Charles Lyons-Burt
As Ret. Gen. John “Jay” Raymond tells it, among the initial motivations in the creation of the U.S. Space Force was to engender a “more fused relationship with commercial industry.” Gen. Raymond, a winner of the prestigious Wash100 Award, reportedly helped make progress on that goal in his three years as the first chief of space operations for USSF and is “pretty happy with the direction the Space Force has headed to be able to have that closer partnership with commercial industry.”
Since his stint at the Department of Defense, though, Gen. Raymond has spent time on the other side of the public-private divide: he runs his own consulting company, sits on the boards of organizations like Axiom Space, Impulse Space and LMI and serves in a role as senior managing director at Cerberus Capital Management. He told his esteemed fellow panel members during a session at the 2024 Baird Defense & Government Conference on Thursday of his time in the federal sector that he wished he “knew then what [he] know[s] now.”
Public-Private Language Barrier
“I think a couple things have to happen,” asserted Gen. Raymond. “We have to speak more clearly between the government and commercial industry. We speak a different language. Rather than giving a big stack of requirements … and say, ‘here, build this,’ we need to go to industry and say, ‘hey, here’s our challenges. How would you go attack that?’ and allow for their innovative spirit to be able to work and to help solve our problems.”
Another panelist during the session—which was focused on innovating in national security—Young Bang, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, agreed that there’s an inconsistency in how industry and government communicate, citing resourcing, program objective memorandum, or POMs and budgets as the government’s main focus. This is in contrast to industry’s fixation with profits and revenue. (Bang is, like Gen. Raymond, a Wash100 recipient.)
Balancing Out Lopsided Risk
Bang said that to do so, industry and government need to both share risk together.
“We spent $1.4 billion last year scaling production capabilities [for 155mm artillery shells], right? But that was the government. We didn’t see actually any investment from industry on that side. And so imagine how we can actually, if we couple that, the buying power we can get?” Bang posited.
He also noted an instance of Anduril Industries, who was represented on the panel by Senior Strategy Advisor Dr. Neil Thurgood, taking all the risk by investing their own money to establish production means for solid state rocket motors. (The company is “trying to change the paradigm of how a defense prime should operate,” Thurgood issued.)
“We can move faster if we actually share risks together. And I think we’re open to having discussions about different models of investment and opportunity,” Bang shared.
Creating Innovative Results Through Partnership
Changes in the right direction are already in motion, the panelists agreed. Thurgood, who spent most of his career in government prior to his Anduril post, said that in his time at the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, “the idea of government-only meetings didn’t exist.” He attested that he always had his commercial collaborators on the line simultaneously.
Bang reported that the Army has gotten Small Business Innovation Research awards down to an impressive 21-day timeline, important because, as moderator and Leidos Chief Growth Officer Gerry Fasano—another Wash100 Award recipient—observed, “innovation dies with a lack of speed.”
But innovation, though hard to scale, happens “all over the place” and is “grassroots by nature,” per Bang. He ended with an open call to the private sector.
“If you want to knock my socks off, bring me something that is actually disruptive—positive disruption. That is actually innovation. Technology does not equal innovation … I’m always happy to talk to industry. I came from y’all. I will always take your meetings. Don’t bring only your sales folks, bring your tech folks too,” he advised.
