or in terms of cost overruns schedule delays and problems with performance as part of a larger package of reforms secretary gates announced a plan to begin rebuilding the acquisition team to help address those problems we think the department already has many capability for unimagined a taxpayer expense it is extraordinarily difficult to produce any capable weapon much less produce it on an exact schedule to exacting performance standards within an exact chairman snyder and members of the subcommittee i want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and participate in today's hearing at your request i'll address the overall state of the defense acquisition workforce both military and civilian in the one nine hundred ninety s there was a significant decrease in the size of the acquisition workforce nine eleven and sewing up bands have led to a significant increase in that position workload these factors have strained our current organic acquisition workforce capability in two thousand and one the department obligated a hundred thirty eight billion dollars in contracts and in two thousand and eight obligations reached three hundred ninety six billion dollars in contrast the acquisition workforce decreased from a level of approximately one hundred forty seven process however the decisions that we have made regarding the growth of our workforce and the path that we are now on have been deliberate thoughtful and forward looking on april sixth two thousand and nine the secretary fence announced his intention to significantly increase the capability in capacity of the defense acquisition workforce by increasing the size of the workforce by twenty thousand through the year two thousand and fifteen this will restore our organic capability to its one thousand nine hundred eight levels approximately one hundred forty seven thousand and address longstanding showup falls in the workforce it is it is the first significant growth since the military build up in the one nine hundred eighty s and the downsizing that occurred in the one nine this strategy increases the size of the workforce by fifteen percent we will add approximately ninety five hundred employees to our contracting pricing and contract oversight workforce and ten thousand five hundred program managers engineers quality this strategy will increase and improve the department's oversight capabilities thereby ensuring that we get a better deal for the taxpayers that we get what we pay for we ferret out waste and assist in combat and combat in contract for the defense acquisition workforce development fund provided by com congress is a key workforce enabler since an act meant significant resources have been targeted for improving the defense acquisition where and we very much thank this committee for supporting the defense acquisition workforce development fund improvement initiatives being the boy deployed and are characterized in three major workforce categories first with regard to recruiting and hiring hiring has started and is the primary focus of our strategy in our five year plan approximately eighty nine percent of the resources of defense acquisition workforce development will be used for hiring secondly concerning retention and recognition a economic conditions are contributing to better retention it is essential to start now to implement a long term retention strategy and talent management strategy as we go forward thirdly in the area of training and development certification certification requirements have exceeded dia use present capacity and v a you must expand to meet this demand equally important is the capacity to meet future requirements resulting from increased hiring of interns journeymen and highly qualified are also new and involving training issues such as expanded expeditionary contracting training contracting officer representative training and training for those who are not part of the acquisition workforce but who develop requirements with regard to our military work force we must make sure that our joint contracting workforce is properly sized and trade to meet the needs of contracting in a battlefield environment the army and marine corps of taken significant steps in terms of training size leadership development and organization of their present and future contracting corps we anticipate that the navy's contracting capability will continue to be provided through its supply corps and its civil engineering corps in terms of contracting capability we anticipate that the air force will continue to provide the most the largest and most significant capability among the uniformed services the challenge for the air force is and will be to provide promotional opportunities for their capable acquisition and contracting community the secretary has established an overarching human capital strategy to mitigate the past of the impact of past downsizing increased workload the aging workforce and to create a better balance multi sector for us this is an unprecedented acquisition workforce growth initiative essential to improving acquisition outcomes is a properly sized highly skilled ethical and professional workforce i believe this strategy is on target and i work for two and i look forward to working with you and keeping your prized of our progress thank you mr chairman and members of the subcommittee for your support thompson german snyder congressman women and distinguished members of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations thank you for the opportunity to discuss today the state of the army acquisition workforce and our mutual efforts to ensure a strong and robust acquisition system i am pleased to report that the army is making steady progress in sustaining and growing an acquisition workforce that is focused on getting well class products and services to our soldiers faster volunteering proper fiscal stewardship of the taxpayer dollars our plans are outlined in my written statement mr chairman the army acquisition workforce declined significantly in the last while the workload in the dollars associated with that workload increased at present we have roughly forty