Q&A: Lieutenant General Ted F. Bowlds

ACQUISITION PARTNER:
Leveraging COTS Technology to Satisfy Unique Military Requirements


Interview with
Lieutenant General Ted F. Bowlds
Commander
Electronic Systems Center (ESC)
Hanscom Air Force Base

by Harrison Donnelly, MIT Editor

Lieutenant General Ted F. Bowlds is commander, Electronic Systems Center (ESC), Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass. The center’s mission is to acquire command and control systems for the Air Force. The organization comprises more than 12,000 people located at six sites throughout the United States. The men and women of the ESC manage more than $3 billion in programs annually in support of the Air Force, and joint and coalition forces.

Bowlds entered the Air Force in 1975 through the ROTC program. In earlier assignments, he served as an engineer in an Air Force laboratory and as a flight test engineer on the F-117. He has worked as avionics program manager on the B-2, bomber branch chief at the Pentagon, chief of advance medium range air-to-air missile development in the AMRAAM System Program Office, and as commander of the Rome Laboratory in Rome, N.Y.

Bowlds also served as the deputy director of global power programs with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Headquarters U.S. Air Force. Prior to assuming his current position, he was assigned as commander, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, where he was responsible for managing the Air Force’s $2 billion science and technology program as well as additional customer funded research and development of $1.7 billion. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Mississippi State University, and a Master of Science degree in engineering management from the University of Dayton.

Bowlds was interviewed by MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly.

Q: You recently returned from a tour of the CENTCOM AOR. Are you satisfied with the performance in the field of systems developed at the ESC?

A: Very much so. If you go back a bit in history, to the early days of the Combined Air and Space Operations Center and the systems we had there, it was a pickup game at the time—let’s just put a bunch of computers together and see what we get. Over time, culminating in what I saw when I was over there this past March, we’ve developed a strongly integrated suite of products that are helping the fight in Southwest Asia. But my trip also highlighted some areas of opportunity, and some places where we need to grow and migrate our systems. Things like the Theater Battle Management [TBM] Core Systems were designed to help plan and execute thousands of sorties. But the war over there today is not on that level of magnitude. So we have a pretty good sized software system that is not being used to its fullest capacity.

Also, some of the tools that are supplied to the warfighter are not as user-friendly as they should be. So there are workarounds in place, Excel spreadsheets and things of that nature. It has served us well over time, and is still doing quite well, but there is room for improvement. And as we go forward, working with Air Combat Command [ACC] and other organizations, we are looking to change the fundamental architecture to be able to have it accommodate all levels of conflict, and also start to be able to make use of reach-back, so that all the data doesn’t have to be in one location. But by and large, I was very much satisfied with what I saw, and also with the support that folks from ESC are providing to warfighters in theater.

Q: The Air Force acquisition system has been in the news of late. What is your overall assessment of acquisition methods for computer and communications technology?

A: It’s probably a two-part answer. The first is for acquisition in general. If you go back about 10 years ago, the name of the game was to do it all by commercial best practices. We accommodated that, and did what we were supposed to do, but there was a whole collection of talent and expertise that we let atrophy away—cost analysts, systems engineering and, in some cases, even program managers. Some of what we’re seeing in acquisition today is the fact that the talent pool within the government has atrophied. So the pendulum is swinging back the other way, to re-grow the talent that we need to do this.

In terms of IT systems in particular, this comes at a time when we kind of get a “double whammy,” in that we suffered the same decrease in expertise, and at the same time, we’re going from big monolithic systems, such as TBM Core Systems, with millions of lines of code and all the data embedded in the software, to service-oriented architectures [SOA], where things move much more rapidly. Not only do we have the complexity of trying to re-grow that talent, but also we have it coming at a time when the IT industry is changing from one architecture to another.

So we have to grow back the talent and figure out how to do acquisition in this new environment, because in some cases, some of those acquisitions are going to be traditional in the way they play out, because they’re big, or they’re important or they’re foundational, and you want to have all the rigor that even an F-22 would have. But at the other extreme, we have to look at how to do acquisition smartly—almost doing it like with venture capital—in that the opportunities will present themselves, and we have to capitalize on those very rapidly, but in some cases for not very long. If you think about cyber-warfare, you have to do some things very quickly, and once you’ve done them, they no longer work any more, and you have to move on to something else. The complexity of re-growing the talent and full-dimensional acquisition is what makes life in the IT world that much more exciting.

Q: “Acquisition is a bureaucratic contact sport,” you said on taking over at ESC. Can you elaborate on that, and is that a good thing or a bad thing?

