state that we see this, and we've talked about this, I've talked with Dr. Hill, I've talked with General Donahue, is prescriptive. And when you talk about that specific question, prescriptive is I'm gonna harken you back to what we do now. So go to Europe. We have line hauled vehicles that are commercially, they're commercial vehicles. And when we have a repair parts thing, we look across our enterprise to include civilian sources based on the question, maybe even locally sourced at a dealership, depending on the piece of equipment. You fast forward that into technology that's already here and what we're looking at and partnering and thinking about is in a PL tool, as we write that capabilities development document, not only be able to see our DOD, our DLA partner stocks, but see stocks worldwide of partners in theater. I'll pull a couple threads. Ukraine lessons observed aptly, but I think they apply globally. If you deployed forces into the Pacific, you may need repair parts and equipment that come from a distributor that's in Guam or the Philippines or somewhere in that area. You go to Europe, same thing. These are first world large economies and being able to see that. So what's to so what? The thinking we're thinking is in a predictive logistics tool, a capability, you offer that war fighting commander, the ability for his logisticians or her logisticians to also see those industry partners source of supply or their supply chain. And Sean made a very good point and kind of pulled that thread. That's a end to end DOD wise, but then you expand that into the defense industrial base. And I think that's one of the things we're looking at that. And that's absolutely off a lesson observed from the Ukraine. Sometimes it's quite faster. In that point of need, sometimes the point of need resupply is something that's already there but it's just in the commercial market. So we've got to look at that. And I call it prescriptive, because that tool, these suites of technology and Dr. Hill's team has done it with the SAG-U, give you a prescriptive matter of the second and third order effects of what making that decision will do to you in time. And then providing that operational endurance to those commanders so they can continue their operations. Just some thoughts that were kind of in that thought space for that question, hopefully. Dr. Hill, Mr. Reynastka, any comments about SAG-U and some great examples of this being applied? In general, I would say what struck me as I started working on this was the nature of what contested logistics means.  But when you think about a theater, the entire theater is not at war. So you have to move things through that theater to get it to the point of need. And to General Brown's point this morning about reform of institutions, many of those institutions are the ones that are slowing you down. So it's the challenge of the logistician and their supporting analysts to try to figure out, hey, what's a demand signal? How many do I need to have there without having too many that adds a different kind of risk? And I think where some of these locally sourced stocks really help us is when we get that wrong. Because the penalty from time, if you're getting that repair part in Guam, it's not showing up overnight, particularly if it's on a ship. So that's where I think in the Ukrainian's approach to things with some of the local work they've done has really allowed them to mitigate unforeseen challenges and do it in a much quicker way. Mr. Menasco, thoughts? The only thing that I might add, this is another place where I think we can and should seek inspiration from the private sector, because as an example, when the war kicked off in the Ukraine, there were companies that were able to see themselves and their supply chains pretty clearly, and they were able to reroute their supply chains because they knew that they had parts flowing into those regions. And it's that work that they did upfront that allowed them in the crisis to actually perform or outperform their competitors. And I would argue, I think that's a great opportunity for us and has been mentioned. The situation in Europe is vastly different than that in the Pacific for obvious reasons. And so I think we have to get even, we probably have to do more work in the Pacific candidly than we would have to in Europe since just the proximity is so much better. As the panel discussed, several of them talked about challenges to industry. So I've got two similarly related questions about bringing capabilities to the government. The first one, Dr. Hill, to you, is how do we bring analytic capabilities, tools and things that we have that may be working for our industry or other services to you so that the government can take a look at it?  So because of all that dynamic change in this side of the world I mentioned earlier, we have to know what industry is doing. And when you have an innovation in this space, you have to get to us to tell us what that is. I think we've done a good job of implementing our systems with open architectures and having that federated approach I mentioned earlier where we can bring multiple vendors in. You know, there's a lot of complexities in doing that in terms of how you set your contract up, what the organic side can do, what the contractors can do, but all that's workable. So I think the first key I would say is it's our communication to make sure we understand what it is you're doing. And the second is it's on us to set up a system and architecture that enables that kind of collaboration. This one, Colonel Upton, really is specifically geared to you, but it deals with any material solution inside your portfolio. And it's basically