Thomas "Shotgun" Browning, performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Mission Capabilities (ASD(MC)) OUSD(R&E)

Lauren Bedula 01:45 Welcome back to Building the Base. Lauren Bedula and Hondo Geurts here, continuing our mini-series with DoD research and engineering community, and we've got a special guest with us today, Mr. Thomas Browning, aka shotgun, who we'll refer to, and I know everyone knows as who's currently performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for mission capabilities, and very much focused on fielding capabilities, and so programs like APFIT and Raider, which I will define later, but they're long ones, but I know a lot of our listeners are tracking so Mr. Browning – “Shotgun”, thank you for joining us. Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 02:20 I really appreciate it. Can't thank you enough. Hondo Geurts 02:21 So, shotgun, you and I go way back, a way, a bazillion years now, it seems like, and we had lots of fun doing damage in the Air Force. What brought you into the Air Force? What got you kind of into the into the fight, so to speak, and then how did you pivot that into your current role? Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 02:40 Sure. So, make believe. First name so obviously, there's a story there. My father was a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force and decided to follow in his footsteps and actually succeeded, which was a blessing. Flew F 15 for a lot of years in what I like to call my adult life, when I made 06, I actually was pulled into the world of requirements, very specifically classified requirements, completely new world for me, and very, very different than life as an operator. And while I did that job, I realized a couple things. A there's a lot of really cool technology out there, and when you can't talk to each other about it, you end up with these cylinders of almost non excellence that had had a negative impact on our ability to get those capabilities out to the field. So, I'm seeing all this amazing technology, and I'm not seeing that technology in the hands of the men and women who are doing the jobs that I used to do. And while I was in the Air Force in 2013, I was asked to join an effort at DARPA, of all places, for dumb fighter pilot. That was pretty amazing. And it was, it was called the air dominance initiative. And it was a kind of a neat concept. It was the idea of getting technologists, operators, and acquirers together. And the thought process is, we're going to need new fighter in about 2035 and the question was, if I knocked down all those walls, if I knocked down the technical walls, the institutional walls, those walls between technologist and operator, and thought about what I wanted, would I build a different airplane? And it was, it was mind numbingly cool to me. And so, I was part of this for two years. Can't say a lot about it, other than the new airplanes are all benefiting from what we did. And I got an offer from DARPA to join them afterwards, and again, shocked me. And I was hired to help with transitioning capabilities to United States Air Force from DARPA, and I focused on that, and it was neat, because you found technologies that mattered to the airmen and try to usher those across the line. And well, at DARPA, I was given what was very likely the coolest realizing I flew F 15, the coolest job in my life. And it was a stand up, an effort called the assault breaker two, initiative and assault breaker two can't say again, a whole lot about it, other than it was a build on that air DOM. Its initiative now takes that and look across the entire department. Look at our most critical adversaries. And what are the things that we knocked down those walls and we allowed us to analyze across spectrum? Look at new emerging technologies. What are the things that we should be doing right now to enable the war fighter of the future to succeed? Came up with a lot of really cool stuff. One of the things I noticed early on was when I came up with something that sounded like an airplane thing for airplane people, it transitioned. And was a boat thing for boat people, it transitioned. But when you looked at those things that had no clear, obvious space within the current department, whether it's a joint capability. It applies to everybody. It applies to nobody. They kind of languished. And so, the final part of the journey was I got deeply excited about this problem of taking new technologies that you knew were going to change the game and helping understand how to usher that across. The way. I got assault breaker two still exists today. We wanted it to endure post DARPA and audible. Heidi Shu called me up to her office one day and said I found the perfect transition partner for a salt breaker too. And I said, That's awesome. Can you introduce me to him? And she said, it's you. And she made me aware of this idea of kind of rebranding R and E in a way that pulls us closer to the war fighter. One of my jokes is when at and l got the separation R and E and A and S moved to different towns. So, A and S mostly worried about a cat, one very big programs, R and E most mostly worried about foundational technology. And at the time, as I saw it from assault breaker too, that the war fighter really needed people to navigate that middle space, that there was nobody in the middle. So, Miss You, stood up mission capabilities as an activity within R and E and asked me to run it. So that's the that's the story from soup to nuts. Lauren Bedula 06:56 Wow, that's awesome. And so much that we can dig into. And I want to start, I love this concept of rebranding Arnie to be closer to the war fighter as an outsider. It also seems that Arnie is being rebranded to be closer to industry as well, or that Trifecta to ultimately get to these transitioning technologies, which has been a theme in your career. Can you talk about why that's so important right now and some of the current hurdles, just given today's environment. Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 07:23 Yeah, so I'll give you an actually, I'll start off with an opportunity, and that opportunity is devsecops. So, you know, the way we used to, hopefully, used to buy things in DOD was a war fighter would have a problem, and they would throw that over a wall. An acquirer would take that problem, turn it into corporate speak, and throw that over the wall. Companies would bid on building that thing, and five years later, a product would end up back at the warfighter. I jokingly call those Christmas presents. You know, the way we did it in the past is I would give the warfighter a Christmas present to hope that they open it and hope that they fell in love with it. And the point is in the era of devsecops and the advances of technology, at the pace that technology is advancing, that doesn't work anymore. I want a boring Christmas. I want to go, Hey, what do you want? What size, what shape, and as you're giving it, you get to you get to work on it and explore it. So, I think that the key about right now is, is the processes that we had before just don't work. And then there's a compounding on that. And this is yet another thing that came out of the work in assault breaker too. You're familiar with the term C, j, c2, or joint all domain command and control that actually came out of a salt breaker too. In the issue was we looked at the tapestry of a future fight of defending our nation and realized that breaking it up into domains and having each domain kind of have their own fight was no longer going to be appropriate. And, you know, my joke at the time was, you know, I know it's not Captain Kirk in a big chair going, fire, fire, fire, 4000 times, you know, so one person being in charge of it all, dumb kids’ soccer, where everybody chases the ball also dumb. And so, the question was, was, what's not dumb? And we're running into this time and time and time again, where missions transcend individual services, missions transcend individual domains. And there isn't, we aren't developed in a way that that jumps right out at that. And then just, you know, one final comment. And it's funny, because one of the first times I remember working with Hondo, we had a very similar problem. He was an acquirer with needs that he couldn't necessarily talk about, and I was a capability provider with stuff I couldn't really talk about. And when you put that together, when you put those who were aware of the war fighter’s dilemma, the person who's aware of what you can acquire and the person who's aware of what technologies are available. And then you do that at the speed of devsecops, you walk into something, what I believe is something new and really special. I call it the triumvirate, you know, the user, the developer and the. Creator, when they're working together, you're able to iterate on things very rapidly and get things out the door. Hondo Geurts 10:07 So in in thinking about this, how do you think about scale? So, you and I, and we're involved in, you know, little neat things behind doors that did great things, but then when we tried to scale it. It kind of falls apart in the bureaucracy. How is, how is your thinking about scale changing your perspective there, and we talk a lot about changing from a kind of static industrial base to a more of a network of providers that can come in and out. But I'd be curious how you guys are thinking about scaling this beyond a demonstration or a project, or a SOCOM thing or a special projects thing. Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 10:49 so, within mission capabilities, we have a concept that we call identify, incubate, then transition with the idea that you're thinking about transition every single step of the way, and the Raider, the rapid defense experimentation reserve is a great way of thinking through that process, which is, I've got to I've got to figure out, again, what the war fighter needs. I've got to do an inventory of technologies that might apply to that. And then I've got to do the intellectual work of figuring out which things have the highest likelihood, and this is the stuff that, obviously we worked on before, and that you're able to come up with prototyping concepts in this this idea of incubating, though, is where I think we've necessarily lost impasse. Going back to this idea of Christmas presents, we've done a really good job of making sure that something does what you said it would do, and then give it to the warfighter, not understanding that when the war fighter gets something new, they might use it very, very, very differently. And so, the thing we like to say in Raider and the real importance of experimentation to refine those effects is I know that I need to do the experimentation to make sure it works. We call that T Rex technology readiness experiments. But the really important question is, when it works in an operational environment, did it actually have the effect, and when it has that effect? How would I get that effect and at what scale? So, Raider, our ditty is that Raiders how I get from technology to an actual capability. But there are other programs within the department that go beyond that. A way of accelerating from being a capability to being a program