This week, nearly 35 business and civic leaders from across the Charleston and Greenville regions traveled to Washington, DC for our annual DC Fly-In. Over three packed days, our delegation met with top leaders at the Pentagon, Department of Transportation, U.S. Treasury, Coast Guard and Congress to discuss the federal policies and priorities that impact our region’s growth and prosperity.

A Unified Voice for National Defense

Our first day centered around high-level meetings at the Pentagon, where the importance of military readiness and quality-of-life issues for service members were at the forefront. Leadership emphasized the vital role that accessible, high-quality childcare plays in force readiness and asked for community support to help close the gap, especially as hiring freezes impact DoD-run facilities. We also heard a strong message from Pentagon officials about the importance of remaining a welcoming and patriotic community. Military families don’t always choose where they’re stationed and rhetoric that discourages newcomers undermines support for those who serve. Local governments and employers were encouraged to take advantage of DoD grant programs and support reserve service through workplace flexibility.

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NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (Dec. 18, 2024) — Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic served as a primary contributor during the 2024 Eastern Defense Summit on Dec. 11-12, as the command sought to help the defense industry better understand some of the Navy's biggest technical challenges.

Sponsored by the Charleston Defense Contractors Association (CDCA), the Eastern Defense Summit saw more than 2,000 individuals and 150 vendors descend on the Charleston Area Convention Center to participate in tech-based panel discussions, breakout sessions, strategic engagements and exhibit hall demonstrations, which included NIWC Atlantic STEM activities with students from school robotics teams in the local area.

During his welcome to summit attendees, NIWC Atlantic Commanding Officer Capt. Matt O’Neal explained how the Navy engineering and information technology command he leads relies on industry partners to address the warfighter’s top technology challenges.

“The ideas discussed at this week’s summit, the foundational connections made, the innovation opportunities pursued, (they are very) meaningful,” O’Neal said. “They ensure that when our nation calls on our men and women serving around the world, they are ready, because the technology in their hands is relevant, reliable and effective.” The theme of this year’s summit was “Collaborating on Actionable Solutions for Our Nation’s Pacing Threats.”

During the two-day event, military leaders talked about lessons learned in the Red Sea and Black Sea while leading discussions centering on joint interoperability, zero trust, AI, rapid contracting strategies, unmanned systems, expeditionary maritime operations and preparing for conflict.

NIWC Atlantic leaders sitting on various panels typically paused to first highlight Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti’s recently released Navigation Plan (NAVPLAN) for America's Warfighting Navy, which prioritizes making the Navy ready for potential conflict with the People’s Republic of China by January 2027.

The message to the defense industry was clear: We cannot do this without you.

Whether leveraging rapid contracting strategies or working traditional acquisition channels, the theme of government-industry collaboration during the summit teemed with a sense of urgency.

“I think the trend that we are all seeing is this demand to ‘go faster with good enough,’” said Greg Hays, senior scientific technology manager at NIWC Atlantic for rapid prototyping, experimentation and fleet exercises. “We can’t sit around and wait for the 100% solution if there are viable options both inside and outside of government.”

Hays said NIWC Atlantic wants to accelerate critical capabilities to the warfighter by rapidly assessing commercial and non-traditional solutions that lower risk, adopting what works, integrating into the warfighting family of systems and then ultimately letting the warfighter adapt to maximize the utility.

Capt. Andrew Gibbons, senior military acquisition advisor to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, also emphasized commercial technologies that the Navy might be able to leverage in a military fashion.

“I’m very passionate about these dual-use technologies,” Gibbons said. “We need to mine from sources of the brilliant folks out in our country, who are doing things they do not know can actually help the military.”

One reason the Department of Defense (DoD) needs to look externally is because industry far outpaces government spending in research and development (R&D), according to Jim Rabuck, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) southwest regional director.

He said for every DoD dollar invested in R&D back in the 1950s, commercial industry was spending only half of that. Today, companies spend $10 or more to every DoD research dollar.

“In certain industries, like AI or quantum computing, you’re looking at $100 to every dollar we spend — some, even $1,000 more.”

Rabuck explained DIU was specifically set up to figure out how to work with Silicon Valley and other commercial tech solutions that might have application in DoD.

The challenge for military labs, noted Tom Rondeau, director of the DoD’s FutureG Office, is in trying to figure out what solutions exist in a sector of commerce where everyone is quickly out-innovating everyone else.

