Tara O’Toole, the undersecretary of DHS’ science and technology directorate, said the department’s research arm will be cutting down on the number of programs it funds.
Eight months after taking over the division, O’Toole’s conclusion is that there are too many technologies in the pipeline, with most of them never reaching the hands of the agents, officers and first responders in the field who need them.
“We need to do fewer projects and load more resources on those projects we do so we can transition them into use,” she told National Defense.
“Much of the work that S & T is going to be doing is not on innovative technologies, which as we know take years — five to 10 on average — to go from conception to use,” she said. Items with higher technology readiness levels or that can be bought “off the shelf” will be a priority, she said.
The department has conducted a top-to-bottom review of all its technology development programs in order to find out where it should invest its limited resources. There has not been a final decision announced on the winners and losers, but she indicated that many programs will be coming to an end.
The directorate has about twice as many projects under way as its research and development counterparts in other departments, O’Toole said. That should not be surprising. DHS has an “extraordinary span of control” with 22 agencies that all have unique technology needs, she said.
And yet, its technology development wing comprises only 2 percent of the department’s budget, at a little more than $1 billion in 2010, and a slightly higher amount requested for 2011. A typical U.S. corporation that relies on innovation, such as a pharmaceutical company, would spend similar amounts of money, she said.
“I want to basically make sure we’re not spending all our ammunition shooting squirrels. I want a few bullets to take down antelopes,” she said.
O’Toole acknowledged that DHS has had a poor record developing new technologies since its creation in 2002.
Her predecessor, retired Navy Adm. Jay Cohen did a good job improving coordination between the directorate and the 22 agencies it serves, she said. She intends to build on that by helping the components write requirements and strengthen their program management. The directorate will be investing its money in more strategic as opposed to tactical technologies, she said.
These high priority technologies will be called APEX projects. They will not be able to proceed without the approval of O’Toole and the head of the agency requesting the technology. The agency chiefs will have to certify that the programs are a strategic priority, that they will have managers who have the authority to see projects through and that they will be given adequate funding. The technology must also be delivered in 18 to 24 months, she said.
“It will be a new way of working with S & T,” she added.
In short, she wants to help the agencies help themselves.
The crux of the problem in the early years was that most of the DHS components came into the department with little experience in carrying out technology development programs. DHS critics should take this into account, she said.
“The context here is that DHS is the third largest department in government with an immense span of control, that’s eight years old, and was created in a budget-neutral fashion in a moment of crisis,” she said.
One of the most valuable contributions the directorate can offer components is its knowledge, she said.
Along with not having a rich research and development history prior to joining DHS, the agencies didn’t have the budgets and know-how to carry out operational tests with prototypes, train users how to operate the devices, and convert the technology into usable items, she said.
The directorate should help the agencies think through their requirements rather than treating it as a “Home Depot” type organization where they place their orders and hope it delivers a solution to their needs. Teaching these skills is not an easy task, she added.
“What are the operational requirements for doing something we have never done before? For technologies we have not invented yet? These are not easy problems to solve. You can’t give [the components] a sort of connect the dots kind of menu,” O’Toole said.
“We are going to use our resources to help people think through these system engineering problems,” she added. “That missing piece has caused the department historically a lot of problems,” she added.
One of the most high-profile examples of this lack of forethought is Customs and Border Protection’s SBInet program, the Secure Border Initiative’s technology piece, which was intended to give officers in the Southwest a series of high-tech cameras, radars to track incursions, along with a network that could take data from these sensors and stream them into agents’ vehicles. CBP administrators gave The Boeing Co. $20 million to build a 28-mile long prototype.
CBP program managers said at industry conferences a year into the program that they were happy to let the contractor come up with its own solutions, and said the government was receiving a bargain for its $20 million investment.
However, the radars suffered numerous false alarms. The images couldn’t be streamed into vehicles because there was no money in the budget to build a high-bandwidth communication backbone, and no commercial provider had the desire to offer service in such a remote desert area.
The Government Accountability Office said Border Patrol agents in the field were not consulted about their needs and requirements. The program underwent management changes, both at CBP and Boeing.
O’Toole cited SBInet as an example of where requirements were not thought through.
“What I’m interested in doing is working collaboratively with the components so that DHS has an end-to-end requirements driven, system engineering approach to these big technological acquisitions,” she said.
As for what big-ticket technologies DHS might be investing in the future, O’Toole said that will be driven by the agencies. The Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, and a Bottom Up Review of DHS programs ordered by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano earlier in the year indicate that nuclear detection and bio-security will remain high priorities, O’Toole noted.
There will also be a renewed emphasis on response and recovery to incidents, she said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency needs simulation and training software that can help it react to emergencies, and assist communities during their rebuilding stages.
Newly confirmed Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole has told O’Toole that his agency intends to put more emphasis on public ground transportation security. Thwarting terrorist attacks on buses, subways and trains doesn’t receive as much attention as aviation security, she said. Protecting these conveyances is a tough challenge, she said.
Border surveillance, despite the SBInet problems, remains a high priority for Secretary Napolitano and President Obama, she added.
The initiative has been undergoing a program review since the beginning of the year. O’Toole sits on a newly formed CBP technology and acquisition board that is studying the issue.
“We have identified big projects in CBP,” she said, without elaborating.
Science and technology may also gain a new responsibility if current Homeland Security reauthorization legislation is enacted. Lawmakers are considering returning some of the nuclear material detection portfolio to the directorate. It currently resides with the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, which has repeatedly failed to meet congressional mandates to deploy next-generation portals that can scan shipping containers for nuclear bombs or material.
The emphasis on a few larger projects — as opposed to many smaller ones — may mean less business to go around for the vendors, she said.
“It means that promising approaches from private sector may not get funded,” she added.
O’Toole also acknowledged that it isn’t easy for small businesses to put their ideas in front of DHS officials. Web portals designed to take proposals are hard to navigate because of their security protocols, for example. And there are currently no firm plans to revive the twice per year DHS science and technology industry conference that former undersecretary Cohen had championed.
“I think there are lot of great ideas in the private sector,” she said. The directorate is beefing up its market analysis capabilities “so we’re more systematic, rigorous and effective in seeing what’s out there in our areas of interest.”