of record, especially for small businesses and nontraditional, is apt accelerating the procurement and fielding of innovative technologies, another fantastic program. So, I've now taken that, that technology, I've turned it into a capability. I now have a fund where we can wrap it. Can rapidly partner with those industry partners, partner with a service to get that up and running as quickly as possible. And when I need scale, we have replicator. So, replicator, on kind of the right-hand side of that equation is now how I get to from a program of record very rapidly to scale in the hands of the warfighter. None of those are meant to be the answer, but they're meant to be tools that we have, for me that's always focusing on that joint war fight, because the services are actually pretty amazing at doing exactly what they're supposed to do, which is organized training and equipping to those missions that they were given. So, by leveraging these tools, we're able to layer on top of the current service flow very joint focused activities where we're able to take those joint challenges rapidly turn those into meaningful capability that we can bring to the DMAG and get funded, and then we can very rapidly get that that vendor up to speed, through programs like APFIT and then out the door. So, we've built tools that help us evolve the way the department does things as we're through. You know, through practice, creating capabilities rapidly. Lauren Bedula 13:45 I am going to simplify what I heard for our listeners, and you tell me if I got it right. So, there are three programs, APFIT, Raider, and replicator, which you defined. So, Hondo doesn't get me out because those are long acronyms. So, raider is the earliest stage focused on R and D to get technology to a solution that works for the war fighter. Is that right? Okay? And then APFIT is really getting at that valley of death issue. So, moving from prototype to program of record and buying time there, is that right? Okay? And then replicators focused really on scale. From there, would you say? Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 14:20 I would. But let me, let me add one food for thought. And this is when I give speeches on rapid Fielding. One of the things I like to say is, I think the valley of death is information, not fiscal. And the reality is, you know, whether it's Department of Defense, whether it's FEMA, you know, when we have a need, our country steps up to the to the plate and handles that need. The challenge is, as we get to new technologies and implementing those new technologies in the military, it's really, really, really hard to be able to lucidly explain that need. So, in a funny way, I would actually argue Rader is the special sauce for the valley of death, in the sense that through Raider. Able to create prototypes, sometimes plural, so that we can evaluate them for the best in breed. I'm able, though, then, to take that and get it into the field with the war fighter, use it in place. Very, very possibly realize that the way I wanted to use that in the sense that to meet that effect wasn't the best use of that product. So, we're able to iterate on the product. We're able to iterate on the warfighter concept, and all of that is to create something we call the body of evidence. And the realization is, by taking that time where again, I take that technologist, that war fighter and the acquirer, and put them together, create a body of evidence I can take to my leadership. I now have that compelling need. I've answered all the questions that one would ask that might prevent you from deciding to bet on this as a path forward. And then what I would say is so that so to me, that's the real valley of death is this, this real challenge in getting the information that allows you to explain why this is so important, why I need to break a palm and spend money on this right now. APFIT’s a tool that makes that possible if that makes sense. Lauren Bedula 16:05 Yes, And we also often hear just the need for more flexible funding. Do you think each of these programs are helping with some issue? Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 16:13 So yes, but they have challenges, and I'll give you an example, and this has been probably my biggest challenge with Raider, is with Raider, the fiscal tool we've been given is putting that money in the individual service palms, so the service is actually executed, which I think is good. You know, I jokingly call Raider a two-year date services who didn't want to do the work in the first place because it was joint focused and not at the core of their problems. We give them the money to do it, but we have the services execute it, so that they understand what you know, they are the ones building it. They understand what they're going to need to buy. They're the ones who experience out in the field the value of this product that brings it to them and are able to go forward. The challenge of that is the current fiscal process. So, if I'm going to put that money in a service line, I've got to figure out what that money is before I build that service line. So, for 2023 is when Raiders started. That meant in 2021 to 22 we had to actually pick the individual projects earlier than necessarily I'd want to be able to scope that. So, it was late 22 for 24 and it goes on, and then you have to put that in those service lines, so that we can defend the palm associated with those service lines. So, let's say we take a cut, and we took a pretty significant cut in 2024 that, in fact, the words that got were, you know, Raider hasn't succeeded yet, when, in reality, at