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i 

52–272 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–84] 

SHAPING A WORKFORCE FOR 

TODAY’S ACQUISITION ENVIRONMENT 

THAT CAN MEET DOD’S NEEDS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

PANEL ON DEFENSE ACQUISITION REFORM 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JULY 21, 2009 
(II) 

PANEL ON DEFENSE ACQUISITION REFORM 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey, Chairman 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

CATHY GARMAN, Professional Staff Member 

JENNESS SIMLER, Professional Staff Member 

ALICIA HALEY, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Tuesday, July 21, 2009, Shaping a Workforce for Today’s Acquisition Environment That Can Meet DOD’s Needs .................................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 ............................................................................................ 27 

TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2009 

SHAPING A WORKFORCE FOR TODAY’S ACQUISITION ENVIRONMENT 

THAT CAN MEET DOD’S NEEDS 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Andrews, Hon. Robert, a Representative from New Jersey, Chairman, Panel 

on Defense Acquisition Reform ........................................................................... 1 

Conaway, Hon. K. Michael, a Representative from Texas, Ranking Member, 

Panel on Defense Acquisition Reform ................................................................ 3 

WITNESSES 

Assad, Shay, Director, Defense Procurement Acquisition Policy, Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Acquisition and Technology, U.S. Department of Defense .................................................................................................... 5 

Farrell, Lt. Gen. Lawrence P., Jr., USAF (Ret.), President, National Defense 

Industrial Association .......................................................................................... 7 

Schooner, Professor Steven L., Co–Director, Government Procurement Law 

Program, George Washington University Law School ...................................... 8 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Andrews, Hon. Robert ...................................................................................... 31 

Assad, Shay ....................................................................................................... 36 

Conaway, Hon. K. Michael .............................................................................. 33 

Farrell, Lt. Gen. Lawrence P., Jr. ................................................................... 48 

Schooner, Professor Steven L. ......................................................................... 62 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Andrews ..................................................................................................... 77 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Andrews ..................................................................................................... 81 

(1) 

SHAPING A WORKFORCE FOR TODAY’S ACQUISITION 

ENVIRONMENT THAT CAN MEET DOD’S NEEDS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, PANEL ON DEFENSE ACQUISITION REFORM, Washington, DC, Tuesday, July 21, 2009. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 8:00 a.m., in room 2212, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert Andrews (chairman of 

the panel) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT ANDREWS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY, CHAIRMAN, PANEL ON 

DEFENSE ACQUISITION REFORM 

Mr. ANDREWS. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to 

the panel. I appreciate the attendance this morning of my colleagues on the panel and the witnesses and the ladies and gentlemen in the audience. 

The panel is continuing its assessment and evaluation of the difference between the cost that American taxpayers pay for goods 

and services and the quality of what we receive. And this is the 

section of our work that is focusing on a series of hypotheses as to 

why that gap exists. 

This morning we examine the hypothesis that the gap between 

what we pay and what we get exists because we have not given our 

individuals in charge of procurement the number of people and the 

skill sets of people they need to get that job done in an effective 

way. 

I want to say from the very outset we are extremely appreciative 

of the men and women who are working for the Department of Defense (DOD) in the area of procurement. We think that they are 

dedicated public servants who have been given a massive job to do, 

in many cases overwhelmed by the scope of that job, and I just 

want to make it very clear from the outset that I am in no way— 

I think the panel is in no way—critical of the level of preparation, 

certainly the level of commitment and the level of performance, of 

the men and women working in that area. We thank them and 

commend them for their work. 

If anything, our concern is that we have not done a very good job 

on our side of the table in providing the scope of personnel and the 

training and the depth of personnel necessary to get this job done 

right. So I want to say from the very outset, make it clear that 

there is criticism to be had here. I think the criticism is more of 

us in the legislative and executive branch in not adequately staffing these areas, not in the performance of the men and women who 

do the work. 
2 

The numbers are compelling. From 2001 to 2008, the Department of Defense purchases of goods and services more than doubled. It now is about $388 billion a year. The number of contract 

actions has skyrocketed at the same time. In other words there is 

a lot more work to do than there was a decade or so ago. 

Basically, there are about the same number of people to do that 

work on the government employ—somewhere between 126,000 and 

129,000 government personnel. There has been a significant increase over that period of time in outsourcing some of this work in 

contracting with outside individuals to help the Department of Defense manage the procurement process. 

It is interesting that—and I think rather telling—that there are 

no hard and fast accurate data on exactly how many of those contractor personnel there are, at least as far as we can tell, which 

I think that alone tells us something about the problem. 

But the best estimate is in the range of 52,000 people. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has looked extensively at the 

reasons behind this outsourcing. Typically, the reasons given are 

there is an argument that they can do the job more quickly, and 

there is an argument that the expertise that we are bringing on is 

not expertise that we have in-house. 

This morning’s discussion features three very highly qualified 

witnesses, who are going to guide us through a discussion of three 

sub-issues here. The first is a quantity issue. How many people are 

necessary to give the right kind of oversight and analysis of this 

massive amount of procurement that we are doing? 

