In the words of Vice Adm. Joe Dyer, “We are dealing with
a crisis.” Dyer, chief of the Naval Air Systems Command, was
alluding to a crisis that stems from the alarming demographics in
today’s defense acquisition community. At Navair, for example,
workers average 48 years of age. The upshot, Dyer said, is that
“a significant percentage of our knowledge is approaching
graduation.” Then he asked rhetorically, “How do we
capture that knowledge?”
The problem that Navair confronts is not unique to that command.
An aging workforce is a predicament affecting the entire Defense
Department’s acquisition community.
The reality is that, by 2005, more than 60,000 members of the Defense
Department acquisition workforce will be eligible to retire.
In October 2000, a special task force sponsored by the offices
of the deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology
and logistics, and the deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel
and readiness, published a report, titled, “The Acquisition
Workforce 2005.”
The report concluded that, after a decade of downsizing, the current
workforce is not equipped or trained to hire fresh talent. Recruiting
and retaining younger workers, additionally, is hampered by the
lack of flexibility in government personnel policies.
Between 1989 and 1999, the defense acquisition workforce was cut
by 50 percent. The Defense and Energy Departments accounted for
nine out of 10 jobs cut during that time. There are approximately
152,000 workers in defense acquisition jobs today, and about 124,000
are civilian. The problem affects both the civilian and uniformed
segments of the workforce.
Of particular concern is the loss of engineering and scientific
talent. This problem affects both the government and the industry
workforce. It should be noted, however, that certain ‘glamour’
programs such as the Joint Strike Fighter, are drawing an extraordinary
amount of engineering applicants. But that is not the case for all
defense programs.
Gen. Lawrence A. Skantze, USAF (Ret.), said the total number of
Air Force acquisition officers fell from 14,286 in 1989 to 8,818
in 2001, and is scheduled to go down to 8,570 by 2005. Officer accessions
in science and engineering continue to decrease. In 2000, the target
was 621, and the actual number accessed was 512. ROTC and Officer
Training School provided the major share, with the Air Force Academy
contributing only 86. This is roughly 1 percent of the Academy’s
graduating class. By contrast, in 1952, Skantze’s Naval Academy
class graduated 100 percent of the class with a BS degree.
The Army also has seen a drawdown of acquisition officers—from
3,700 in 1989 and 2,267 in 1997, to 2,099 in 1999.
The nation’s overall demographic trends worsen the problem,
because the so-called baby-boom generation will begin to retire
in droves in 2007. That means the Defense Department will face greater
competition for workers from the rest of the federal government
and from the private sector. By 2007, said the Acquisition 2005
report, “we will be retiring, as a nation, three times more
people than at any other time in history. There is no hope of recovery.
We have to capture people before 2007 hits.”
One consequence of the 50 percent cutbacks of the 1990s, said one
of the report’s authors, Keith Charles, is that “we
sacrificed our youth. We haven’t hired anyone in 11 years.
We don’t know how to do it. The population has changed,”
and new skills are needed to keep up with rapidly advancing technology.
By 2008, 75 percent of today’s civilians at the Defense Department
will be retired, said Charles. Even though the Pentagon spends $7.5
billion a year on its civilian workforce, he noted, it has not managed
to plan for its future.
The expected shortage of acquisition managers will come at a time
when the Pentagon anticipates growth in procurement accounts, so
there will be “more work and fewer people,” Charles
said.
Skantze suggested that there must be a dedicated, comprehensive
effort on the part of the Defense Department leadership to define
and create a professional, experienced, and competent integrated
military-civilian acquisition workforce. The Department must make
a concerted effort to seek out, attract and recruit the needed business
and technical skills. One approach he recommends would be to expand
and invigorate the Junior ROTC program to reach these secondary
school candidates and motivate them to excel in math and science.
The Defense Department must define and mandate career paths for
both military and civilian members of the acquisition workforce.
Some encouraging actions are seen at the Defense Acquisition University,
where there are efforts under way to overhaul training programs,
to make the training more relevant to current priorities.
We need to tackle this problem sooner, rather than later, because
we are now living on borrowed time. As Adm. Dyer said, it’s
only a matter of a few years before that critical knowledge that
now resides in a community of “gray-beards” goes away.
Dyer believes one way to capture that knowledge is in computer databases.
But that may not be enough.
The concerns surrounding “human capital” in the defense
industrial base and the government acquisition workforce is one
of NDIA’s top policy issues for 2002. Among our recommendations
are to support the defense industry’s and government’s
efforts to attract and retain top-quality technical talent. We have
strongly recommended increased defense funding for research, development
and procurement, in order to enhance the industry’s competitiveness
in attracting and retaining this talent. We also have recommended
the establishment of public-private exchange programs for mid-level
managers in both government and industry. This would provide government
managers an opportunity to better understand private-sector business
practices. Industry executives, conversely, would be able to better
understand and participate in government policymaking. I should
note that such public-private exchange programs are included in
the services’ Acquisition Reform Act, a bill recently introduced
in Congress and supported by industry.
These are just a few of our ideas. If any of you would like to
share specific concerns about what you see happening in the workforce,
I would be most interested in hearing from you.