“Ukraine looked like a tank war for the first few months,” Rondeau said. “It is an innovation war. How they are competing with an adversary that is larger than they are is by innovating. They are using technology and applying it rapidly to their problem set, making adjustments within days or weeks as opposed to the traditional acquisitions model of months and years.”

During one panel discussion, Steve Harnig, NIWC Atlantic director of contracts, said one way the Navy acquires commercial solutions and partners with non-traditional vendors is through various Other Transaction Authority (OTA) vehicles, such as the Information Warfare Research Project (IWRP).

Administered by NIWC Atlantic, IWRP is a rapid-prototyping initiative aimed at advancing information warfare solutions. To date, the collaborative acquisition process has executed more than $2.5 billion in prototype project awards and follow-on production awards.

“As we think about what’s out there in the commercial sector, we have seen a large ramp-up of our OTAs,” he said. “We also use our NASA SEWP (Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement) contract for commercial solutions. The goal of any DoD acquisition model is to get technology into the warfighters hands as quickly as possible.”

Dr. Laura Taylor-Kale, assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy, also told summit attendees about the burgeoning Defense Industrial Base Consortium (DIBC), one of the most powerful OTAs the DoD has ever stood up.

“The DIBC is precisely designed to accelerate awards under the Defense Production Act and allows an innovative way to engage and partner with industry,” she said.

Alongside several Navy commands, the joint force component of this year’s summit included high-level U.S. Coast Guard leadership, U.S. Marine Corps commanding officers and the 628th Air Base Wing // Joint Base Charleston commander. Each leader weighed in on their service’s contributions to joint force planning and collaboration ahead of the nation’s next potential conflict.

Throughout the summit, NIWC Atlantic highlighted other creative acquisition tools as well, such as the culminating speed-round of its Palmetto Tech Bridge Prize Challenge rodeo totaling $200,000 in prize money.

More than 100 companies competed in NIWC Atlantic's Palmetto Tech Bridge competition. Eight companies at the summit’s Innovation Pitch Jam would ultimately receive checks for their solutions in the areas of AI, Autonomy, and LVC. The Pitch Jam portion of the prize challenge was a collaborative event of the CDCA that joined NIWC Atlantic, Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane and PEO Manpower, Logistics and Business.

This year, summit organizers also offered a bonus workshop for small businesses interested in the latest NAVSEA 25.1/A Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) Topic Releases, which was hosted by the NIWC Atlantic Palmetto Tech Bridge.

The next day, NIWC Atlantic’s first breakout session was a full rundown of the command’s small business goals.

Peter Woodhull, CDCA vice president and Eastern Defense Summit chair, called this year’s summit a resounding success.

“NIWC Atlantic played a significant role in that success,” he said. “The CDCA is proud of our continued partnership with NIWC Atlantic.”

About NIWC Atlantic

As a part of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, NIWC Atlantic provides systems engineering and acquisition to deliver information warfare capabilities to the naval, joint and national warfighter through the acquisition, development, integration, production, test, deployment, and sustainment of interoperable command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, cyber and information technology capabilities.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) - Several local schools showcased their unique STEM capabilities this week through robotics demonstrations at the Eastern Defense Summit in North Charleston.

The summit, one of the largest defense-focused events on the East Coast, was held Wednesday at the Charleston Area Convention Center and brought together more than 1,800 government, military, academia, and industry leaders to “spark ideas, innovation, and solutions” to current or future national defense digital challenges.

The Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic invited area schools to showcase their robotics projects before industry and government Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) leaders attending the Defense Summit.

Organizers say the interaction serves as a networking and mentoring opportunity for students to receive on-the-spot feedback and career insight.

“Our partnership with the local schools provides financial assistance through the various grant programs, through DOD STEM, but we’re also providing them with subject matter experts to help them with the coding pieces, as well as information for their innovation project, but also with exposing them to different career opportunities,” said Zachary Storti, NIWC Atlantic STEM Robotics Mentor.

Storti said it gives him joy knowing the students learned something, but that they’re also having a great time.

The NIWC Atlantic has a large STEM program throughout the tri-county with a reach of more than 43,000 students each year.

Students from area middle and high schools practiced robotic maneuvers and showed off their skills during the event.

“Most of us are in our design and modeling course where we mostly learn to code,” said Taylor Thompson, an eighth-grade robotics team captain at Dubose Middle School. “We use those skills to help code our robot, where we had to build our robot first because we got a new robot this year, we have to plug it into the computer, and we use block code to code the robot so it’ll do certain actions like move forward to the right and to the left.”