The second, I think, most important is a quality issue. What 

kinds of skills do the people who are doing this work need? Are we 

adequately investing those individuals with those skills? How 

might we increase the availability of skill acquisition in this area? 

And then finally, there is a question of balance. To what extent 

should this oversight work be done by people who are employees 

of the federal government? To what extent should this work be 

done by people who are employed by independent contractors who 

are employed by the federal government? By what criteria should 

we make those decisions? 

I think it is self-evident that there are some functions that are 

so highly specialized that they lend themselves to contracting out. 

There are others that are not so highly specialized and probably 

are obvious in that they should be performed by federal employees. 

Legislators are line drawers. When we do our job well, we draw 

the line in the right place. When we don’t do our job well, we draw 

the line in the wrong place. And I think this is an area where a 

line very much does need to be drawn. 

So this morning we have three very distinguished witnesses, and 

they are going to walk us through their ideas about what the right 

size of the workforce is to do a good job on monitoring acquisition, 

what skill sets are necessary in that workforce and how we might 

step up our efforts to create those skill sets among our personnel 

and our contractors, and then finally, what the right balance is between federal employees and contractors in achieving the optimal 

level of contract review and procurement review. 
3 

So we appreciate the three witnesses. At this time we are going 

to turn to my friend, the ranking member from Texas, for his opening statement. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Andrews can be found in the Appendix on page 31.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, RANKING MEMBER, PANEL ON DEFENSE 

ACQUISITION REFORM 

Mr. CONAWAY. All right. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate that. 

Witnesses, thank you for being here this morning. You probably 

didn’t have a choice, but thank you to everyone for showing up this 

morning and visiting with us. 

Our panel is going to talk about a variety of issues within the 

acquisitions arena, the process itself, major weapons systems, services contracts, information technology (IT), to just name a few. But 

the one thing that stood out through all of these hearings is the 

role of technologies that the personnel of the acquisition team and 

workforce itself faces. 

It is clear that the panel—to me that if this panel were to make 

only one set of recommendations, that it would be to set the conditions within the Department that ensure the acquisition workforce 

is adequately trained and staffed. 

The Congress helped create the current condition of this workforce during the 1990s, when it directed its downsizing. Now Congress must take the appropriate actions to fix it. And while Congress has taken recent actions to help restore the acquisition workforce, there is much more to be done. That is why we are here 

today to gain some insights from our panel of expert witnesses. 

For example, it is not enough to simply grow the force. What specific skills do they need? And do we have the necessary institutions 

to properly train them? 

What is the proper balance between uniform personnel and civilians? And as for uniform personnel, some military officers begin entering into the acquisition workforce as second lieutenants. Others 

start as captains. Which model has yielded better results? 

As well, requirements of budget personnel currently aren’t part 

of the acquisition workforce, which was one of the findings from the 

2006 Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment Report. Given 

the critical role they play, how do all of these communities work 

together and train together? 

What is clear is that we can make some numerous changes to the 

acquisition process itself, but if we don’t create the conditions for 

a properly sized, equipped, trained workforce, it really won’t matter. 

I look forward to hear from our witnesses and gain some insight 

on this critical issue. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Conaway can be found in the Appendix on page 33.] 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you very much. 

Without objection, the opening statement any member of the 

panel wishes will be included in the record. 
4 

I am going to proceed by introducing the three witnesses, reading 

a brief biography. I think you are all veterans of this process on 

the Hill and would remind you the way that we work is, without 

objection, your written statements are a part of the record of the 

hearing. We would ask you to synopsize your written statements 

in about a five-minute oral summary, and then we are going to go 

to questions from the panel so we can maximize the time for giveand-take. 

Our first witness this morning will be Mr. Shay Assad. 

Did I pronounce that correctly? 

He is the director of defense procurement. Mr. Assad assumed 

the role of director on April 3rd, 2006. As director, he is responsible 

for all acquisition and procurement policy matters in the Department of Defense. He serves as the principal advisor to the under 

secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics and 

the defense acquisition board on acquisition and procurement strategies for all major weapons systems programs, major automated information systems programs, and services acquisitions. 

Before assuming this position, Mr. Assad was the assistant deputy commandant, installations and logistics for contracts at headquarters, the Marine Corps, Washington, D.C. He has held the position as the Marine Corps’ senior civilian contracting official since 

June of 2004. 

He graduated with distinction from the U.S. Naval Academy in 

1972. He served two tours of duty aboard U.S. Navy destroyers and 

won recognition as the outstanding junior officer in the Fifth Naval 

District. He then served as naval procurement officer at the Naval 

Sea Systems Command. 

He has received numerous federal service awards, including the 

Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service, Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Service, the Department of 

Defense Inspector General Joseph H. Sherick Award, which is the 

highest honor given to a non-inspector general (IG) employee, the 

24th Annual Gilbert A. Cuneo Lecturer, and the inaugural recipient of the 2008 Osborne A. ‘‘Oz’’ Day Award as the federal executive who has done the most to increase the awareness of Ability 

One employment opportunities for those who are blind or severely 

disabled. 

Mr. Assad, thank you for your service to our country. And we are 

glad you are with us this morning. 