the same type of question. You know, what are the opportunities that are upcoming or how do we bring technology to the CFT to take a look at how it may support your objectives and goals? No, that's a great question. So I want to pull something that's really developed in the last year or less than a year with the Chief General George, General Rainey, and then also the CASCOM, CG and the Service Center of Excellence. So what it is is these three time horizons. And I want to talk about them really quickly to answer the question, because the way we're looking at transformation is really in three time horizons. But I'll go to the middle of one first. The Army's been focused and really have been pretty successful in the last five to 10 years on focusing on the goal of 2030 and delivering some signature modernization efforts in that time band. That's major weapons platforms. Some of them are already out there. I'm sure Ed, some of the other things that you're all very familiar, some of you may have worked that. There's a focus also on what we can bring to 2040, but the new kind of thinking that came very recently is this concept of transforming and contacting. That's the one I want to pull on on that question. In this 18 to 24 month space, one, like Dr. Hill said, have the conversations with us now. Tell us what you're working on. So first, we see if it aligns with where the Army's going. So now up then answer where the Army's going. We're going towards stuff that is men viable product. And we'll set that as kind of that threshold. You come, you talk to us about it. And there's impets to that. You sponsor, I'll tell you, a great means is partner with a lab. Partner with a DevCom or a partner that's an Army lab and you partner, then it's common goal. But we're taking the innovation ability a lot of you hold, some of the capabilities in the DoD that those labs hold, and it's a partnership. General Donahue and the team, selectively the CEDA, the CFT now are sponsoring newer emerging technologies. That sponsorship is just to get that conversation started. And it finally, it emanates from conversations like this, panels like this, AUSAs, other forms where we have that professional dialogue. But that's looking at that quicker timeframe to get stuff into soldiers' hands. General Mohan mentioned it up front, General Rainey will talk about it, so I won't steal his thunder, but I will say, we want to put those technologies that are already there into the hand of soldiers. It's a great example of what AMC's done in Europe and what our collective industry partners have done in Europe. But Doc, you'll hit it. You put it in the hand of a staff soldier or commander and have them work on it and learn from it. That's how you get, I think, into that conversation. Hopefully that helps, and I'll turn it over to them. Sir, just a foot stomp that too. So we've got a couple of opportunities here over the next couple of months. One, we've got a great partnership with AUSA later this fall before the big October convention, where we'll hold an industry week at Fort Gregg Adams. And so there's a great opportunity to come participate, show us what you're working on, challenge us to explain to you what we're looking at. In addition to that, we love when you bring us technology and we can integrate that into our own experimentation efforts. So we've got experimentation efforts that are hosted by the Futures and Concepts Center inside of AFC. But we also have, and just as Shane mentioned, the Chief is really hitting on this transformation in contact. And so we've got brigades right now in 25th ID, 101st 10th Mountain right now, that are experimenting with various sustainment technology. Now in some cases, some of that is Army Program of Record, kind of an ACDD approach. We already have experimentation dollars out there to get after that. But also in some cases, that is industry sponsored and funded in some cases, your own investment dollars to come show us what you have. So we are all in on one, again, just like Shane said, partnering with Ertick, DevCom, any of the Futures Command's labs. They're, you know, we don't have a monopoly on great ideas, like I said before. So come be a partner with us. And the best feedback you'll get is when that young non-commissioned officer tells you how you can make your product better and then informs us about what we need to do to craft our requirements documents better for you. Great. Mr. Manasko, I'll put you on the spot. We had an interesting discussion during one of our prep sessions. You know, as the government has challenged industry, you've made a couple of comments to us about, you know, some cautions to government to get away from old think that makes it easier for contractors in the industry to bring in ideas. I don't know, I know I'm putting you on your spot, but you remember those comments of you and mine sharing that, you know, to our government ears that are also- Did what I say, was it palatable or was it too spicy? It was great. No, it was spot on. I thought it was right on the money. So, look, one of the things I have the benefit of doing is I used to spend a lot of time in the Pentagon, and so I saw, and by the way, it's great to be with my Army team, even though I did spend a couple of years in the Air Force, they're great too, but I saw the team spend a lot of money on someone who was a really good salesperson and they had a really good PowerPoint presentation and convinced, you know, the services that they could actually do something in the future. And I saw, all too often, I saw them not be successful on a spend a lot of money. And resourcing right now when, like, FLAT is the new up from a budgetary