Q&A: Brigadier General Nickolas G. Justice
Systems Engineer:
Integrating Systems of Systems Into Combat Formations
Interview with
Brigadier General Nickolas G. Justice
Program Executive Officer
Command, Control, Communications, Tactical
Brigadier General Nickolas G. Justice, who has been nominated for promotion to major general, started his military career in 1970 as an enlisted soldier serving as an electronic warfare operator, telecommunications center operator, telemetry analyst, senior legal clerk and platoon sergeant. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1977. That same year he completed Officer Candidate School, and was assigned to Fort Jackson, S.C., as a company executive officer and a brigade adjutant.
Between 1980 and 1988, Justice’s assignments included Eighth Military Personnel Command as chief officer assignments division and liaison officer to PERSCOM, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Information Management, as a staff officer and assistant executive officer. In 1990, he was assigned to the Sixth Allied Tactical Air Force, Izmir, Turkey, as chief, command and control project management.
From 1992 to 2004, Justice served as operations officer and automation project manager at the General Officer Management Office, Office of the Chief of Staff Army; as a student at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces; and as the program executive officer for Standard Army Management Information Systems.
Justice’s prior assignments also included deputy PEO for Command, Control and Communications Tactical (C3T) and project manager, Force XXI Battle Command Brigade-and- Below. Since July 2007, he has been program executive officer for C3T, Fort Monmouth, N.J.
Justice was interviewed by MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly.
Q: How would you assess the overall situation in which the PEO C3T is operating today?
A: That’s a good question, because it frames everything we’re going to talk about. I’ll start off by saying that we are part of an Army that is at war. That in itself defines very much what we do on a day-to-day basis. But there’s a second part of that Army, which is an Army that is transforming. We’re transitioning from the Cold War Army of the 1980s. The reshaped world that we’re in requires us to be very different than before. The terms we’ve coined for that transition are the modular and expeditionary force. Those are the two broad definers of our behavior. We’ve always been an Army that’s very large and had to procure a lot of things. But the shaping functions driving change have been that we are an Army at war and an Army in transition.
Q: What do you see as the key imperatives facing the PEO C3T in supporting current and future operations?
A: Our number-one priority is to support the units that are deployed in the global war on terrorism. Our second priority is to field and equip communications and command and control systems to the formations that are getting ready to deploy. We’re helping them through that transition phase, to get their new equipment and learn how to use it, individually and collectively as a unit. We’re also there to support them in every one of the events that lead up to their deployment. Finally, the third aspect is one that’s internal to us. It’s to get this organization moved in compliance with the BRAC law to Aberdeen Proving Ground.
Q: How would you describe your own role in managing your command, with its many diverse organizations and activities?
A: I’ve got a great organization, and you’re right when you say it is diverse. I tell people that if it’s got electricity running through it, it belongs to C3T, from generator power, communications systems, software applications, computer hardware, and integrated weapons systems to defending forward operating bases. More than anything else, my job is to try to find efficiencies in our products and improve the effectiveness of the systems in a collective sense. Often, I am the system-of-systems engineering officer in the organization, because bringing together each of those different portfolio of programs is critical to getting the most effective combat power out of our products. As the leader of the organization, I find my most critical function is bringing the power of people to bear in solving problems. People are my most critical resource. I’m simply the orchestral leader to bring them together to solve problems.
Q: Are you satisfied with the performance in the field of PEO C3T-developed systems in Southwest Asia?
A: To reshape your question, no soldier is ever satisfied with performance. If you are, you’ve become complacent. I remember an article I read years ago, about a young officer who was preparing his defensive position. He would do everything by the book. But then he looked at his position from the enemy’s viewpoint and he found many blatantly obvious problems that he didn’t see from his own foxhole. So I’m never satisfied with what we’re doing. We’re in a continuous process of improving. Continuous process improvement is one of the things that the Army has adopted as a characteristic as we transform to a modular, expeditionary force. We’re looking for continuous improvement in the quality of our equipment, in the processes in which we deploy and fight, and in our business support processes. The Army must get better value for the resources we’re given.
Q: What is your command doing to strengthen the Unit Set Fielding [USF] strategy and process?
A: The Army has a model called the Army Force Generation model. It is the business process for building and employing combat power. What we try to do is align ourselves with the “road to war” schedule that units go through as they man, equip and train for their deployment. We try to provide the key components in the command, control and communications systems at the right time in the training schedule. We synchronize all of our fieldings with the unit’s schedule, providing equipment in a timely manner to support their training events. Unit Set Fielding is also a process improvement for us. I can recall when we touched three brigades a year, and thought we were fully employed and working hard. But right now, we’re getting ready to touch the 60th unit we have worked with this year. That’s an order of magnitude larger than what we used to think was full employment. We’re able to do so because we have better processes, are better coordinated in what we are doing, and engage the units far earlier than before. Moreover, practice makes perfect, and although we’re far from perfect, we have a lot more practice under our belts. Our people are well skilled in what to do, allowing us to engage at much more junior levels, in our organization and in the combat formations. We have many people at all levels of our organization that are very synchronized in what they’re delivering to the warfighter. I’m really proud of what they do. Units know they’re getting good quality equipment and are going to be supported when they receive it.
Q: What is the current status of the Single Interface to the Field [SIF] portal, and what do you hope to accomplish with it?
A: One of the process improvements we’ve tried to put in place is to make information available across the enterprise. You can answer the same question, and if you have to do it 1,000 times, you spend the same amount of time that you do answering 1,000 different questions. The portal is a way for us to standardize information we’re putting out to the field, to capture information and make it available to people in different points in the cycle. It also allows us to standardize and collaborate with people around the world, particularly in the Unit Set Fielding process. We use the SIF portal as a tool to put everyone on the same sheet of music for everything to do with equipping and training. Everything is right there to review. Every couple of weeks, we sit down and make sure we have the same common denominator. It’s a tremendous way to reach a large population of people who are stationed around the world, to make sure we’re on the same sheet of music and quickly identify problems needing attention.