I am going to do the other bios first, and then we will have you 

proceed. 

General Lawrence P. Farrell, Jr. Prior to his retirement from the 

Air Force in 1998, General Farrell served as the deputy chief of 

staff for Plans and Programs Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, here in 

Washington. He was responsible for planning, programming and 

manpower activities within the corporate Air Force and for integrating the Air Force’s future plans and requirements to support 

national security objectives and military strategy. 

Previous positions included vice commander, Air Force Materiel 

Command at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, and 

deputy director of the Defense Logistics Agency in Arlington. 

General Farrell is a graduate of the Air Force Academy, with a 

Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in engineering, a Master of Business Ad-
5 

ministration (M.B.A.) from Auburn University. His other education 

includes the National War College and the Harvard program for 

executives in national security. 

Welcome, General Farrell. We are glad you are here with us this 

morning. 

General FARRELL. Honored to be here, sir. 

Mr. ANDREWS. And finally, we have Professor Steven L. Schooner. 

Did I pronounce your name correctly, Professor? 

Professor SCHOONER. Thank you, sir. Thank you. 

Mr. ANDREWS. He is associate professor of law and co-director of 

the Government Procurement Law Program at the George Washington University Law School, where he previously served as senior 

associate dean for academic affairs. 

And my wife being a law school dean, I am well aware of the political minefield that that involves, Professor. 

Before joining the faculty, Professor Schooner was the associate 

administrator for procurement law and legislation, which is a senior executive position, at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy 

(OFPP) in the Office of Management and Budget. 

Professor Schooner received his bachelor’s degree from Rice University, his juris doctor (J.D.) from the College of William and 

Mary, his master of laws with highest honors from the George 

Washington University, and he is a fellow of the National Contract 

Management Association, a member of the board of advisors, a certified professional contracts manager, and serves on the board of 

directors of the procurement roundtable. 

We really appreciate the time of each of the three of you this 

morning. Your statements are excellent. They have been entered 

into the record. 

And we begin, Mr. Assad, with your oral testimony. 

STATEMENT OF SHAY ASSAD, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE PROCUREMENT ACQUISITION POLICY, ACTING DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, ACQUISITION AND TECHNOLOGY, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Mr. ASSAD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good morning, Chairman Andrews and members of the panel. 

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in today’s discussion 

on the acquisition workforce. 

A major element of DOD’s acquisition reform efforts is revitalizing the defense acquisition workforce. On April 6th the secretary 

of defense announced his intention to significantly improve the capability and the capacity of the defense acquisition workforce by increasing its size by approximately 20,000 employees. 

As part of this initiative, the department plans to insource approximately 10,000 contractor support personnel positions and ensure that critical and inherently governmental functions are performed by government employees. 

I would like to address a few areas of particular interest to the 

committee. The first is the hiring process. The second will be 

planned increases to acquisition functions other than contracting, 

program management tenure and the defense contracting and procurement acquisition competency initiative. 
6 

First of all, the hiring process. Hiring authorities and resources 

and processes are improving, but there is a lot of work to be done. 

Hiring is a difficult and oftentimes very slow process within the 

Department of Defense that needs improvement. 

Our objective is to hire the best-qualified personnel, upholding 

and supporting the merit principles and meeting government-wide 

statutory and policy objectives. We believe the competitive process 

helps ensure we are considering the best qualified to support the 

acquisition mission. 

The second is increases in acquisition functions other than contracting. With regard to the logistics professional workforce, we 

have grown from approximately 11,000 in 2001 to around 14,000 

today. Some of that growth was simply re-categorizing the logistics 

professionals into their proper categories of acquisition management. Initial planning indicates that we are going to grow that 

workforce another 1,700 over the next 5 years. 

And in addition, you expressed a concern regarding the logistics 

management certification. Our data indicates that 70 percent of the 

14,000 acquisition logistics professionals are accredited, and 45 percent meet or exceed their position certification requirements. 

Recent testimony from each of the senior service acquisition leaders cited building a strong engineering capability as a high priority. 

We are forecasting the systems engineering career field will grow 

by about 2,800 employees through 2015. This will be no small feat. 

The requirement for systems engineering professionals throughout 

the country is an extremely demanding field, and this will be a 

challenge for us. 

With regard to program management tenure, the department 

views tenure as a key element of program stability and health. Our 

latest availability survey data indicates the average tenure of program managers across the department is about 24 months, with an 

expected tenure of 42 months. We are going to continue to monitor 

tenure, as well as take actions to ensure that our program managers are in fact in place for the full 42-month tours. 

With regard to competency, an area that is of particular interest 

to me is our defense acquisition competency initiative. By October 

2010 the department will have updated competency models, concluded all assessments, and taken action to assure we are addressing major competency gaps across 125,000 or so members of the defense acquisition workforce. 

I look forward to working with the panel and keeping you apprised of our progress with regard to the secretary’s acquisition 

workforce growth initiative, and it is a pleasure to be here today 

to participate in this discussion. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Assad can be found in the Appendix on page 36.] 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you very much, Mr. Assad. 