standpoint, I think those are just risks that we collectively can't afford to take. And so I do think that it's important for, and I mentioned this earlier, it's important, I think, for our teams to be able to develop on top of an infrastructure and platforms that you know are scalable. And we have to do that today and that are proven. And I think that's the piece where if we can get oriented around that, I think you can fully leverage all of what industry can bring and we can fully leverage all of what our men and women in uniform or DA civilians can bring because what I used to see was frustration who someone was writing code and they were on a platform that just, they couldn't fully deploy, it was great, they couldn't fully deploy it. And it's been said, and this might be, you know, a little spicy for the group, but it's been said that here in the very near future that the predominant coding language in the world is gonna be the English language. So what does that mean? Right, and how do we take advantage of these new tools that exist, right, to be able to help us move more quickly? Great. General Donahue, this one's a little bit broader and it gets into the broader aspects of .mil-pf, but the question is, you know, how in this era of diminishing resources do we ensure the capabilities to generate and project ready combat forces? We're here to talk about in the panel. To generate these forces into at a modernization pace with operational force and what potential changes do you see it's critical to enable this ability to sustain war fighting function in the JSSA, just potentially some thoughts between you probably, Colonel Upton, you may have some thoughts on that as well. That's a big one that's like, disguised my whole job. It is, explain the theory, you know what I'm saying. So I guess what I would offer is sustainment can't be a growth industry, can't continue to be a growth industry for the United States Army. Under the leadership of General Simmerly, the team took a look at sort of how we see demand and how demand has grown over the last five decades or so. They took current formations, they went back over again really since the 1970s and they basically swapped out all of our combat platforms over time and what we saw was this massive increase in one fuel. Almost, and I think I said this in shocks and folks back last month when we were up in Arlington at the AUSA Hot Topic Panel Series, almost a 394% growth in fuel. We've seen from a mechanic's perspective from our technicians out there, almost a 37% growth in just how do we, basically our growth of our mechanic forest structure because systems are getting much more complicated and they take a lot longer to repair based on the complexity of the systems. So from a Dottmall PF perspective, we are absolutely laser focused in and across all of our various teammates. I don't know if Jeff Norman's out here right now from Next Gen Combat Vehicle CFT but really worked closely with his team along with Shane and Shane worked really closely with his team when it came to PL too but also just from a hybridization of that vehicle. Every vehicle and I think Shane hit it when he talked about the advanced power has got to roll off the assembly line and be a net power producer. We've got to curb that demand curve when it comes to fuel. So what keeps me up at light is simply the fact that from a sustainment perspective, we are costing the Army a lot of money because of how our platforms have considered or have just continued to require much more when it comes to really three, five mic mic writ large. Maybe not the medical piece but definitely on the other pieces. So Shane. Just a couple of thoughts. So I think part of the contested environment and Doc Hill mentioned it and we see it here in the United States is just how do you move stuff with freedom of movement? I mean it's pretty big development when you talk the coalition piece because this is absolutely a DOD, a joint and a coalition partner but establishing the Schengen zone for movement now in Europe and three of our core partners, that's a huge piece of that. I say and I pull that thread because that's one of the things as we could develop these dialogues with industry with our, I see our joint coalition partners out there. I see German officers, I see officers from the UK. These are partners. We will never, I think go alone into any conflict of the future. It's not doable as nations and allies. That's one piece of it but to that question of that contested environment, how do we ensure that? We've also got to give options and we've got a lot of exquisite options but you'll see a lot of dialogue and I'm looking forward to that dialogue with industry on the less exquisite options that we can mass. And when you look at something like China, they absolutely are exceeding our magazine depth right now. And General Flynn talk about it and use her pack but how do you offset that? That's a contested piece as well when our adversary has an overmatch. We have to be precise. We have to be precise where we put things. We're gonna have, we've had some big discussions at AMC, the Army and stuff on how we position things. Those are all discussions we've got to continue to have and General Donny made some great points about how we partner with our modernization teammates but that's back to industry joint coalition because I think it's a cumulative effect. If we get our partners to open up that freedom of maneuver on a land-based domain, when, if you look at AI or tools, machine learning, our large language models that we can see that environment from CONUS forward and have options of how we deploy and maybe we deploy, and that's also ties back to