that time, regular had been around for about four months. It's a prototyping program, but we had been talking about it for two years. And that's the challenge of, of having to live with the fiscal process, right? Is, is what Congress had heard from us about these, all these amazing, amazing things we are going to do with 20 $23 and in 2023 when they looked at it, they said nothing had happened yet. The other challenge so, so when you take cuts those, it's very difficult to apply those to the to the projects that are lowest on the totem pole when it's loaded against individual service pockets, that makes it really hard. The other one is it reduces our flexibility a little bit if, for some reason, over that year and a half, we decide that an Air Force project is less exciting to the warfighter. And, holy cow, I just saw this Marine Corps project that would be magical. Moving the money from one service to another is also challenging. So, there's so the physical act of how we fund Raider reduces some flexibility. Now I will tell you fantastic relationship with the services and the CO com So, so what we have been able to do is when, when we see new need, we're able to flex that money within the service, to apply it. So, it's not all doom and gloom in that regard, but, but the Yeah, that the fiscal inflexibility on Raider challenges a little bit APFIT being year of execution funding where we're able to apply that at literally the very last minute, has a lot more flexibility. Hondo Geurts 18:58 So, shotgun, over the years, you've worked with a lot of industry partners, from the most you know, the biggest, most established, to, you know, startups and garages, folks in garages, probably at DARPA. How are you seeing how the department is thinking about industry changing over time, and what lessons would you have for industry partners, whether they're traditional or maybe startups, and thinking about working with the department or bringing technology into the department. Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 19:29 Sure, let me start on the second part, and this one, I've said this in a few forums where it wasn't necessarily as popular as I wanted it to be, but it's really important, and that is the customer. And I, and when I was at DARPA, the number of performers who would go out into the field with a marine private hand them the thing, and that was their customer. And what I had to explain to them is, the person who buys it is your customer, and the person who writes the requirements is your customer. And so, there's this a little bit of a disconnect, I think, with industry, you know, the. The user absolutely is that private, and if you want to make sure that private has the best possible tools, working with that private really important. So, I don't want to downplay that, but if you aren't working with the people who actually buy things, that private is never going to get the amazing magic that you made. So, this, so this, this need to get people to understand that that how you get the DOD to buy things as convincing people in the five-sided building that you need to buy them, not convincing the private that this is the most incredible thing they've ever had. Again, both very important talking to those who buy things more important. The second part, and a common complaint I've got, is that the innovation ecosystem of the DoD is so large and broken up and diverse that no one ever knows who to talk to. We've done a lot of work in trying to fix that. So, we do Industry Days in MC we do one a year. I was one of the keynote speakers at CDO industry day a couple months ago, though, and CDO SCO, DIA, and the list goes on. All attend our industry day. So, what we've tried to do to help industry navigate those waters be Sherpas with and for them. So where, I think, a couple years ago, if you were to go to an R and E Industry Day and asked any question that wasn't the specific questions of Arne, you get a blank stare if you have a DARPA question. We've got a DARPA person physically in the room. We've got a SCO person physically in the room. So that the idea is to simplify how you approach the department by making sure that as any of us engage with industry, we're currently carrying the weight of the whole system, if you will, in actually helping that industry partner, find the best possible tools and the best possible partners. Lauren Bedula 21:44 That’s a really helpful breakdown for our listeners. And I want to go back to APFIT and Raider and replicator, just with one last question. With that breakdown in mind, what is the process? Is it the user who's submitting the demand signal? Is it the buyer? Is it industry applying? Can you talk us through? Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 21:59 Thank you very much. Yeah, so they're a little bit different, but I'll dance through them each, if that's okay with you. So, I've got, there's a common theme in R and E, that transition has many different flavors, and there's multiple valleys of death and for mission capabilities, I said there is one, there's one definition of transition, and that is the men and women in uniform are using better, different kit because of what you did. That doesn't mean they bought that exact thing, but that that I didn't want to give us any place to hide people are using better stuff there. That means we did well. So, for Raider, for Raider, we my customer for raider is the combatant commands and making sure that we understand where they have gaps, where they don't believe the services independently are focusing on those gaps. We partner with the services to find tools that