Q: How would you describe the chief challenges and opportunities in the discipline of systems engineering?
A: Most of our challenges involve taking advantage of the existing infrastructure the Army has invested in, much of which was procured in days when things did not need to be interoperable. But, in a network-enabled environment, with the ability to bring things together, there are many opportunities to take advantage of. The challenge is to discover what systems complement each other and give you even greater capability than you had with the standalone solution.
An example of that is one of the most unusual portfolios I have—the program manager for Counter-Rockets, Artillery and Mortars [C-RAM], headed by Michael Van Rassen. It’s a PM that has simply integrated sensors, command and control systems and weapons, in order to protect our forces from rocket, artillery and mortar attacks. It has been tremendously successful. It shows the benefit of system-of-systems integration. We got started with integrating communication systems and combat platforms and learned to not interfere with any of the weapons systems on those platforms. Putting a radio or computer inside an Abrams tank is not a challenge that you take lightly. The same is true for aircraft.
Learning how to integrate things into those combat platforms is an eye-opener for the community that I work in, where we’re used to delivering communications systems as a standalone component. Today we’ve learned to tap into a tremendous reserve of potential by integrating systems of systems into combat formations.
Q: Development of the WIN-T program continues to be a closely watched subject. What evidence would you cite to show that the program is on track and headed for successful completion?
A: PM WIN-T, under Colonel William “Chuck” Hoppe, has fielded most of the active force, and is now starting to field the National Guard brigades. So if success is defined by getting equipment into the field, we’ve got Increment One of WIN-T well on the way to being in all of our combat forces. WIN-T is the most successful large program in the Army today.
Q: What are your plans for the PM for Mobile Electric Power?
A: None of our communications systems or battle command applications will work without electricity. So aligning the PM for Mobile Electric Power, which is lead by Michael Padden, with C3T is the right thing to do. Some of the challenges we had were in understanding that power availability is crucial to our operations. Instead of delivering a generator, we try to deliver power. What’s the difference? A generator is a piece of hardware. Or you can put a power grid in a command post, and reduce the number of generators powering equipment, and at the same time, you’re able to bring some of those generators off line to do maintenance on them or refuel them, while you’re running the command post on another portion of those generators. You have redundant power and the ability to have continuous power, while at the same time all of that is available for your command and control and communications systems.
The value of having this diverse portfolio, allows my team to continually be evaluating better ways of doing business. We have a forum where we do that, with our Systems Engineering Integrated Process Team, where we bring together our young engineers in a process where they’re talking to other young engineers across a very diverse portfolio. Not only does it make them smarter, but those young people are fountains of ideas and thoughts about ways to improve what we’re delivering to the field.
Q: What capabilities does FBCB2 provide?
A: A major improvement in situational awareness for the soldier has been brought about by the implementation of Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below [FBCB2], led by our newest project manager, Colonel Tom Olson, and primarily the Blue Force Tracker [BFT] system. BFT uses satellite technology to track and display friendly vehicles and aircraft that appear on a computer screen as blue icons over a topographical map or satellite image of the ground. A user has the ability to add red icons, which represent the enemy force, and that positing information is simultaneously broadcast to all other FBCB2 users on the battlefield. Users can send text messages through the system and build out mapping structures to include bridges, minefields, obstacles or supply points. BFT allows Soldiers at every level can answer the fundamental questions: Where am I? Where is the enemy? Where are my buddies?
Q: Could you give readers an overview of the work of the PM Command Posts?
A: PM Command Posts—people may not recognize that name as much as the old PM TRCS [Tactical Radio Communications Systems]—the tactical radio PM. We asked the Army acquisition executive to rename that PM to reflect the far more important role he has. We call it PM Command Posts, because they are the integrator of the combat operations center. We view the command post as a platform, much like you would look at an aircraft, tank or infantry carrying vehicle. We ask them to bring all those systems together in the most effective and efficient manner possible. We’ve asked the PM, Colonel Cris Boyd, in addition to his tactical radio work, to be our integrator to the operational forces.
Q: What are the goals of PM Battle Command, and what programs are underway to achieve them?
A: PM Battle Command, which is headed by Colonel David Moore, is the command and control systems—the software applications and services that you use to exchange information. We pulled together the disparate Army Battle Command Systems and put them under one PM. Dave’s team is in the process of modernizing those applications and setting them up to operate in a future environment, to support our modular and expeditionary force. He’s very involved in modernizing those Army Battle Command Systems, and has also transitioned them off the old heavy boxes that were very stovepiped in nature, to a more common architecture, where they have a common way to exchange information. He has a tremendous number of science and technology efforts that he is integrating into those command systems, so many of the things that he gets involved with are in working with the Research, Development and Engineering Command of the Army and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA] to bring projects to bear that will shape and change the ways in which we command and control our forces and weapons systems in the future. They include efforts like the Command Post of the Future program, which DARPA transitioned to us a few years ago, and the advanced concept technology demonstrations out there in the joint world. He transitioned some of those science and technology efforts into the existing battle command solutions, and is setting the conditions to integrate future battle command systems into the command post.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?
A: I could sit here and talk about our PM offices and the great things they’ve been doing all afternoon. But I’d like to leave with the comment that the thing I really enjoy about my job is working with people. I have the opportunity to work in the best of both worlds—the operational Army and the engineering side as a materiel developer. It’s awesome being able to bring together talented people from the world of technology and all that it offers with the wonderful soldiers in America’s Army, so rich in history and values. Working with talented people from the foxhole to the factory is a very rewarding job. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else. ♦