the human machine integrated piece of this. There's a phrase there that the chief and General Rain now use that we should not shed American blood with soldiers in first contact anymore. Logisticians are soldiers. We should be putting some of this as we're contested from homeland forward and using modern technology to move some of that. Maybe they're vessels that have different capabilities. Maybe they're projection of aircraft in different means. So just some thoughts about that but I just kind of put, that's a great question but it's a big one. Like General Donahue and I said, that's kind of our day jobs. And you handle any thoughts, anything you'd like to add before we move on to the next question. I might pull the thread on the constrained resources and the resourcing piece of it because what you find in the space I operated in most of the contracts we enter in with industry or service type contracts. And so it's really easy to screw that up from the government side. You have to have flexible contracting vehicles that allow you to respond to the way the operations are changing. So I mean it's been just astounding as they go from a defensive posture to try to blunt an attack to a local counter attack to a large scale offense what the requirements changes were for us and our industry partners. So you have to be able to adjust that contract in a way that doesn't have you paying for something you no longer need because it's not relevant to the battle anymore. And you also have to write those requirements broad enough to let industry innovate and let them wow you. And then I would tell you on top of that, you have to have, I mean this just sounds like standard blocking and tackling but it's absolutely true. You have to have rigorous program management. You have to see who's using it, where you're spending your money and stay on top of that almost daily to make sure you can free those resources up to go back to other parts of the fight. Great, thanks. So the fuel comment has hit, got a bunch of questions on fuel stuff. This one specifically, Shane to you, it's a material related one. You talked a little bit about this and it deals more with generators and reducing demand and less generators on the battlefield. What is the Army's vision plan to incorporate onboard power into new production combat vehicles versus material developer incorporating these post-production, any thoughts? And then General Donahue, you've got some probably input into that as well. Oh absolutely, I'll take a stab and then I'll pass it over to my teammate from General Donahue. First of all, mobile think secure tactical advanced mobile power. And that's a concept but it's also things we've been exercising convergence. And what is that? That's reducing generators on the battlefield because the vehicle system combat platform or resupply platform has on board power generative capability. And as we move our formations because it's absolutely plays with lessons learned in the Ukraine, lessons we're seeing from a peer adversary when you look towards end of paycom, we are going to have to displace very rapidly as formations and that's logistics formations, sustainment formations, combat formations, gone are the days of these large command control nodes and we'll have to move them. And one of those is generating power. We saw some very recent experimentation out at Capstone with some very good results on fuel reduction, being able to move very quickly and having rapid setup times when you did displace and move and set back up to command and control make logistics decisions, make operational decisions. I think that's the first thing. There's a lot of partnership there with industry right now but I think we've got to look at we're already writing into our capabilities documents for our new systems that that would be part of that system. But I will tell you that's probably what you wanted to hear going forward with new systems. We will always fight an army of three or four groups. What we have, what we're modernizing to the undersecretary mentioned it, we're gonna give capabilities of certain formations and certain formations will have different capabilities. We've got to look at those suite of solutions. Some of it, we're gonna have to go back to systems and put that technology on it. And that's the partnership that I look forward to the dialogue on how we do that. Absolutely, we just make sense to do it as we go forward with new developing systems and more acquisitions. But some of the systems we exercise in General Donahue's team was out there with me at Capstone and the seated was there, their legacy systems but the fuel savings, the maneuverability, being able to power a division main with two vehicles. That takes 11 generators off the battlefield, just as an example and I'll turn it over to General Donahue for any other comments. Absolutely great question but that's where we're headed, I think, in the newspaper. So two things, when I worked for General Simmerly before and I was the quartermaster commandant, I used to joke about being the commandant that was gonna essentially wipe out a couple of MOS's that we had based off of some of the technologies that we were pursuing. And so, but then I also like to be known as the person who likes to go find other people's money as well to be able to pursue innovation. And so in this case, really a fan of some of the work that DevCom has been doing with OSD and a joint capability tech demo over the last couple years and that's really what reference, or what Shane referenced that happened out of project convergence in a project that we called Stamp. And so essentially what this was, and it was actually really cool, I was