might close those gaps, and from an industry partner, the real touch point is those services is the service labs and the service requirements and acquisition communities bringing that forward. We, as I said, we do an industry day every year. And, you know, I run a dating service. So, if any industry partner ever said, Hey, I think this could work for Raider, what do you think? We will get smart on it, and we will make sure that they're talking to the to the right service partner. So the so, because, you know, nothing actually becomes capability unless the service buys it right now, back to that dating service is really important for both the vendor and for me, that at the end of this that service actually wants to buy their thing, because if they don't, it's just not going to happen on App. Fit similar story, but now the services are my customers, and as I said, the most important thing, and I know this resonates on the hill as well, so I know I'm not getting out in front of them, but you know, AFIT is about bringing new entrants into the department, in the Department of Defense, and getting those, those small and nontraditional vendors to us. But the single guiding light for me is combat capability. So, if it doesn't make a difference on the capability, I am uninterested in helping somebody get into the defense ecosystem. If we find that it's something that excites a service that is desperately needed, then we want to break our back to help them. So, in Raider, it's really joint Combat Commander focused those capabilities that will help us in an integrated joint fight and on APFIT, its service capability that being said, as Raider has matured. What's really neat is we've got small and nontraditional vendors who are doing projects within Raider, where several years in advance, we're able to sit down, talk to them about APFIT, talk to the services about AFIT, so the two are synergistic, and that if you're working on something that could apply for APFIT in Raider, we're able to lean ahead and kind of put you on the conveyor belt, and if that body of evidence warrants transition, we're able to rapidly transition transfer. And we've actually got an example where this had occurred very well. Now, where we were able to take a Raider project as it graduated and move it directly into outfit and get the lines up and running right away. Lauren Bedula 25:07 Can you tell us any more about that success? Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 25:08 Yeah so the success is a through the company's map C. I don't remember what map C stands for, I apologize, but it's a unmanned vehicle called GARC, and we were able to prove the viability and value to the warfighter through Raider at the exact same time that we were working with the Navy and with the Marine Corps on leveraging outfit as a way of getting them up to speed very quickly. And so, they are getting GARC monumentally faster than if we had finished paused, had the company wait in line. Will, you know, for another fiscal cycle, that's awesome. And we have a, we have a few other examples in the in the in the lane, but they haven't executed yet. Hondo Geurts 25:50 One of the things you, I think, aptly noted, was that, you know, getting operator, technologist, acquire provider, altogether. On the other hand, this sense of you have to get with requirements and acquisition folks. You have suggestions for those folks in government themselves who may be in one camp or the other, how to drive the government teams closer so the acquisition or requirements folks are really focused on the COCOMM problems and kind of break because sometimes there's a silo between the services, maybe not understanding where the fights going and buying what they used to need. Are you? Are you sensing that problem is abating any or there's more we should be doing there to get everybody focused maybe on the future fight, not current fight. Yeah, so Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 26:46 I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump into a little bit of acronym soup for a second. But the good news is, you know, even though, you know, I'm proud of assault breaker too, and seeing a lot of these, these evolutions in how we need to perform militarily in the future, all the services saw it. All the COCOMM saw it. We just have a system that's really difficult to change. Last year, we invented a new forum, and it's called a T, m, t, r, technology modernization transition review, which is an R, N, E led entity that's partnered to two other alphabet soups. So, on the requirements side, the joint requirements. Oversight Council has a thing called a CPMR capability Portfolio Management Review, where they take looking from a multi service capability perspective. They look for those gaps, and they look for the challenges that elicit requirements. But now think at the big DoD level, ANS, two years ago, created something called the IAPR integrated acquisition portfolio review. And you can think of that as taking the existing programs and programs in development, slamming that against those problems, and looking for areas where I could acquire things faster, differently, modify things so that I can close those holes. And that has a remainder. The TMTR, which is just added this year by R and E is now looking at that remainder and taking things like Raider, like outfit, service, labs, and industry, and looking for rapid opportunities to fill those holes, and then you end up with a final remainder. And what's really neat is that final remainder now goes to the DARPA’s, to the labs, to the SCOs and other entities, and to industry