thousand workforce members thirty eight thousand five hundred civilians and about six hundred military to perform the entire acquisition in contracting mission for the army work force members are stretched they continue to excel in meeting the challenges of their jobs their energy enthusiasm results in the knowledge of their work is critically important to our soldiers in the field size structure training and experience are critically important factors in developing a workforce that is better prepared to deal with the complexities of acquisition and contracting in the twenty first century our current workforce initiatives highlight rightsizing development and recognition and retention incentives increased investment in our people coupled with sufficient predictable investment in our programs will continue to give our soldiers the equipment services and support they need for success on the battlefield before i conclude i want to point out that yesterday we discovered a factual error in my written statement we provided the correct information to your staff and we will provide mr chairman distinguished members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to address this committee and to discuss the department of the air force's work to improve the capacity and capability of our acquisition workforce  confident that the departments of ongoing actions in those plans for the future years defense program will improve the department's ability to effectively execute the mission i would like to take a few moments to touch on serve all of these efforts in october two thousand and eight airports leadership identified recapturing have an excellent one of the top priorities that will shape your force white actions over the next three to five years as we address actions that strengthen people processes and policy developing recapitalizing in shaping our professional acquisition workforce is integral to acquisition excellence to guide our efforts towards this vision we partnered with air force acquisition functional leaders in the acquisition commands to develop an air force human capital strategic plan for the acquisition workforce which was published in february of this year this plan establishes a strategic vision for a professional acquisition workforce with the right number and mix of people with the right education training skills and experience to effectively and successfully perform the air force acquisition mission we believe it is an excellent roadmap for guiding workforce development and supportive terry and congress has been very supportive of now moving forward in doing some very positive things about our acquisition work force we're going to have to demonstrate to our secretary and to the president and to you that the investment that you're going to make in that work force is in fact going to pay off that we're going to get better deals for the taxpayers that we're going to conduct more robust oversight that in fact when we encounter for joint activities  we root them out and we deal with it and i think that it's going to be in the proof of the pudding over time as to whether or not the investment that secretary of defense the president ultimately the congress makes in this work force will in fact  environment as it's presently and we will continue to have contractors who support our operational forces so the need to have capable competent professional military contracting officers he's going to continue on and i think it will be in our demonstration to our leader the secretary of defense president as well as the congress that in fact the investment that you make  some pretty pretty detailed bottoms up estimates in terms of what we needed it defense contract management agency defense contract audit agency we looked at each of the services in terms of their contracting capabilities and we knew that in general that part of the workforce does not have a contractor segment associated with it there are some organizations that do have contractors supporting those environments but they're very small it's a much different picture i give an example of that fifty two thousand contractors that we think approximately fifty two thousand that support the acquisition workforce somewhere between five and seven hundred support contracting or contract oversight workforce so it's a very small number so in that particular case the way we looked at that workforce was really in terms of examining its capabilities and we just completed it it took us eighteen months to complete probably the most comprehensive competency assessment of that workforce that's ever been done in federal government that was clearly over eighteen thousand folks participated in that and that was completed recently so we have the information that we need to look at that part of the workforce in a very detailed way in terms of the contractor workforce we knew that we needed to change the mix of the workforce we think that the total size of the workforce in general is adequate because we're getting the job done with our contractor contracting workforce but what we needed to do was take a more i think realistic view of what we believe governmental ensure that those functions are in fact being supported by the federal civilians and our military w we need to ensure that we have the engineering capability inherent within government so that we can provide the proper technical assessments to our contracting  of the day we get a better deal for taxpayers and we can conduct proper oversight it could be to going back to the nine hundred ninety eight levels we simply use that as a measure that really  point it was about a year or two before we increase the workload of our workforce so in reality while we're going back to the eighty seven level where we're adding more contracting in that environment areas that is we look at the acquisition workforce and would like to see the greater numbers and better skills that would be contracting cost estimate or cost analysts as well as systems engineers and those are the areas that we have targeted both with the newest sessions for the defense acquisition workforce development