A: I think it’s a good thing. It’s a realization that in acquisition there are a lot of people whom you have to deal with. I’m not saying that in a bad way, but just that there is a requirements side, which the end-user is establishing, the people on the air staff who are managing the money, the air staff, OSD, Congress and contractors. There are many different types of individuals and organizations that you have to deal with. It’s not a new fact of life; it has always been there. The reason I call it a contact sport is that you have to be out there talking with all those people, building those relationships and getting all those entities involved as you go forward, because they all have a very important vested interest in what you are doing. Understanding their framework and where they are helps cut down on the surprises.

From the standpoint of a fighter pilot who’s going to load an airplane and go out at a target, he or she has to deal with the airplane and the target, and, if there’s a threat in the area, they have to worry about the threats on the ground. But it’s one person, one airplane and one target. Acquisition is lots of people, lots of targets and lots of discussion. So I encourage program managers to get out from behind their desks and get out on the road to talk to the contractors, warfighters and folks in the Pentagon who have a vested interest, and make sure they understand the landscape that they are playing in.

Q: Are there any changes that you would like to see in the way the Air Force develops and acquires electronic systems?

A: The things that apply to acquisition in general certainly apply to us. All acquisitions have to pay attention to the basics— cost, schedule and technical performance. You have to lay out a good baseline plan, do good systems engineering, and understand what the requirement is. That all very much applies to all acquisitions, and to IT systems in particular. The other part of it, however, is that IT is unlike buying a new fighter. There, ACC is typically who you have to deal with—they’re the folks who establish the requirements. Within IT systems, we have several groups who lay those out. All the MAJCOMs have IT requirements, XC [warfighting integration] staff in the Pentagon is laying out requirements, and you have requirements that come in from OSD and DISA. So the community you’re playing in is a whole lot bigger. It’s part of the “contact sport” idea.

In addition, I’ll say again that it’s also a part of that full-dimension acquisition. There’s going to be pieces of what you do in IT that will look very traditional, going through the Joint Capability Integration Development System process and being very methodical, with lots of planning and oversight, because it’s going to establish a foundation. But there are other sides of it, as we get into open standards and SOA, that move a lot more rapidly, with almost a venture capital approach. Having good discipline and following the appropriate rules, regulations and policies throughout that entire spectrum is where the challenge is. We pretty much know how to do it at the one end—traditional acquisition—and we’re just beginning to work with organizations like Big Safari and others to figure out how to do acquisitions faster at the other end of the spectrum.

Q: You have described ESC as a “huge tree” spreading out in many different directions. Can you give readers an overview of the major programs for which you are responsible?

A: We’re currently organized, from an acquisition perspective, into four acquisition wings. The 350th Electronic Systems Wing deals in the command and control and ISR realm. They’re the focal point for the systems that are going to the Air Operations Centers [AOC], working with the intelligence community on the Distributed Common Ground System [DCGS] and with STRATCOM on the Integrated Strategic Planning and Analysis System. The 350th is pulling together all the various information to provide warfighters with a picture of the environment they’re operating in.

The 551st Electronic Systems Wing deals predominately with battle management capabilities, such as the flagship programs of AWACS and J-STARS, which readers are familiar with. But there are other things—new radar systems such as MP-RTIP, the multi-platform radar technology insertion program, as well as mission planning and weather systems.

The 554th Electronic Systems Wing acquires a wide range of operational support capabilities, mostly along the lines of business systems, such as the Expeditionary Combat Support System and the Defense Enterprise Accounting and Management System. They are where most of the major enterprise resources planning systems that the Air Force is acquiring sit.

Finally, there is the 653rd Electronic Systems Wing, which I view as the connective tissue. The data links sit inside this wing, as do the cryptological systems and the networking capabilities. They get all the connective tissue, and they are also the wing that is serving as the point of entry into Air Force Cyber Command, as to how we begin a dialogue with them.

Q: What lessons or insights that you might not have anticipated have you gained since taking over as ESC commander last year?

A: One of the things I found out is that it’s an organization that is very adaptable and very willing to do whatever it takes to support the warfighter, including trying new things. As we have migrated from the stovepiped systems such as TBM Core Systems and moved towards the SOA architecture, I’ve found that the acquisition wings and their individual staff members very willing to step into that new dimension. They do it with a little bit of trepidation, as I would expect, because some of this is laying the foundation, and unless you get it right, everything that follows is going to have a tough time. But they’re very willing to go out and stay on the cutting edge of technology, and stay connected to what commercial industry is doing.

