John Hasson (left), and Paul Neslusan (right),

address the delegation.

John Hasson (New England Region AFA President) and Paul Neslusan (Massachusetts State AFA President) addressed key concerns about Air Force programs outside of the realm of aviation.  

    Mr. Hasson addressed a critical concern with gaining systems at the speed of need, and the criticality of getting inside the opposition's "decision making loop".  Mr. Neslusan weighed in on both the importance of looking hard at processes for effiiciencies in both acquisitions and cyber initiatives.

Carter Puts Flesh on Bones of Efficiency Push: Pentagon acquisition czar Ash Carter has issued specific guidance on the efficiency initiative that he unveiled in June to transform the manner in which the Defense Department buys its goods and services. He laid out 23 specific measures on Tuesday during a Pentagon press briefing that aim to trim excess overhead in these areas (e.g., weapons and fuel contracts, IT services, facilities upkeep), which amount to a hefty $400 billion of the Pentagon's $700 billion annual budget. This is part of DOD's overall drive to free up more than $100 billion for new weapons and readiness from within its budget over five years. Among the measures, affordability is now a requirement in major weapons systems acquisitions. Further, DOD will reward contractors for successful supply-chain management, DOD program managers will henceforth present a competitive strategy at milestone reviews, and following the Air Force's lead, each service will create a senior manager to oversee its acquisition of services. Also, DOD will halve and volume and cost of internal and Congressional reports. "Not only can we succeed: We must," states Carter's memo articulating his guidance. (Carter memo, including briefing slides) (Carter-Gates briefing transcript)

Listening to candidate speeches for AFA national positions. Very interesting candidate perspectives--notably, the candidates, for the first time in memorable history, are running on drastically different platforms. Notably,for chairman of the board: Keys: Management Experience and skill isn't reliant upon incumbent knowledge. Lauducci: Good things are happening, keep the trend in the same direction with the same leadership. Schlitt: We need to aggressively pursue new ideas and partnerships, while capitalizing on cyberpatriot successes.