General Farrell, you are recognized. 
7 

STATEMENT OF LT. GEN. LAWRENCE P. FARRELL, JR., USAF 

(RET.), PRESIDENT, NATIONAL DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL ASSOCIATION 

General FARRELL. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very 

much. It is an honor to be here. My statement is submitted. I will 

make a few points and respond to your questions. 

First of all, workforce shaping. We see that in industry as a subset of the health of the defense industrial base. There are a lot of 

other elements to that, among them organization, manufacturing, 

capital investment, process and competition. So this is one element 

of a much larger problem. 

We note that DOD is concerned as well, as we have just heard, 

with a program to convert 20,000 positions—10,000 positions from 

industry and to hire another 10,000. But to do 4,100 in 2010, that 

is going to be a steep hill to climb. It will take us back to 1998— 

147,000. That is probably not a bad number. 

But it is a complex task. It is not just insourcing, because the 

real questions are what are the skills you need? Where are the 

holes? Where are the skills? Where do you go to get the skills? And 

what is the priority for getting them? 

And as Mr. Assad has just said, systems engineering is probably 

one of the number one skills we need to bring in—program management, contracts, cost estimators—with the objective of making 

DOD a good buyer. And right now there is some question as to 

whether or not in all cases DOD is able to do that. 

But it is a deliberate process. It is going to take some time, and 

you just have to step back and say, ‘‘Where do you go and buy experienced people to bring into this?’’ You can’t just buy experienced 

people. You have to grow them. So it is going to be a deliberate 

process. 

The current workforce is in some crisis with the overruns that 

you have just talked about—costs and schedule. But the biggest 

problem, we think, is that 50 percent retirement in the next 5 

years. And with the 50 percent retirement, you put that up against 

the fact that we don’t have enough science, technology, engineering 

and math skills in industry today, and our schools aren’t producing 

enough. We think the future doesn’t look good because of those two 

things. 

But we think you need to carefully consider the criteria of goodness. That is, how do you recruit, train and retain these people? 

And we think you could do a little bit better in hiring people, 

maybe, if you do some direct hiring, you get some authority for direct hiring, and revisit veteran preferences, especially those veterans with engineering skills. 

You need to take a look at pay, performance, career progression 

and promotion and make sure that you pay and promote people 

based upon their contribution to the outcome, not time in service. 

And then there is the issue of tooth to tail. On the battlefield, 

tooth to tail is a good measure of efficiency, but it is not a good 

measure of efficiency when you are hiring a professional. So if we 

can have a million people back here in D.C. and we can send one 

soldier or one airman to the battlefield to do the job, that is good. 

So we shouldn’t be concerned about the number of people we are 

bringing in. We need to bring in enough people to do the job. 
8 

Right now, Mr. Assad has got an inventory ongoing. We haven’t 

seen those numbers yet in the industry. We are very interested to 

see them, but we think we ought to insist on a quality product as 

an outcome of that. 

There is one other thing we need to do, and that is to look at 

the ‘‘inherently governmental’’ definition. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has been mandated by the President to 

come out by 30 September. Right now we think the way ‘‘inherently 

governmental’’ definition is applied is dysfunctional. We need to 

tighten that up. 

So what do we need to do? Government and industry need to 

pursue this as a partnership and work together, because it is not 

just a government problem. It is also a problem in industry, because if the government in solving its problem creates a problem 

in industry, then we don’t move forward. So we need a balanced 

solution, a collaborative solution, recognizing that both sides have 

needs. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of General Farrell can be found in the 

Appendix on page 48.] 

Mr. ANDREWS. General, thank you for your testimony. 

Professor. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF PROFESSOR STEVEN L. SCHOONER, CO–DIRECTOR, GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT LAW PROGRAM, 

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL 

Professor SCHOONER. Chairman Andrews, Ranking Member Conaway and members of the panel, I really appreciate the opportunity 

to discuss the DOD acquisition workforce issue. 

It seems to me that the empirical case demonstrating that DOD 

with significant congressional assistance, as Representative Conaway pointed out, has starved the acquisition workforce now for 

two decades—that case seems to be compelling. 

At the micro level, what is much more difficult is figuring out 

how many people and which specific skill sets must be hired. And 

I think DOD can continue to study those things over time, and 

those needs will continue to change. 

But for now, I have a rather simple conclusion. And that is DOD 

should endeavor to go out and attempt to hire, train and deploy 

every qualified procurement professional available in the marketplace. And simultaneously, they should engage in an aggressive, 

large-scale, professional development program to prepare talented 

young people to become the government’s future business managers. 

Now more specifically, with all due respect to Mr. Assad, who I 

think is doing as good a job as he can in this situation, DOD’s articulated plan, which will restore the acquisition workforce to 1990 

levels by 2015, is not only too slow, but it aspires too far too little. 

Among other things the 1998 benchmark ignores that the lion’s 

share of the 1990s congressionally mandated reductions in the acquisition workforce were before 1998. 

Second, as you pointed out, Chairman Andrews, we have seen explosive growth in procurement spending in this decade. You pointed out the dollars had increased by 100 percent, but we are talking 
9 

about growth at five times the rate of inflation, with an already diminished workforce. 