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CHARLESTON COUNTY, S.C. (WCIV) — Nearly 62% of Americans do not have a four-year college degree, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R, S.C.-01) was in Mount Pleasant this morning to tout the Access Act, which would continue the federal government's shift to skills-based hiring while removing degree requirements for federal contract work.
Bill sponsors say it's about getting more skilled workers into jobs like IT and cybersecurity, where degree limitations limit the employee pool.

"This truly is a matter of national security," says Gary Jaffe, the president of the Charleston Defense Contractors Association.

Rep. Mace promotes Access Act to enhance skills-based hiring, boost national security. (WCIV)
Defense contractors in the low country are desperate to find quality job applicants.
"Our nation has never been in greater need of this kind of talent and a workforce that's ready to deliver, particularly as we stare down our peer adversaries," Jaffe adds.

Many say the requirement for a four-year degree is outdated, especially in the areas of IT and tech, where candidates often have specific tech certifications that you can't always get in college.

"There's a lot of intensely detailed IT knowledge that needs to be learned hands-on. Not to say that we don't get hands-on experience in college, but you learn so much more of that on the job and through actual work and experience, and that work and experience really should be considered in lieu of education," says Elizabeth Robertson, the president of Liberty Business Associates.

Bill supporters say one of the biggest groups hampered by degree requirements are veterans, who often leave military careers without a four-year degree, but a wealth of knowledge in specific areas.

"Our government has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in their trek in their training, particularly in cybersecurity, those professionals, this will open up a wider variety of jobs for those individuals. I think wages will be even higher 'cause of it because of those opportunities. 'cause we need that talent now more than ever," says Rep. Mace.

"They often work with a lot of the technology that we need them to understand, weapon systems and things like that. So they're just a perfect fit for this industry. So when they come out, especially enlisted though, sometimes they have great experience, great knowledge. Sometimes they have some certifications, often though they don't have a degree, but they can do the job," adds Robertson.

Jobs that contractors say need to be filled if the US is going to compete with the rest of the world.

"If we don't have the capacity of this kind of talent for our country, we can't deliver on our nation's needs.," says Jaffe.

The bipartisan bill sailed through the Committee on Oversight and Accountability unanimously last month and is expected to be taken up by the full House in the coming days.

Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic presented checks last week to Lauretta.io for $35,000 and Quartus Engineering Inc. for $15,000 for their 1st and 2nd place finishes in the Multilateral Autonomy Prize Challenge during the 2023 Eastern Defense Summit.

CHARLESTON, South Carolina – The Navy’s current and future success in the ever-changing modern battlefield relies heavily on maintaining a technical advantage and leveraging industry partnerships, a top Navy official said.

“If we’re ever directly pulled into a conflict, our success is going to be based on our technical advantage and the interoperability of our systems,” said Dr. Brett Seidle, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development, technology and evaluation, in his keynote speech at the Eastern Defense Summit in Charleston, South Carolina, on Dec. 7. “That advantage is driven by all of us. It’s driven by our Naval research and development establishment, it’s driven by industry and the capabilities that you bring to the commercial sector.”

Government, along with industry, must be jointly responsible for the technical strategy of the Navy, utilizing its combined knowledge, depth and personnel, he said.

“At the end of the day, it’s our job to provide our greatest assets, our sailors, men and women of the armed services, incredible capability,” he said. “So if they’re ever in a high-end fight, they have an unfair advantage. That’s really what it’s all about. If they come back safely, and we defend our way of life.”

Maintaining a technical advantage over peer and near-peer competitors is both vital and extremely difficult, as the modern battlefield evolves at an extremely fast pace. As the battlefield changes, how the Navy fights and operates must also change, he said.

“We’re already seeing those impacts on the field of battle in Ukraine,” Seidle said. “We’re seeing the advent of autonomous systems and drones and seeing how much impact that has had on that particular conflict.”

It is imperative that the Navy is fully prepared for and vigilant of how the future fight will evolve, especially as international conflicts in Ukraine and Israel evolve.

“Whether it’s artificial intelligence, long range fires, machine learning, directed energy, autonomous systems, I am absolutely convinced that change is coming,” he said. “I’m not 100 percent sure when that’s going to happen. But I am sure it’s going to happen on our watch. It’s going to happen on our watch, and we need to be ready for it. And we need to be ready to be moving quickly and bring the capability to bear in those moments, so that we’re ahead of that game.”