walking actually the floor yesterday as all the construction was still happening here and actually saw a vendor that had an ACDC power converter. And essentially that's really all that we were able to do was to be able to convert power from a truck, eliminate generators and allow a command post on the move to basically be able to power itself and not have to set up its 11 generators. Having just spent some time with the PM last week when we were at Fort Greig Adams, he always reminds me that generators absolutely have a place on the battlefield, just like water production has a place on the battlefield. But at the point of need, when we're seeing what we're seeing from operations in Ukraine and having to continuing to move our command posts at the speed of relevance to ensure that they're protected, we don't have time to set up 11 generators. So there's some great technology out there, lots of, I mean, obviously reduces fuel but also from a survivability perspective and a protection requirement absolutely critical that we see some of that capability cut into our current programs as well as even future programs as well. Great, thank you. I've been digging hard for a maintenance question here and I found one. So good question again, back to General Donahue and Colonel Upton. Historical system performance data is a critical piece of PPMX and predictive logistics. How will the Army compensate with and utilize with vehicles in the field the transmission of this health, system health data? What's the plan? What's the network structure? How do you see that working? Maybe you've got some examples of some things you've discussed already to talk about what the future looks like for transmission of that data. Dr. Hill, you may have some examples too. Yeah, I'm gonna phone a friend here with Chris Hill in a second real quick, immediately. That was my first thought. We absolutely, so General Donahue mentioned that there was some great work, absolutely phenomenal work. It's a first for the Army. I'm in the first but it was an absolute first. So Colonel Matt Western and the team at the TPO ACCOM, the Sustainment Mission Command that's part of the Sustainment Center of Excellence got an abbreviated capabilities document approved by the Army leaders to do exactly what General Masters just talked. Start moving, first focused on Abrams and some of our larger platforms. That maintenance data off platform and then how we move that into things what you call a data broker and then quite frankly then into an open architecture is the way we are looking at that. And that is absolutely tied also, and General Donahue mentioned this earlier with Army Futures Command and the Army's efforts on how they pivot the network to what we call Command and Control or C2 Next. It's absolutely gonna have to operate on a common network. I'm not a signal guy but I'm gonna quote a quote that somebody way smarter than me said. Shane, you know what server stacks are?  It was this guy, but anyway. But that's where we're looking at on how to transfer that maintenance data off the platform. The sensors are there. So when I look at my industry partners and the smart people in the room, the technology is there. We, the Army, have to be partners with you all and communicating that clearly what we need. And what I mean is, and there's the effort that General Donahue's actually leading us through, is deciding what commanders are gonna need to make decisions. Because at the bottom end of this, at the end of this, for a commander on the battlefield, that data needs to drive a decision. Or maybe we don't need to be collecting it. That's Upton's opinion, that is not, I know this is on the record, that's my opinion, but we've gotta keep the commander at the center of that. And I'll turn it over to my teammates. But that's where we're looking at, and that will absolutely be written into the capability development document for the PL efforts that were started at this SMC, the Sustainable Mission Command, and continued in a partnership now with the CFT as teammates. So I'll just turn it over to you. So two things, I'm always of, Dr. Hill and I've been partnered for a long time, and really impressed with, again, all of the efforts that they've done with APAS and industry help as well. And I'm always reminded over the fact that he told me that this was maybe about 18 months ago when the cab that was in Europe was directed to go support the humanitarian relief operations in Turkey. And they used APAS to select all the tail numbers for those birds that were gonna fly from, from, I hope they flew from out of Greece or out of Poland, I forget which one, but 100% OR rate never broke down all because of the analytic efforts that they have done. I've been reminded about all the work that we've also done, TACOM, and the leadership at TACOM have done with experimenting down with 3ID, with the brigade down there. A lot of that work actually helped to inform the writing of our ACDD. Really happy to report General Dean and team inside of the Striker community, inside of PEO ground systems. They've done a lot of work to digitize the maintenance flow of data inside the Striker platform. And so again, there's just, there's a tremendous amount of efforts. It's almost like the data piece that Sean, you mentioned about decentralization. This is essentially what we've seen across the Army from a PL perspective. And so, I think we've taken a lot of really good lessons learned and with Shane and the team, we will actually get the actual requirements document from, you know, transition from an ACDD to a CDD. And we're hopeful that we've got some money across multiple pegs right now, but through Shane's efforts