Now, we have seen dramatic changes in how and what the government buys. The older members of the workforce were brought 

in to hire goods with fixed-price contracts. Today we are buying 

services with flexible vehicles, and services require completely different modes of oversight. 

We have talked about the looming retirement crisis, and no matter how much hiring we do in the next few years, it won’t be 

enough to keep up with that. Moreover, this isn’t just a DOD problem. It is a government-wide problem, and DOD’s efforts will be 

hampered, because the civilian agencies will continue to covet and 

hire away many talented people from DOD, just as the private sector does. So lots and lots of hiring needs to be done. 

At a more macro level, what is frustrating is that DOD, and to 

some extent the government as a whole, has steadfastly rejected 

the fundamental refrain that an ounce of prevention is worth a 

pound of cure. There always seems to be money and resources 

available for oversight and punishing bad actors. There never 

seems to be enough money available to get the people who will do 

the planning and get us good contract in advance, so we can avoid 

some of these problems. 

I think from a leadership standpoint—I think that for too long 

DOD has delegated these acquisition workforce issues to the Defense Acquisition University (DAU), which has proven slow, risk 

averse and insufficiently potent to alter the behavior. 

We have also far too often seen negative signals from the White 

House. Rather than supporting the acquisition workforce with mere 

rhetoric, they continue to distract them with, for example, new social policies in procurement and a not very good focus on receiving 

value for money. 

The other thing is I think we simply have to make the profession 

more attractive. We have to tone down the anti-contractor rhetoric, 

and we also need to make clear to the public how important these 

contractors are for literally everything the Defense Department 

does, both in terms of goods and services. 

I think that the civil service and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)-based recruitment process remains too cumbersome, 

and it is impenetrable in the private sector. At the entry level on 

the college campuses and in the business schools, students have no 

idea what excellent opportunities there are to serve as the government’s business managers, and we need change. 

I agree with General Farrell that what we really need to do is 

aggressively start growing talent for the long term. I think that 

DOD needs to be more aggressive. Despite its limited size, the Veterans Administration Acquisition Academy is a wonderful model 

for a hands-on, holistic, results-oriented program. 

But I think what we need to be thinking about is something 

maybe bringing together some aspect of co-op programs, Reserve 

Officer Training Corps (ROTC) scholarships, the military’s funded 

legal and medical trainings. But see if we can go out and get young 

people. Give them tuition benefits, rotational assignments, and promotion opportunities like those of the Presidential Management 

Fellows Program. 
10 

Now finally, you asked me to comment on the proliferation of private sector support in the performance of acquisition functions. For 

the short term, particularly given the five-year horizon that we 

have talked about for rebuilding the acquisition workforce, the government has no choice but to continue to rely heavily on the private sector for the acquisition function. 

On this note I find DOD’s insourcing plan ill-conceived, overly 

optimistic, and not calculated to address the ultimate needs. But 

the government faces a choice. They can either rely on the private 

sector for acquisition support, or the bottom line is they can try to 

squeeze blood from a stone and suffer the consequences, and that 

seems totally irresponsible. 

It took us 20 years to get where we are today. It will take far 

more than five years of timid efforts to restore and reinvigorate the 

acquisition workforce. I understand that many people in DOD are 

doing the best they can, but any prospective investment we make 

in upgrading the numbers, skills and morale of our purchasing officials and the people that support them will reap huge dividends for 

the taxpayers and the warfighters. 

Thanks so much for the opportunity to share these thoughts. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schooner can be found in the Appendix on page 62.] 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Professor. 

We thank all three witnesses, and we are going to proceed with 

the questions. I did want to mention, before we did that, that this 

panel owes a debt of gratitude to Chairman Snyder and Ranking 

Member Wittman for the very good work that the oversight committee did on this issue in a hearing in April, which kind of paved 

the way for us. I want to let the record reflect we appreciate their 

efforts. 

Mr. Assad, how many contracted private sector acquisition overseers do we have working for us today? 

Mr. ASSAD. We have at least 52,000, but—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. Do we know the precise number? 

Mr. ASSAD. No, we don’t. And we are continuing to refine that. 

It is probably higher. But it gave us—what we did know was we— 

contrary to what may have been said, we have a well thought out 

plan as to what we are doing, and we know very well what we are 

doing. 

Mr. ANDREWS. If I may, because the time is a bit short and I 

don’t mean to be argumentative, why don’t we know the precise 

number? 

Mr. ASSAD. It is very difficult to assess. There are some performance-based concepts that we utilize to do this work on a fixed-price 

basis, and as a result we are buying an outcome and not necessarily buying a number of people, so it is hard to assess that. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I understand that. I understand it. 

Now, describe for us the process that you use to determine which 

oversight functions to outsource and which to insource. Let us say 

that the Marine Corps today wanted to buy a very elaborate piece 

of software that would integrate its communications around the 

world, and you had to determine whether to insource or outsource 

the contract oversight. How would you derive that decision? 
11 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, contracting oversight fundamentally is done by 

government employees, and so the Marine Corps Systems Command would be responsible for buying that particular piece of 

equipment. The issue that we have is that we don’t think we have 

enough federal employees doing contract oversight. And so that is 

why we are about—it is actually around 9,900 folks out of the 

20,000 will be directly associated with contract oversight. 