The Navy cannot be “ahead of the game” without the help of its industry partners and the defense industrial base; its largest asset is leveraging these partnerships in order to more effectively and more quickly face modern challenges, like the rapid pace of technology.

“We clearly need to lean into the relationships that we have with [industry] to do that better. Because we’re not doing everything,” he said. “The pace of technology change is just through the roof, and it continues to increase. And we now have a pacing threat in China. That means we can’t rely on [just ourselves.] It’s more critical than ever that we figure out ways to be agile in our execution.”

In times of intense political unrest, both nationally and across the world, it is all the more vital that the Navy maintain its technical advantage and utilize industry to strengthen strategic deterrence and prepare for potential conflict, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, he added.

“Our presence in [those] arenas, for this nation, affects geopolitical decisions, impacts things that are happening, all through the course of the future and history,” Seidle said. “It’s important for us right now to lead by example. It’s important for us to ensure that we maintain that status, because it’s important for our way of life. It’s important in the world. It’s important because we’re always present out there trying to do the right thing.”

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — Students from several schools in the Lowcountry showed off their tech skills for possible future engineering and STEM-related jobs.

The students built and programmed robots for the "Eastern Defense Summit" in North Charleston on Dec. 6. Cane Bay, Philip Simmons, and Fort Dorchester high schools and Dubose Middle School took part at this year's showcase.

The showcase was hosted by the Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic.

"The opportunity is (the students) get to learn critical thinking and electric skills," said Marcus Schoultz with the NWIC. "They also get to go with NWIC Atlantic. We send different mentors out to each one of the teams."

This is the second year that NWIC hosted the event.

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NORTH CHARLESTON S.C (WCBD)– Hundreds of people attended the Eastern Defense Summit at the Charleston Area Convention Center to discuss the country’s most pressing threats and our defense strategy.

The Eastern Defense Summit Conference, formerly known as the Charleston Defense Contractor’s Association Defense Summitt, is one of the largest defense-focused events on the East Coast.

Over a thousand experts from the government, academia, and defense industry will spend the two days discussing defense challenges and innovative solutions

This year’s theme was collaborating on actionable solutions for our nation’s pacing threats

This year’s major topic was technology and how it is changing warfare and national security across the globe and what the defense industry is doing to stay ahead of the game.

“The technology land is changing rapidly in many industries, including the defense industry, so this conference is focused on getting at that and making sure we’re ahead. Because if we don’t stay ahead of the technology, someone else will, and we want to ensure that for America,” said the president of Charleston Defense Contractors Association,” Gary Jaffe.

The Summit runs through Thursday, December 7.

The Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve, which was stood up last year, is a collaboration between the military services, combatant commands, industry and coalition partners with the aim of discovering new and innovative warfighting capabilities.

The idea behind this initiative is to get the best ideas, test prototypes in the laboratory and then in the field or even in contested environments, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering said. Heidi Shyu spoke on a panel yesterday at the Reagan National Defense Forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

The innovations that result don't need to be a 100% solution. They could be a 70 or 80% solution to solve a vexing warfighting problem, she said.

Small companies are and will be playing a critical role in this endeavor, she said. The Office of Strategic Capital will assist in funding companies developing technologies deemed critical to national security.

Also, the Defense Department is working with the Small Business Administration to help fund small startups, she said.

Shyu mentioned a number of DOD organizations focused on innovation.

The Defense Innovation Unit is focused on accelerating the adoption of commercial technology for military use, she said. DIU awards contract to companies that have innovative solutions.

The Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office serves to expedite critical capabilities to the field to meet combatant commanders' needs, she said. The office enables the Army to experiment, evolve and deliver technologies in real time to address both urgent and emerging threats, while supporting acquisition reform efforts.

Each of the military research laboratories is also coming up with brilliant and innovative warfighting solutions, she said.

The department is eager to attract new talent to those labs, she said. One of the ways it's doing so is helping to fund college tuition for promising students, who then will work in one of the labs for a certain period of time.

Last year, the department funded 482 scholars and is looking to increase that number, she said.

Additionally, DOD has created science, technology, engineering and mathematics camps for high school students, she added.

"Having a strong workforce is incredibly important," she said, noting that DOD cannot match the salaries paid in the private sector.

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., Air Force chief of staff, also spoke on the panel.

"Accelerate, change or lose," he said, implying that DOD needs to stay ahead of adversaries when it comes to fielding effective capabilities.