to centralize some of those resources, we'll be able to see this come to a fruition, so. So I would say we've done a good job of moving the football on predictive maintenance over the last several years. Our tank automotive and armaments command on the ground side and our aviation missile command on the air. I mean, the things they can do with that data, as General Donahue mentioned, predicting failure by a tail number in specific amounts of time. Looking at their supply chain, their authorized stockage list to say, the parts we think they're gonna drive the failure, do we have enough for this upcoming operation? And then feeding all that back into the national supply chain is really powerful. That was a great question because I think it hit on the part of the technology that's limiting us the most and this is where we can use industry's help. It's how do we get that data off of those platforms in an efficient way that's secure, that's not gonna compromise that unit in a combat environment. So a lot of the advances we've made, we've leveraged peacetime operations, being able to pull things off of vehicles directly or going to the motor pool, that sort of thing. But that's not the solution we need. We need that solution that's gonna pull it from that vehicle in a secure and efficient way and provide that data back into the enterprise for us to use. And just one more. So most, sorry, real quick, Sean. So most of our components are censored but I guess what I would also challenge industry is to take a look at the subcomponents. That's actually, I think, where we see challenges, where we can isolate some of those failures when it comes to the subcomponents within those major systems. I was just gonna add an editorial comment. Actually, I think it's kudos to the Army. I think you guys are ahead of the services and how you're thinking about it. And I say that only to encourage us to move more quickly because I think you're paving a trail that others are looking at and saying, okay, we need to be doing some of the same activities. So it's encouraging. We're gonna only have time for maybe two more questions. I'm gonna hit one. We haven't used the word cyber in our discussion but I thought this one would be, kind of get us off the original train. So we all know cyber is part of a contested environment no matter where we are. We deal with it in personal life. This question really deals about to what extent do you see cyber warfare as an operational risk inside the contested environment and just some quick ideas about some things that are going on. Realize there's a lot of people out there working on the cyber aspect, particularly when you get down in the tactical space. What's going on in that environment just a little bit for the audience, please. Shane, I'll look at you. Start off. I'll take a stab at that. So really it's a partnership with AMC and I'll use a quote that I've heard General Moyan say and I've seen it published. A lot of our sustainment enterprise, that's partnership with the Defense Industrial Base, the OIB and our tactical formations operate quite frankly not even on controlled open internet but open internet. And we've got to look at how we do that going forward. I think it's the first thing. We can't but we can't use that and go so secretive because I'll tell you that's again up in its opinion, potentially sometimes we overclassify stuff so that impedes the partnership with the industry but we're absolutely looking at as we go to any capabilities document how does a cyber contested environment play in that and sustainment that's huge. That's from projecting from our factories or in that joint security support area into the Foxhole. A lot of that is partnership because in general a master said it the charter of the CFT is tactical and below but one of the reasons we're closely partnering with the CASCOM obviously and then with AMC is because that's got to tie into the strategic base and cyber is a huge piece of that. We're working on this PL initiative. I know I'm keep pulling that thread but that's huge in the cyber domain because any open architecture if not protected opens up a lot of that information. When you start talking about the centering discussion we just had on platforms and Dr. Hill said it very well. We've got to look at protecting that because I'll just tell you recently in convergence one of the big you have those aha moments during when you're experimenting in our cyber EM folks came in one day and briefed the leaders at the table and showed the peaks of transmission of data when these HMI solutions the PL type solutions were transmitting. They were enormous. Obviously we've seen from lessons observed in Ukraine and stuff the minute that happens you become a target. But I think that's the way we're approaching and looking at it. We'll absolutely put it in our requirements documents. You know I just said recent is a newer CFT and with the fellow CFTs I've been a lot of phone of friends on how we're doing that because some of that has to be matrixed and that's a reach out will do the industry as well because I'll tell you truth and lending the CLCFT doesn't have a cyber expert on the team but we'll absolutely reach out to our industry partners and have that dialogue with people that are in that professional space but I'll turn it over to the rest of the team but that's kind of where we're looking at and some of the ideas. Any comments? I know Pat said we had a little bit more than the time allotted so please. I would just say to Shane's point there and I agree with them that we should pay very close attention to what's happening in Ukraine right now because the cat and mouse game that's being played