Mr. ANDREWS. But that sort of presumes that the people you 

have would have the skill set to oversee such a contract. 

Mr. ASSAD. Yes. 

Mr. ANDREWS. If you have enough of them, you just keep it 

inhouse. Isn’t there also a qualitative assessment as to whether the 

employees have the skill sets to do the oversight? 

Mr. ASSAD. Absolutely. And I think that we have done within the 

department, frankly, some of the most sophisticated and in-depth 

competency modeling that has been done in this industry with regard to acquisition and contracting professionals. We will have all 

of our acquisition professionals through their competency modeling 

by the end of 2010. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Who is determining the standards on the competency modeling? 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, let me give you an example of the contracting 

professionals. What we did was we took the top 100 Senior Executive Service (SES), general officers and O–6s who are actually running the contracting shops throughout the country. They went 

through the competency modeling themselves, and then we sat for 

three days and determined the standards—myself included—as to 

what the expectations would be for a junior person, an intermediate person and a senior-level professional and in a contracting 

environment, so the way it will be done. 

Mr. ANDREWS. In deriving those standards, did you seek input 

from people outside the Defense Department? 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, you know, frankly, there isn’t. There is a lot of 

talk about competency modeling in industry, but when you get 

down to it, there is not a lot of data out there in terms of that assessment. 

Mr. ANDREWS. That would be the question I think I would ask 

for Professor Schooner, because that sort of leads to it. 

You mentioned the Veterans Administration (VA) academy as an 

example of excellence. How about in the private sector that—are 

there any, in your view, outstanding private sector examples of 

training and educating people who do procurement? 

Professor SCHOONER. Well, I think there is a number of different 

models, but I think that the main thing that we see differently is 

the basic what I would call cradle to grave professional development approach. 

So, for example, if we were to merely distinguish between the 

way that the Defense Department retains and grows an officer 

from the way that they deal with procurement professionals on the 

civilian side, I think we see a rather dramatic difference. 

We look for high standards at the recruiting stage. We control 

the undergraduate education. They are sent through an officer 

basic course very early on in their career. They are sent to an ad-
12 

vanced course. There are consistent upgrades in course along the 

way. 

The civilian acquisition workforce simply is not given that level 

of attention, development, professional growth and the like. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Let me ask a layperson’s question of any of the 

three of you. Do we pay them enough? If a young man or woman 

is coming out of engineering school or a business program, do we 

pay them enough to have them make a lifetime commitment to this 

kind of career? 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, having been on both sides of the table and paid 

people in this profession from both an executive perspective and as 

well as contracts manager, our people are well paid. They don’t 

make necessarily what their peers make on the outside as they get 

to more senior positions, but I think in the intermediate ranks in 

the junior ranks, we are very competitive. And frankly, we have an 

ace card, and our ace card is that we serve the warfighter. And so 

it is that sense of service that makes the difference. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Qualitative. That is good. 

Mr. ASSAD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ANDREWS. General Farrell, did you want to comment? 

General FARRELL. Yes, I mean you talked about software. But, 

look, if I am a software engineer graduating from Georgia Tech or 

Michigan or Cal Tech or Stanford and I get an offer from Microsoft, 

Google or Yahoo or get an offer from the government, where do you 

think I am going? 

Mr. ANDREWS. You think that—— 

General FARRELL. I don’t think we pay—the kinds of skills we 

are looking for—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. Right. 

General FARRELL [continuing]. Especially engineering and software, I don’t think we pay them enough. Sorry, I respectfully disagree with my friend. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I would just ask Professor Schooner, and then I 

am going to go to Mr. Conaway. 

Professor SCHOONER. I think to an extent in the short term in 

the economy, I am not as convinced that the compensation is a 

major issue, but if the economy improves, it is a significant issue. 

And I do want to echo one of the points that General Farrell 

made. Systems engineering, which is a huge hole, and as Mr. 

Assad said, you know, with the more senior ranks program managers, these are the places where not just good compensation, but 

incentives make the private sector dramatically more attractive. 

Mr. ANDREWS. And this is becoming a more and more critical 

area of our oversight, isn’t it? I mean, systems engineering was 

probably a fairly exotic field 20 years ago. It is absolutely essential 

today, if I am reading this correctly. 

Professor SCHOONER. Major acquisitions are all systems engineering. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Yes. So thank you very much. Well, I think we 

will have a second round. I want to go to Mr. Conaway now. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentleman, thank you for being here. My frustration is that, you 

know, we are whacking on this thing at 50,000 feet, one-size-fitsall kind of solutions and, you know, anecdotes. 
13 

And I am troubled that with all of our work that we don’t get 

far enough down into the details that—you know, an acquisition 

professional for a sophisticated computer program or system that 

is going to go worldwide, you made need somebody that is a little 

better there than, say, somebody who is making sure that the 

canned peaches are showing up on time and that we are getting 

the right price for that. So pardon my frustration with some of this 

one-size-fits-all thing. 

Now, just as a mechanical issue, 50 percent retirement in the 

workforce in the next 5 years, Mr. Assad? Is that what you said? 

