President’s Message
President's Message
Below is a message from Gen (Ret) Hawk Carlisle, USAF, President and CEO, NDIA.
Elizabeth Biddle
WID CFL President
NDIA is currently operating under an “optional but highly recommended telework” policy. All NDIA staff are accessible during normal duty hours. We have a skeleton crew in our HQ, led by me and our EVP Jim Boozer, completely focused on social distancing, separating ourselves by at least six feet and teleconferencing even when we are all in the HQ.
For situational awareness, most WID and NDIA Chapters began canceling/postponing Chapter events last week. These were difficult decisions to make, but ultimately the right decisions. I was proud to see Chapters leveraging their Boards and their normal operating procedures, virtually meeting to collect input and vote on these impactful decisions.
NDIA will cancel most NDIA National and Division events through April, based on DoD’s decision to “Stop Movement” through 11 May. You can track all NDIA National and Division cancellations, and gain access to official documents we receive about the virus here: https://www.ndia.org/meetings-and-events/coronavirus
Chapters need to continue to review all planned events to prepare to make tough decisions. We don’t know what the endgame of pandemic defense looks like, so we’ll proceed cautiously. But I’m confident NDIA and our members will be ready to resume engagement and collaboration as soon as it is safe to do so.
We continue to beta test NDIA Connect. We will fully deploy NDIA Connect on April 6th, giving our members a virtual meeting place where they can share information, collaborate professionally, and prepare for a return to normal. In addition, you can follow NDIA, NTSA and WID on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Finally, I want to highlight two upcoming webinars for our members.
Next Wednesday, March 25th, Corbin Evans, NDIA’s Principal Director, Strategic Programs, will present a webinar on DoD’s emerging cybersecurity requirements, focusing on requirements from FY19’s National Defense Authorization Act Section 889 and Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). Corbin will offer a short presentation on the current status of the programs, planned rollout, what you should do now to prepare, and then he’ll take questions.
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7164254344516259596
On April 10th, Rachel McCaffrey will provide an encore presentation of her Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) webinar. Rachel’s premise is if you want to know what matters in DoD, you need to know what’s resourced and understanding what’s resourced requires a basic understanding of process. DoD uses four distinct processes to manage department resourcing: Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Executive. These processes, led by different groups with different incentives/priorities and levels of knowledge, skills, and experience, run simultaneously, while actions taken in one can ripple across to the others. Rachel uses specific examples to talk through the processes and how they impact each other. Feedback from the first time Rachel offered this webinar: “The information was timely, relevant and not something we’ve all heard a million times.”
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/1778098723802938125
Both webinars are available to NDIA, NTSA, and WID members only, so please share with your Chapters and throughout your NDIA network.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me, Jim and our staff. We want to help wherever we are able.
NDIA, staff and members, support our national security every day. Actions we are currently taking to stop or delay the spread of COVID-19 align with our mission to protect our warfighters and our nation. We will continue to work in support of our mission under the guidance and recommended safety measures issued by WHO, CDC, DoD, and OPM as well as state and local health authorities. And as soon as it’s safe for our members and event participants to reconvene in person, we will return to the meetings and events that support the development and delivery of leading-edge capabilities, training, material and support that ensure our warfighters always enjoy decisive advantage across the spectrum of conflict.
Best,
Hawk