today in the EW space is really, really interesting and our opportunity has to be that we understand what the new modification is to the procedure that they're using and us to be able to actually understand what's going on and then react to that more quickly than we do today is gonna be something that's gonna be really important and you overlay that with the complexity of the supply chain itself and you can see if you can't figure out what they're doing and be able to react quickly then suddenly your supply chain is gonna be really compromised. Great, I am gonna squeeze one more quick one in here because this looks like probably it's Dr. Hill's review but it seems like it might be a quick one answer. It's a question about how can an industry representative get access to representative data sets and access to APAS to validate and align future integrated solutions? Any comment to the? So as I mentioned our architecture is very open and we are very federated so the key is you gotta find me in the next two days and I will get you linked up to the right folks. So whoever asked that question, take a picture, track him down. Panel, thank you very much and I apologize to the audience. I mean, you were very active in your question and I tried to order these and spread them around a little bit so I apologize if I didn't get to your question but that's the opportunity you may have. A great thanks again to our panel members for their time and effort preparing for any information that they've shared with all that. I hope you all took away as much from this panel discussion as I did and thanks again AUSA for giving us the opportunity to talk. Thanks very much. You are a great American, well maybe an American. So I guess everybody has taken off because they figured it was gonna take me too long to make it across the stage. So we'll get this fireside chat underway. My name is Doug Morrison, I work for Susie Defense as their lead for their composite rubber track business here in the US. But I'm also the vice president for the George Washington AUSA chapter in Northern Virginia on their executive committee for family affairs. And I'd like to take an opportunity to introduce our first fireside chat. Focused on integrating partnership in posture. It's my honor to introduce the moderator for this fireside chat with Lieutenant General retired Mick Benderick. General Benderick is a consummate warfighter. Currently he's the vice president of defense for floor mission solutions. He directs the group's defense business line providing scalable rapid response, contingency logistics, life support services, construction for military, humanitarian and disaster response missions. He spent nearly 40 years of service in the US, Europe, Middle East and Indo-Paycom. General Benderick retired from the army in 2015. He served as a commander at every level from company to army level, including CG of the 25th Infantry Division of Schofield Barracks, Hawaii and CG First Army headquartered of Rock Island Arsenal. For his last military assignment he served 26 months as the senior defense official in Iraq and the chief of the Office of Security Cooperation in Baghdad. Sir, over to you. No, hey thanks, I appreciate that. Listen, this fireside chat panel is the last thing before a lunch. Some of them went out to go grab a sandwich or probably kind of eat back in here against the house rules, but that's okay. And General Brown, sir, thanks to you and Les for giving me a few extra minutes here. Maybe we'll get a little bit of Q and A so we kind of started a little bit ago. And we are blessed with a couple great war fighters here to my left, steam logisticians that really are leading our army formations across the spectrum of combat. And hopefully we'll get some questions from the audience although both of these from Lieutenant General Mark Simmerly now the Director of Defense Logistics Agency just a few months ago and Major General Eric Shirley commander of First Theater Sustainment Command. Responsible as everybody here knows for the depth, breadth and scope and support of ComR-Sent Lieutenant General Pat Frank and obviously a SENTCOM commander, Eric Carrilla.    But again, we could talk for a long time just on what is in their portfolio of not only how they're doing what they're doing but as this AUSA Global Force Symposium is titled in support of combat ready formations of our war fighters around the planet. We only have about 30, 40 minutes so we're gonna try to keep us a little bit tighten. Eric, I wanna start with you if I could. And as I mentioned, you could talk an hour just of all the stuff that you have going on across the SENTCOM area of responsibility. Everything from your headquarters there at Fort Knox to Ford and Eriph John. I know you just got back as you and I were talking earlier from Jordan and all points in the Cardinal Compass. But coming up on a one year in command and leading the first TSC, multi-compo team of a lot of our readiness and statement challenges in support of a SENTCOM and SENTCOM commander. But given the Chief of Staff of the Army, Randy George's and his focus of constant transformation and contact and General Carilla's focus there in SENTCOM of innovation, what opportunities are you seeing and how have you seen in current ops across the AOR to be innovative and kind of working through those challenges? And again, that's a heck of a lot. And I know you could talk all day just on that but if you could walk us through that framework a little bit for the audience, thanks Eric. Yeah, sir, thanks very much. And I'd like to say first and foremost, I appreciate this opportunity, the forum for collaboration that AUSA allows us, everyone that