to figure out areas where we don't have enough activity ongoing. So, this, and this was instituted as a DOD process, where I go from requirements to acquisition to capability developer just this year, and I think it's pulled everybody together. And so, you know, I get asked the question a lot about based on being so joint focused that, gosh, wouldn't you love it if title 10 went away, services went away, and you could just give the monies to the money of the CO coms. And I know, you know, with an acquisition background, there's a lot of experience there that you don't want to throw in the trash can. A lot of capability you want to, don't want to throw in the trash can. So, so the way I look at it, whether it's through that capability development process or programs like Raider, it's about taking those, again, those problems that don't have an obvious service solution, rapidly developing those into capabilities that the warfighter can understand. But to me, the right answer is, then you modify those roles and missions. So, if we do this right, both are right. Right is that I'm seeing a new way of tackling things. But instead of creating an alternative path in the long run, I'm actually using it to redefine the path of those services. So every time you come up with something that doesn't fit an example, we developed the joint fires network for INDOPACOM year and a half of trying to figure out, hey, who runs a joint fires network, a co com focused command and control network, and we came up with a really novel approach, leveraging the United States Air Force as the lead, but with partnership across the Navy and Army to make sure it works. So, this so for me, it's not about saying Our way is the new way is smart, the old way is stupid. It's really how do I take. Uh, the evolution and actually evolve the bureaucracy so that it's constantly doing it a little bit better. Does that make sense? Lauren Bedula 30:09 I know you talked about on the industry side, maybe advice to know who you're dealing with and in the process to really get something done. Is there any advice that comes to mind for you about what industry can be doing better as partners, anything more on that end. Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 30:24 Yeah, it goes a little bit back-to-back to who your real customer is. I think listening is important, you know, so and it's tough when you put your heart and soul into something and it's exactly what you wanted to build, and it is not exactly what the warfighter needs today, in being open to modifying in a way that will better, better meet the warfighter needs. You know that it's funny, obviously, you know, if I'm if I'm doing public software, we should not build military things. We should go out and buy it. And if it's a bomb, I probably can't go off the street and buy it. And there's a spectrum there, and I think as we're in the middle of that spectrum, the in I'll wrap it back to Christmas presents again, in the further you go down the line without interacting with the DOD, without obtaining an understanding of what's really needed and how you might make design decisions that inhibit flexibility and inhibit aligning to that is so being involved early and being open and willing to change. Hondo Geurts 31:37 Along those lines, you talked a lot about integration and a lot of the combat and commands, real challenges are integrating platforms and capabilities of services have into a greater than the sum of the individual parts. Do you see the same thing from industry? They each have their own thing, but if they would put it together with two or three other industry partners, it could turn into something more. Do you see industry doing enough in that area? Or do you think there's more that can be done so that they partner with other industry, technologies, or something, and bring a solution, not just a technology sliver to the to the fight? Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 32:17 Yea that's a painfully Good question, the way you phrased it. And one of the things that I two years ago, I had a meeting with CDO, and I go, if you could do one thing for me, I want an acquisition methodology that makes sense for software. Because what I'd love to do is go to an individual vendor, not have to go through a prime to get to that vendor, find the awesomeness that they have, and be able to compensate them for the work they did, and integrate that one of the things we did in joint fires networks. So, we did something that's atypical for the government, which is we started with a wholly government, owned government, maintained reference architecture. And I've been thought a lot of the way on that, because everybody's no you pick a prime industry does this better in government. There is no doubt about that but pick a prime and let them figure out who to pull into it. But what we've been able to do over the last two years on joint buyers’ network is by maintaining an environment that's very open to bringing in new intellectual property and new vendors, you break that vendor lock, you now have a very equal opportune environment. Currently, we have numerous vendors on the team. We have Lockheed, we have Palantir, we have Android. We have many different companies that are providing to create a holistic architecture. And the advantage of that is, as someone has something new or back to your point, if I have a kill chain that I'm not affecting right now or not able to work, I'm able to do a very broad request. We just through trade winds with CDO or putting out our Jn dot zero solicitations. But the idea is to find a way that allows us to