One of the surprises I have had in this—and maybe I already had it in the back of my head—was that the community we support is pretty diverse, as I said earlier. It’s not like buying a fighter, where you’re dealing mainly with ACC. We deal with all the major commands, and many organizations on the Air Staff. That huge customer base makes it a challenge. They all have their own prerogatives, and we have to be good stewards to make sure things are interoperable. The huge, diverse user base makes it a challenge to manage programs and understand how we go forward. Those are two of the things I’ve found, both on the positive side and on the unknown side.

Q: What are your current top priorities?

A: The first priority is that the organization has to run as an enterprise from the standpoint of resources. We have a limited number of people, and I have to make sure that not only do we have the right talent where we need it, but also that we are growing that talent. I charge my senior leadership, the wing commanders and directors, to approach this not as a wing stovepipe, but as an enterprise—an organization that can bring the full weight and capability of the entire center on any problem that the Air Force gives us.

Interaction and partnership with the customer is part of that contact sport—to get out there and understand what their issues and concerns are, and make sure that we are satisfying their requirements. And if we can’t, we need to make sure that they understand why we can’t. In some cases, it’s policy, regulations, money or whatever it might be. Interaction and partnership with the customer is very important.

I’m also supporting my boss, General Carlson at AFMC, as one materiel command, so that ESC is part of the bigger materiel command enterprise. What are our processes and products, and how do they dovetail with the other product, logistics and test centers?

Another priority is taking care of the ESC family—not only those here at Hanscom AFB, but also those who are dispersed throughout the country. We’re making sure that they have the resources needed to be effective in their jobs, and the opportunities to grow.

Lastly, as has been true at every place I’ve been, my goal is to make this a fun place to work. We ask people to spend 40 hours a week here, and most of them spend more than that. We’re a big part of people’s lives, and you would like them to go home feeling good about what they did and looking forward to coming in— not only because the work is challenging, but also because the people they’re working for are fun and interesting.

Q: How are you working to achieve your goal of making data more accessible and useable?

A: One of the main things is implementing service-oriented architectures, which is what industry is doing these days. We’re very much on board with that, as we migrate to it. Some systems we have today have bits and pieces of that, such as the DCGS, which uses a SOA-like architecture, and much of the GCSS-Air Force is SOA-based. By making the data accessible and transparent, it opens up the door for more applications, and not only data sharing but also fusing data together in ways that you never anticipated before, to come up with new information.

I’ll give you a couple of examples of how we are going about doing this. For the Combat Survivor Evader Locator, the CSEL radio, ACC wanted us to make data available from the CSEL radio into the A-10 and the F-16, to provide real time situational awareness. We worked quickly to get that CSEL data into those two cockpits, and leveraged the XML Cursor on Target capability, the format that’s out there, to allow that data to get into those cockpits to help in search and rescue missions. We also have done a C2 data pilot for STRATCOM, which enabled TBM Core services, using a Web 2.0 approach to share through Really Simple Syndication [RSS] channels. So now they can subscribe to the RSS feeds from TBM Core Systems to monitor how the air battle is going with a Web browser.

We’ve also been working with the XC community on their new SOA architecture, and as that plays out, it will begin to expose more and more of the data.

Q: What is the relationship of your command to the new Air Force Cyber Command, and do you have plans for joint projects?

A: Right now, the acquisition side of the Air Force is very much a key partner as Cyber Command stands up. We are acting as Cyber Command’s “front porch” for acquisition-related activities. We even have a liaison team down at Barksdale AFB throughout the week as they begin to have their discussions on how they are going to stand up. That is part of a three-way team between Cyber Command Provisional, ESC and the Air Force Research Labs. It goes back to the nature of the domain. The cyber domain is different from the standpoint that acquisitions need in some cases to happen fast, and the opportunities present themselves very rapidly. Being part of Cyber Command as they stand up and establish their requirements, and understanding how we can do acquisitions to support them, are very important at the front end, as opposed to the back end.

We support all three emphasis areas that Cyber Command has: establishing, controlling and using the domain. We have current efforts and programs in all three of those areas, as well as ideas as to how we go forward as they build out on their requirements. We recently held the second annual Cyber Symposium, this time in the Boston area, co-chaired by myself and General Lord. So we’re very much part of their team, providing resources to help in terms of requirements definition, and in terms of ensuring that, if they do have a requirement, they understand how the acquisition process is going to play out. We’re making sure that the programs we have underway fall into those three domains. This is the best example of how you use that contact support in bureaucratic acquisition.

Q: What are some of ESC’s current efforts in the area of force protection and physical security?

