President's Corner

Acquisition Workforce Nears Crisis Point

by Lt. Gen. Lawrence P. Farrell, Jr., USAF (Ret)

May 2002 – 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.

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President's Corner

Acquisition Workforce Nears Crisis Point

by Lt. Gen. Lawrence P. Farrell, Jr., USAF (Ret)

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