In the case of the Hamilton class high endurance cutters, they’re 50 years old. Is that a smart investment for a partner nation?

If you just look at the age of a ship, and that’s your decision criteria, maybe it doesn’t make sense. But if you put eyes on it and look at the condition of it and you see that it’s in pretty good shape, it has life in it still. So I’ve been on both of the Philippine cutters, over in the Philippines. I was very impressed with the condition of them. They reminded me very much of the Knox class ships when they were still active in our Navy, and I used to walk on board Knox class back in the 90s. They very clean and in very good condition. We helped to make sure those ships were ready for any tasking. We have a follow-on technical support case with the Philippines, and the NAVSEA team came out and they helped groom the systems just as they do for us before a big task or deployment.   It’s really no different than the model that we follow to make a ship ready for tasking. It was the business model that the Philippine Navy followed in preparation for the historic Pope Francis visit to their country using those ships for command and control. The Philippines did a wonderful job providing security for that visit. They were very proud of it. We’re proud of how we supported them. That’s called “security cooperation.” And that follow-on technical support was all national Philippine money.

 

Could they buy a platform with their money, but use other funding for systems that go on the platform?

When we provide the money, we tell them how the money can be used. If they want to do something else, they have to use their own money for that. For example, the Camp David Accords affords a significant investment in FMF funds to Israel and Egypt. The U.S. has a say on how that money is spent. If either country tells us they want to use that money in a way that we don’t agree, the U.S. Government will not allow that acquisition. We manage the FMF process very closely.

 

Does that mean that they have to buy from us? Can they use that money to buy, say, a British-built system?

They cannot use that money to buy any other country’s system unless we tell them that they can. In my three years in the job, we have not used FMF financing for anything but U.S. Basically, a country tells us that they have requirement, just like when the Pentagon puts out a requirement. They define what it is they want, and then we go to the system command or the PEO, and then it’s their job to determine how they’re going to purchase it. Usually there needs to be some level of competition involved. Sometimes, countries will come in with a very specific system that they want, and are allowed by law to request sole source, so it’s not the same sole source regulations that we have to follow. And if they say that they want this system from this company, we still have to go through the process, their sovereign right is considered.

There’s always issues. What we try to do is resolve the issue and come to the best solution. There isn’t a cookie cutter response to anything that happens. The customer is typically very satisfied with what they get. Where there’s dissatisfaction with our international customers is the length of time it takes to get the contract. Because there’s this assumption that we have things just sitting on a shelf. The length it takes to get the contract tends to be the long pole in the tent in any acquisition. We’re all trying to work on better ways to do that. Another level of dissatisfaction comes from our own industry. As budgets shrink, the market gets smaller, and private industry is trying to keep their volume up through international sales. The various policies on what can or cannot be sold, the various laws, the export licensing requirements, and all the bureaucratic requirements which are required by law, can lead to some frustration. You hear it from industry, “Why can’t we move out faster?” “Why are you not advocating for my product, because it’s such a great product?” Some companies don’t understand why we can’t do business development for them. And I always have to say, “It’s just not my role.” My role is technology, security, security cooperation, foreign disclosure, and export reviews. If you want advocacy, the government place to go is the Department of Commerce and follow their processes to do that. And they’re happy to do that. Commerce department is represented in every single embassy around the world – they’re the people to talk to.

 

What’s the most gratifying part of your job?

The most gratifying part of my job is the people I work with here at Navy IPO. The professionals we have are true subject matter experts in international business, both the uniformed side, but especially the civilian side. Their knowledge is incredible. These people are great assets to the Navy because they know as much or more about their specific countries than anybody does in the Pentagon, because they’re dealing with them every day. Secondly, I would say, is the ability for me to represent the Department of the Navy to international leaders. I get incredible access around the world. When I travel, I’m representing the Secretary and the CNO. And because of that, I get access to most of the heads of navies of every country I visit. And I don’t just deal with the navy – sometimes heads of the air force or the land components. I often meet with the ministers of defense. These people are wonderful people, with shared values to the United States. And I get to talk about the United States, and they talk about their country, we create and build upon a relationship, and we come to an agreement. We both know we’re representing our countries, and we’re tying our countries together. And there’s an incredible satisfaction in that, and I’m very glad the Navy entrusted me with that role. There’s a tremendous amount of satisfaction there.

I try to stress our role is not being an arms dealer –our role is security cooperation and protecting the intellectual property of our systems, and private industries’ systems, as well.

 

You mentioned the uniformed people. What would you say to a SWO who’s been offered the opportunity by the detailer? Why would they want to come here?

For the junior officer SWOs, this is an ideal opportunity to come to Washington, D.C. and see how the inner workings of Washington happens. The workload for the lieutenants is pretty manageable. Most of them are on the tech security side of the house; and their days are not that long – they’re about 7 or 8 hours – and they get to experience Washington DC life. And they all tend to have a lot of fun. And all of them – at least the way it’s trending – are moving on to department head school, and we’re sending people out to Naval Postgraduate School following this tour. So it’s good for their career and they’re getting graduate experience before they go out to their department head school. In some communities, coming here is sometimes looked at as ‘coming off tracks.’ Not for the SWOs. For the mid-level SWOs, post department head, I don’t recommend it because there’s other, more important post department head jobs and experience to get before you go out to your commander-level positions. At the post command and post major command, this is a tremendous place to be. We had several senior captains who had command and then came here. For a non-acquisition URL officer, they get right into understanding the industry side of the house in a big way. Plus they learn the international business, so there are definitely post-Navy career opportunities as a result of coming to Navy IPO. So, our SWOs that’s come here have been really satisfied. We also have FAOs – foreign area officers – and this is a great job for them because it rounds out their knowledge of their own community. Security cooperation business is very much a big part of their development. And I know inside the FAO community, assignment to Navy IPO is considered a very important step in their career, and highly looked at by the leaders in the their community.

 

What didn’t I ask you that you wanted to say?

Maybe I can sum it up. We are always focused on process improvement; and we’re very tightly aligned with DSCA; and we work closely with the other two services – Army and Air Force – to make sure that our narrative is the same. So we cooperate with the other services and share with them what we’re doing. It’s really a one-team operation. I try to stress our role is not being an arms dealer –our role is security cooperation and protecting the intellectual property of our systems, and private industries’ systems, as well.

I try to stress our role in relationship with the fleet commanders – we work closely with them. I also have a role inside the OPNAV organization. I’m N5-T and I report to N3-N5 and the CNO in that capacity, making the strategy people aware of what are the interests of our international partners, and how their interests fold into our overall strategies.

 

So you are talking with representatives of many countries on a regular basis.

There are four people who travel a lot on behalf of the Navy—the Secretary of the Navy; the CNO, the Chief of Naval Research, and I’m the fourth one. All of us have a role on interfacing with our international partners.