fund as well as the hiring that we have going on right now to fill the vacant positions we have and to take advantage of the authorities that we already have thank you general mr scott i'll try to squeeze in one more question here i have a concern about the seventy three percent of the department's acquisition workforce who are baby boomers lydian that narrow into that and you mentioned that you're implementing an intern workforce development fund enables us not just to hire interns but to hire those at the immediate intermediate level and highly qualified expert and so each of the services is targeting a  number of hires at both not just the intern level but at the intermediate and senior level the fact is between levels of experience of about seven and let's say nineteen years  biggest area where we have a shortfall we're doing a great job of bringing in terms and frankly hiring people on the front end so we're looking at it through how do we get some we experienced workforce that frankly left  our organizations and went into history secondly how do we look to retain some of those baby boomers that might have considered retirement but now are either reconsidering how do we look at retired unknown and who can be a tremendous source of mentoring and assistance to our workforce as we as we grow it there's no doubt that the bulk of our hiring is going to be in the in the insurance side of the street but on the other hand we're very comfortable given what's happening in today's workforce environment that there are a number of talented people out there who we can attract to the federal acquisition workforce and area where the execution of acquisition goes on in the air force i find just an incredible amount of enthusiasm amongst our people they're very proud of what they're doing they see the effects of the products that they deliver to the air force in the war every day that said they would be the most sensitive people to this decline in the numbers of people and some of the atrophy of skills that have taken place over about the last ten years or so they're the ones that are working under that burden and they see the press as was mentioned here often couched in terms of what's broken and not what's really well the fact of the pull out of the shipyard down there in the south and move it somewhere else is there really were not how many but for contract procurement oversight that's a different level of experience than if you took and transferred him or her to run a ship as a lieutenant commander commander do you think we might be going about this the wrong way  minute to give you a little bit more context in terms of what we're doing with the workforce about seventy percent of the growth in the acquisition workforce will be in the engineering oversight functions  it will it will not be in the contracting or pricing about thirty percent of our growth is in contracting pricing about seventy percent program management oversight and engineering capability less t percent fact probably even less than that is in the military side of the street so this is primarily a civilian workforce growth initiative and so there will not be a significant increase in the in the number of military officers in the acquisition community having said that there is no doubt that we need to have battlefield commanders and professionals acquisition professionals with their boots on the ground who understand for example in iraq and afghanistan we have well over two hundred thousand contractors supporting our force they need to know how to manage that force they need to understand how it was contracted for and how it will be overseen and so there will be there is an inherent capability that we need to have within the military services as specially as it relates to contracting  to one well ratio where their time at home or time deployed which is leading us toward pursuing a retention bonus for those officers are enlisted people already have a bonus to help them with the retention but the other point there are the same people that at home would be doing the work of contracting so that's part of the terms of numbers of contracting people we've got a low those activities presently are being done by armed forces on the ground that could in fact be done in the rear to support the contracting that's taking place on the ground and so one of the things we're looking at is how do we get more civilian participation even if it's in the rear to support the contracting that's being done on the ground and i think that we're moving towards a more effective mix  of the army has especially been looking at that in terms of the experience in kuwait of doing more contracting in the rear so we're looking at that now as we go forward to ensure that the general shock what is correct which is was the army's increasing its contracting capability in its uniformed services to frankly give a little relief to the air force as we look for think it might have been a g a o study but i can't remember what i read about a year ago that made a recommendation that our work colleges i can't remember we still have do you see new ones we might a longer term sustainability of this need much like we train our warriors when they go forward how to shoot a gun if they're going to be a management company to manage contractors should there be a corps not just at the industrial war college but all of th at helps if you are officers with that kind of knowledge nationally legislate something like well i'm not sure we need to legislate that we're moving in that direction but i think you know in terms of making sure that our iraq on the ground some of the management contract oversight has any course at the war college where it's mandatory you have to have experience at a junior officer level ten and commander commander  ability for oversight on in the acquisition community but i'm still taken up with the process that somehow it seems as though they might put more people out there on the acquisition side but how well they're driven by the requirements has always seemed to be a disconnect i'll always remember the chief of naval operations going to