Mr. ASSAD. I didn’t—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. That is 55,000 people that are going to retire? 

General FARRELL. I said that. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I am sorry. Mr. Farrell. 

General FARRELL. Fifty percent are eligible to retire in the next 

five years. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Oh, eligible, okay. How many of those eligibles do 

you think will actually retire? 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, that is a good question, Mr. Congressman, because we are actually seeing a slowdown of—you know, we anticipated, frankly, even three years ago those numbers were about the 

same. And, you know, we have an aging workforce. There is no 

doubt about it. 

Mr. CONAWAY. So we have just got the threat out there. We don’t 

know with the economy—— 

Mr. ASSAD. But I think, frankly, what has happened in the economy has made a lot of people change their mind with regard to 

their retirement plans. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Is that 65,000 people, 75,000 people? 

Mr. ASSAD. It is about that, yes. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Okay. 

I come from a profession where periodically we have to decide or 

determine what an entry level Certified Public Accountant (CPA) 

ought to be able to do and to set the standard for the exam. The 

exam is just a minimum level of qualification that you need to get 

into, and every 10 or 15 years they go through an assessment of 

what should that group know in order to get over that bar. Is that 

similar to what you are doing with your—— 

Mr. ASSAD. Yes. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Okay. 

Mr. ASSAD. Yes, sir. We will revisit those competency standards 

every couple of years. 

Mr. CONAWAY. So my understanding that you have got an inventory of the current team will be done by the end of 2010. Do you 

have an inventory of what you ought to have versus what that 

team is? Is that what—— 

Mr. ASSAD. Yes, well, right now we are pretty much through the 

contracting group, which is one of the largest. Systems engineering 

is the other. They will be the next done. And that enables us to 

understand what are the gaps. And we understand that very well. 

We know exactly what kind of skill sets that we are very much 

in short supply of—for example, pricing. We know that that is an 

issue within the department. 
14 

Mr. CONAWAY. There is pricing. Are there college graduates coming out with degrees in pricing? 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, let me give you an example. 

Mr. CONAWAY [continuing]. A team or a plan to go get that pricing competency that you need? 

Mr. ASSAD. Let me give an example of that. We just put out a 

call for 300 positions that we are going to hire at Defense Contract 

Management Agency (DCMA) in pricing. And we just closed that 

request for hiring. We have 5,000 applications for those 300 jobs. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Well, that is pretty—Mr. Assad, given the—unemployment rate. 

Mr. ASSAD. Most of them are financial management. Yes, financial management folks make outstanding pricers, and there are a 

lot of financial management folks who are looking for employment. 

Mr. CONAWAY. All right. How long will it take to get to get those 

300 hired? 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, I think we will probably get them hired within 

the next year. We just started the hiring process at DCAA. We 

opened up the DCAA hiring about two-and-a-half months ago. We 

have hired 175 folks already at DCAA. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Is that process nimble enough? Are there barriers 

to doing that well and quickly that we need to address? 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, we think that the expedited hiring authority 

that Congress has given us has been very helpful. The Navy in particular is really at the forefront in terms of utilizing that particular 

process, and I think we have brought about 400 or 500 people on 

board this year, using expedited hiring authorities, and we have 

only had 13 people who have actually refused employment as a result of utilizing that process. We have made some—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. What does that mean to me? 

Mr. ASSAD. What that enables us to do is—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. Why did that 13—your standards are so low you 

only called 13—— 

Mr. ASSAD. No, no, no, no, no, no. What I am suggesting is that 

we were able to respond to people who are looking for jobs and in 

sufficient enough time that they accepted the positions and said, 

‘‘Yes, we want to come to work for the government.’’ We only had 

13 folks who found other jobs. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Found other jobs in the interim. 

Mr. ASSAD. That is correct. 

Mr. CONAWAY. I am with you. Okay. Thank you. 

Yield back. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you. 

The chair recognizes Mr. Cooper. 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Schooner, could you describe to us in more detail some of the 

inadequacies of the Defense Acquisition University and why they 

don’t measure up to the VA Acquisition University system? 

Professor SCHOONER. I think there are two separate issues. I 

think my most specific criticism of DAU is that when confronted 

with this issue, to some extent they have taken the approach, and 

I think it is perfectly rational from one standpoint, that study, 

study, study, figure out all the answers, and then go about solving 

it. 
15 

But we have known about this issue for more than a decade. And 

it seems to me that DAU had more than enough information years 

ago to start saying, ‘‘We will continue to study, but we have critical 

needs.’’ 

It did not take sophisticated research to understand that we 

didn’t have enough contracting officer representatives managing 

service contracts on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. I didn’t 

have to do research to tell you that. 

But we now have empirical evidence demonstrating that the 

shortfall was staggering. And this is similar. And we can go 

through the list of the things we have talked about. Program managers, systems engineers, pricing experts—we can take any individual category. 

I agree with DAU we do not know yet the exact number, but I 

know that at the current rate we are not going to have enough by 

2015. I know we don’t have them today, and I know we didn’t have 

them three years ago either. 