"We have done this before. Our nation has come together in times of crisis, to be able to provide capability. I've watched us during the course of the events in Ukraine. Some things we've been able to move very fast on in certain areas. What we want to do is not wait until there's a crisis to actually move at a pace with a sense of urgency. We've got to do some things crisis-like ahead of a crisis so we're better postured and prepared to move forward," he said.

Brown provided an example of innovation: The AGM-88 HARM, the High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile, was originally designed as an air-to-surface missile for the F-16 fighter aircraft. The Air Force figured out how to put these missiles on the MiG-29 fighters, which Ukraine uses.

"If someone had asked us before the Ukraine events if we could put a HARM missile on a MiG-29, we'd have said it's too hard to do. In a crisis, we figure out how to get things done," he said

The Defense Department's leading logistics agency is still meeting small business goals despite a shrinking defense industrial base.

For the 10th consecutive year, the Defense Logistics Agency is set to exceed its DOD-assigned target by obligating over 40% of its contracts to small businesses against a 35.1% objective. DLA also topped its 3% goal in the historically underutilized business zone category at 3.5%.

"We do a really fantastic job here at DLA with small business set-asides that allow only small companies to compete for requirements in support of the warfighters," said Dwight Deneal, DLA's director of small business programs.

Spare parts and other consumables that need routine replacement make up a large part of DLA's purchases, he said. Since large businesses and original equipment manufacturers don't consider such items profitable, the agency leans heavily on small businesses to sell such items. Connecting small businesses with DLA contracts has become a somewhat repeatable process except when customers need items with no source or technical data, Deneal said. That makes it critical for DLA to find new ways of identifying businesses capable of meeting unique or sudden requirements.

"One of the questions we've worked to answer in our strategic planning efforts is: How do we open the aperture to ensure we're a partner of choice for small businesses?" Deneal said.

Part of the answer: Simplify and demystify processes. The agency has held virtual outreach sessions for years, but members of DLA's small business team recently expanded the topics to break down challenging steps and attract more companies. In fiscal 2022, over 640 companies tuned in to learn basics like how to search for and submit quotes for potential contracts as well as how to navigate more complicated actions such as seeking approval to source specific military items. Small, disadvantaged businesses were most interested in the sessions, followed by women-owned businesses; HUBZone businesses; and service disabled, veteran-owned businesses.

The team also follows up each event with one-on-one meetings between companies and supply chain managers to help business owners know where their products and services fit, as well as what requirement may be on the horizon.

"Having an outreach program that allows for that kind of targeted dialog is part of strengthening and deepening our industry engagement with small businesses," Deneal said.

He also conducts one-hour coaching sessions every Friday morning with new companies still learning how to plug into federal contracts and seasoned vendors seeking advice on how to position their companies to partner with DLA.

Reaching out to companies that have government contracts in areas where DLA historically spends a lot of money is another new strategy.

"These are sector-focused outreach efforts where we offer companies that are already doing work for the federal government — but not with DLA — the chance to learn more about us and how they might fit into our business model," Deneal said.

External outreach at defense manufacturing conferences helps, too. In early October, Deneal attended the Army's annual meeting and exposition in Washington, D.C., where he participated in a panel discussion on small business challenges.

DLA's Small Business Innovation Program has also become a model for matching vendors with requirements. Program manager Denise Price said it gives small businesses the chance to eliminate gaps in parts for weapons systems. A Colorado company was recently awarded a contract that resolved reliability issues for a variable frequency drive used to control temperature in the communications trailer of Patriot missiles.

Contracts for over 500 national stock numbered items have been awarded through the program.

"These projects enable weapons system program managers and service program office personnel to engage directly with small business industry to innovate and enhance system performance," Price said.

Goals for fiscal 2023 are still being determined, but Deneal is already focusing his team on overcoming the decline in DLA's supplier base by increasing contracts with underserved business communities in addition to HubZones. The process will be twofold.

"It involves finding two or more socioeconomically underserved businesses that can do business with us and recognizing that even within our current pool of vendors there are some that fit in the underserved category but aren't using set-asides that allow them specifically to compete," he said.

Increasing equity for underserved small businesses and using existing programs to help them compete for requirements is a priority for the current administration.

Deneal added that small businesses have a role in supporting whole-of-government customers as well as warfighters.

"When you don't have a plethora of industrial base companies it becomes more of a challenge to set up long-term contracts that have surge capacity built in to support both our military and whole-of-government partners at the speed of need," he said.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic announced the winners of its Palmetto Tech Bridge (PTB) Prize Challenge on Dec. 9 during the Charleston Defense Contractors Association (CDCA)’s annual gathering.