A: We are taking what we have, and all the other efforts underway in terms of C2 and IT acquisition, and applying them to what we do there. We did the fixedsite integrated base security systems— think of that as cameras and radars. We also do that for the expeditionary bases, the expeditionary integrated base defense security system, which is the same type of thing, along with research. One of the things we’re looking at is how to get the information from those cameras and control centers out to the force protection folks—the cops in the Humvees around the perimeter of a base. We’re pairing up with the Big Safari folks to see if it’s possible to get information to a Rover system in a Humvee, where the transmitter is an antenna on top of a building, as opposed to a targeting pod. That’s an example of how we’re migrating from cameras and control stations into the IT environment, to get that information out there much like we would in an AOC. We’re working new joint force protection advanced security systems as that effort goes forward. In one regard, force protection is an effort in and of itself, but because of the proximity to the rest of what we do in cyber and IT, we’re beginning to connect that force protection into the bigger picture that a base commander or warfighter might need.

Q: What is ESC’s role in development of the Next Generation Air Transportation System?

A: ESC possesses the acquisition expertise and organizational construct necessary for identifying and addressing the technical aspects of NextGen. ESC is responsible for identifying potential NextGen impacts to DoD, facilitating Air Force C2 technology transfer for those R&D activities with potential NextGen application, and leading R&D evaluations. We are conducting centerwide advanced technology and capability planning, standards and process development. ESC brings specific expertise within the Global Information Grid, the National Airspaces System and Communications/ Navigation/Surveillance/Air Traffic Management [CNS/ATM] services and systems. As a broad proponent of DoD interests in NextGen, we participate as an honest broker in leveraging technology and capability planning.

The Air Force is designated the lead service for DoD. As the key Air Force command and control participant within Headquarters AFMC, we are addressing potential capability areas with key stakeholders, including the other service components and agencies within DoD. To achieve synergy with our civilian agency counterparts, we are conducting scoping, consisting of research, interviews and discussions, with Air Staff, ACC, AMC and other key stakeholders to ascertain expectations and potential issues and concerns for NextGen.

ESC is also collaborating with another key AFMC Product Center, the Aeronautical Systems Center [ASC], which brings an aircraft platform expertise into the mix. These two product centers, coupled with the leadership of our HQ AFMC at Wright-Patterson, provide the breadth and depth of requirements development with the user, definition of the next steps regarding mission and needs, understanding and knowledge of technology and R&D efforts, and finally the ability to define and deliver the strategic implementation of a proven acquisition and procurement process.

Q: How did this get its start?

A: This got its start in what was called Global Air Traffic Management and then CNS/ATM. In the commercial environment, it’s how you link and data link airplanes together so that they have full situational awareness of traffic around them. That’s in contrast to the old days, when you had people sitting at radar screens on the ground, watching the airplanes. The airplanes now are broadcasting their positions to each other, which helps in the safe separation of commercial traffic.

The Air Force has lots of airplanes that have to fly in that same environment, so that experience gained in CNS/ ATM and data links that we had is why ESC started working on that. As the name implies, NextGen is the next generation air transportation system, where you’re going to rely more and more on airplanes data linking to tell where their position is, and policing themselves in terms of traffic control. The experience that ESC has in data links and how airplanes get information to the ground system is where our involvement comes in. Our working on NextGen is, from the standpoint of technology, being the honest broker for how we leverage technology, and what kind of capability planning needs to be done.

We’re working with the program offices at ASC, which have to then work to put the right equipment on the airplanes so they’ll be able to fly in that NextGen environment. We’re trying to help them figure out what their roadmaps should look like. It’s a natural extension for the work that we’ve done here on data links for weapons systems. Now you’re doing data links for commercial systems, and since we have to fly there, we have to have that same data link information.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: The IT world that the Air Force and all of DoD play in has changed by orders of magnitude from where it was 20 to 30 years ago. If you go back a couple of decades, DoD was driving the technology. We were the leader in hardware, and the hardware drove the software, so we were very much the leader in all that. But if you fast-forward to today, it’s a heavy COTS environment, in which we are a player. The challenge for us at ESC is to leverage that COTS technology to satisfy unique military requirements. But at the same time, we have to be very much aware that the COTS vendors follow the public in terms of the marketplace, rather than the DoD marketplace. We have to be very careful that we don’t get too wedded to one particular piece of hardware or software, because in six months it might not be there any more because the commercial market has moved somewhere else.

Those dynamics make the challenge in this environment more unique than in the other product centers, where you may be using COTS products, say in an F-15 or F-22, where the processor may be COTS-based, but all the software is unique to that F-22. Most of what we use is commercial off the shelf, not only in terms of hardware but also software. That dynamic makes this an interesting and challenging environment. ♦