take the small vendor, to take someone who has a unique but very valuable application, and rapidly integrate that into a military structure, independent of having them get gobbled up, necessarily, by another company so that. So, it's a tough architecture in that, I don't know that our acquisition tools today, or at least the way we use them, make that easy. And in, you know, the question in the long run-on joint fires network, and I don't have the answer is, you know, at some time it probably does make sense to have whether it's a government, I mean, a non-government integrator, a non-government prime. But as it goes from, you know, the world of opportunities to finally boiling down, and now the warfighter understands what they want. And you've, you've, you've gotten into a groove, that makes sense, then it may very well make sense to go with a corporate integrator. Lauren Bedula 34:46 I've got one more on my end, and it's about people and culture. And something you said made me think of this with really just throwing things over the wall or silos that have been built over time, when we ask on the show, are there additional. Authorities needed; is it process? And so much of the answer ends up being around culture as a barrier. Are you seeing developments on that front, or what's your take on the people in the culture here? Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 35:10 So yes, I'm seeing developments in you know, it's funny, because I do always go back to that triumvirate of getting them together, this, this change, where you have the vice chairman, and it shouldn't be a change, but where I've got the vice chairman, the director of ANS and the director of Varney working together on capability development didn't occur before. Maybe you should have but didn't. And so, the, I think the culture is changing, the where, where the challenges lie. And it goes back to that body of evidence. Issue is where the challenges lie. Is, when you want to do something faster than the system, what I believe we need to inculcate as a culture is the onus is on you to prove why you don't just say, gosh, this looks really important. Let's buy it. You need to do the work. Transition is a full contact sport if you really do want to take a new capability and get it into the field rapidly. It takes relentless engagement, and that relentless engagement is important if you want to get out the door. So, I think the I do think the tools exist to go fast. I absolutely think there are times where you don't want to go fast where you shouldn't. And so, I would say it's, it's mostly cultural. And, you know, it's about those language lessons that let you talk across, you know, across the spectrum. Hondo Geurts 36:28 So, shark and you, you've been at this a long time. I would, I wouldn't want to recount for the listeners, how long ago you and I were colonels doing this, raging against the machine. Any tips on how to stay fresh and keep in a positive outlook when you're taking on these large institutional challenges, whether it's in a corporation, in a startup or in government, how do you stay fresh and fired up every day and not kind of get bogged down? Any tips you could pass on to folks, whether old folks like us, or young folks coming into the system that you've learned over these years. Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 37:10 Yea so single seat fighter pilot doing stuff by myself. You know, was, was a way alive for me, and the most important lesson I learned was the value of taking those who aren't like you, bringing them onto the team, and having a shared vision. So, to me, that the most important thing, and if it didn't already come across, mission, is number one. To me, the only reason I'm doing this is to get better capability in the hands of war fighters so that we don't have a war because we deter the bad guys. And so, I would say number one is absolutely relentless, focused division. And then number two is opening an openness to other people being right, you know? So, this, this needs to look across the stream. You know, when I came up with that triumvirate, term was during sequestration, we had a problem where the acquirers were screaming about what the idiot requires were doing, and they were screaming about how slow the lab was going. And so, we forced the three to work together. They said, I'm not I'm not taking another request, first for money, unless the three people come to me together. And it changed all of their mindsets, because as they talk to each other, guess what? None of them were stupid. You know, their bureaucracy. Very few of the bureaucratic rules are stupid. They may be interpreted badly right now, but all of them were created over the bumps and bruises of time. So, this so again, I would say mission, first foremost and above all else. But to get there, you've got to work with other people. You've got to listen to other ideas and understand that that the solution that you all come up with is going to be defensible and is going to get you across the line. And then a final part, back to full contact sport, if you want to change the system, it's Owieee. It is but, but. But living and living to see that progress, and living to understand the impact that you made makes it all wildly worthwhile. Lauren Bedula 39:02 Love it The Perfect Note for us to end on shotgun. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We know how busy you are, and especially sharing information about what you're doing. There's a lot of interest in it. So, thanks for taking the time. All right. Thomas "Shotgun" Browning 39:12 Thank you very much for having me.