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) received the $7,500 top prize for its platform designed to provide attribute-based, access-controlled multilevel security (MLS) applications. SAIC also won $7,500 for its LoRa/LoRaWAN geolocation submission to provide warfighters Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing (A-PNT) in environments where signals are either denied, degraded or unreliable.

The PTB Prize Challenge is one of several agile and innovative approaches used at NIWC Atlantic to help the U.S. Navy and its joint partners identify technology solutions that turn the ingenuity of everyday Americans into the warfighter’s most advanced technologies.

The winning submissions were announced during the closing ceremony of the CDCA, one of the East Coast’s largest conferences for connecting military engineers and scientists with leading technology developers.

NIWC Atlantic Executive Director Peter C. Reddy thanked the crowd for attending and congratulated the prize challengers and winners.

“Discovering new technologies that increase the resilience and effectiveness of the warfighter is a driving force behind much of what we do at NIWC Atlantic,” Reddy said. “We welcome these latest technology proposals in the MLS and A-PNT domains and thank each one of these innovators who took the time to apply, plan and present their ideas.”

Runners-up in each category received honorable mention: Sertainty for its MLS submission and Laine Technologies for A-PNT.

In collaboration with the PTB Prize Challenge, the CDCA ran an “Innovation Pitch Jam” competition in additional technology focus areas. Approximately 1,500 attendees voted on the presentations, and each winner received the CDCA’s “People’s Choice Award.”

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) - The Charleston Defense Contractors Association (CDCA) on Tuesday announced that the 14th annual Defense Summit will take place December 7-9.

Leaders from the the military, government, business, and economic sectors will come together at the Charleston Area Convention Center to explore topics like “command, control, communications, cyber defense, combat systems, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, information warfare, and more.”

Those in attendance can participate in discussions, view demonstrations, and listen to speakers such as Senator Tim Scott, Rear Admiral Douglas Small, Commander of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, and Rear Admiral Kevin Lunday, Deputy for Material Readiness of the U.S. Coast Guard,

April Nadeau, CDCA President, said that this year’s event is expected to be the “best-attended conference so far.”

Charleston is strategically located near the Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic in North Charleston, and “between U.S. Cyber Command in Maryland, U.S. Fleet Forces Command in Virginia, Joint Special Operations Command in North Carolina, Army Cyber Command in Georgia, and U.S. Southern Command, Central Command, and Special Operations Command in Florida.”

The CDCA says that the event is one of the largest defense leadership summits in the eastern United States.

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The Pentagon lead for the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program argued the move will be good for small contractors. And for those that don’t want to comply: Good riddance.

The Defense Department’s impending cybersecurity certification requirement for all contractors has caused no shortage of concerns among small businesses worried about the cost. But the Pentagon’s lead for the effort made the case Wednesday that the move is necessary and, in some cases, will help small contractors.

“We need to lower the barriers. We need to speed up acquisition. But we also need to secure the [defense industrial base],” Katie Arrington, chief information security officer for the assistant secretary for defense acquisition, said during a talk at the Charleston Defense Contractors Association 2019 Summit in Charleston, South Carolina. “With 70% to 80% of our data living on my contractors’ networks, I don’t have a choice but to worry about how they’re doing it.”

Read more at nextgov.com

The military’s most frequent battles are not fought on land, by sea or in the air. They’re fought online, every day, and South Carolina’s defense contractors are trying to stay ahead of the enemy.

Katie Arrington, a former state lawmaker who was appointed in January as a consultant for the Department of Defense, said Charleston in particular is key when it comes to cybersecurity against China, terrorist groups and individuals attempting to undermine government security.

“We’re at war,” Arrington told The Post and Courier. “Cyberwar is real. To think this community isn’t exposed to what our adversaries are trying to do every day in the cyber realm would be remiss. Our cyberwarriors, the people who work in the Charleston defense contractor community, are the first layer of defense.”

Read more at postandcourier.com

The Charleston Defense Contractors Association will focus on warfighting innovation at its upcoming defense summit.

The 13th annual summit is scheduled for Dec. 11 and 12 at the Charleston Area Convention Center.

Association President Heather Walker said the nonprofit organization serves as a regional industry and advocacy group for companies that support the U.S. military. The defense summit, the organization’s largest event, draws in companies from across the nation that are involved in information warfare technology.

Read more at charlestonbusiness.com