The VA thing—I mentioned it simply because it is a holistic approach, which is focused far more on growing the next generation 

rather than going out into the marketplace and trying to find the 

solution. I think we need to do that, but I am not convinced the 

marketplace can meet all of our needs, nor do I believe it will fill 

the gap or deal with the pending retirements, once the economy recovers. 

So I think we need to be doing simultaneously both. I agree with 

all of those people that say we should be chasing the cow in the 

marketplace, but we need to grow the next generation, because we 

haven’t done it for a generation. 

Mr. ASSAD. Congressman, if I could make a comment, sir, about 

DAU. It was not DAU’s responsibility to assess the size of the 

workforce. That responsibility rests at the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics. It rests at our office 

and the service acquisition executives. 

With regard to the capability of DAU, there is no corporate university in this country that can equal the capability of the training 

that they bring to the employees of the Department of Defense. It 

is not even close. I mean, there is no defense contractor who has 

any training program that is even remotely close to the service that 

DAU provides to its federal employees. So I just want to clear that 

up. 

Mr. COOPER. I am struck by the disconnect between Mr. Assad 

and Mr. Schooner, because on the one hand Mr. Assad said that 

the ace in the hole in hiring is the fact that they would be serving 

the warfighter, and Professor Schooner is saying, well, the Defense 

Acquisition University tends to study things to death and not get 

the action and results that the warfighter needs. 

You say that, Mr. Assad, that the Defense Acquisition University 

is incomparable and better than anything in the corporate world 

and it sounds like state-of-the-art. And then Professor Schooner is 

saying that basically they are not even as good as the VA acquisition system, and they are buying hospital supplies. 

Professor SCHOONER. No—— 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, the DAU is probably the most decorated or 

most recognized corporate acquisition university in the country 
16 

over the last five to seven years. What I am saying is DAU is not 

responsible for making a determination as to what the size of the 

workforce is. It happens to be that the president of DAU is our 

human capital officer and works for Acquisition, Technology, and 

Logistics (AT&L), but they are not responsible for that. 

That was the service acquisition executives, as well as the office 

of the under secretary, including myself and my predecessors. 

Mr. COOPER. Professor Schooner, you wanted to comment? 

Professor SCHOONER. Sir, two things. First, I think it is apples 

and oranges to some extent. What VA is doing is a small, nascent 

effort, and it will grow a future workforce. They are bringing in literally tens of people a year, so it is very difficult to compare their 

scope with DAU. 

And I fully appreciate what Mr. Assad is saying that the head 

of DAU is possibly two-hatted. But at the end of the day, he has 

been the point person for this rightsizing of the acquisition workforce. 

And whether we want to point the finger at AT&L or whether 

we want to point it at DAU, I want to just make the simple point 

that we did not need to wait until Congress lost patience to begin 

rebuilding the acquisition workforce. The trend lines are unmistakable. We have seen it coming. There are no surprises here. We 

have been too slow. 

Mr. COOPER. General, did you want to get a word in? I see my 

time has expired. 

General FARRELL. Yes, sir. Well, I just wanted to say I have been 

in acquisition logistics for a long time in the Air Force, so I have 

kind of seen this thing go. I think DAU—their primary responsibility is education, and they do a great job of it. I have been to 

their school. I know General Anderson well. I know some of the 

professors. They do a good job of educating. 

I think one of the issues you haven’t touched on yet is when we 

used to do acquisition really well, and this was about 20 to 25 

years ago, we didn’t have all this education. The emphasis was on 

training, and Chairman Andrews has talked about this. We put 

more emphasis on training and professional development than we 

did on education. Now it seems to me we have got a lot of emphasis 

on education and not as much emphasis on training and professional development. 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you. My time has expired. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Coffman is recognized. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

So it is my understanding—is the number about 65,000 to 75,000 

in defense acquisition right now? 

Mr. ASSAD. I think—in terms of folks that may be within retirement age in five years? 

Mr. COFFMAN. Well, what is the total number right now? 

Mr. ASSAD. One hundred twenty-seven thousand—actually, it is 

179,000 to 185,000 when you talk about the integrated acquisition 

workforce with contractors. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. So why—that is a fairly significant number, 

and I think we are saying now that that number may not be large 

enough. Is that what we are saying, because that is more folks 

than we have on the ground in Iraq? I mean, having served there 
17 

with the United States Marine Corps, I am stunned at this number. 

And having been in government, I have seen where sometimes 

we bring people in and we never push people out that might not 

fit. And we always make room for everybody. And so I have to ask 

the question: Do we have people that are the right people that are 

doing this? I mean, and do we have to make some hard decisions 

here? 

Mr. ASSAD. I think, Mr. Congressman, first of all with regard to 

the size, I think we have got a pretty good idea of the size, and 

we are satisfied that we are about—where we want to go is going 

to address a lot of the issues that we have within the department. 

You make a very good point, and that is to assess—properly assess—the mix of talent that we have. We know that there are some 

specific areas where we have to grow our mix from going from a 

contractor-supported capability into more of an inherent capability. 

I will take the example of marine engineering. We know, for example, within the Navy, the Navy specifically is targeting in its 

growth strategy the growth of marine engineers, that we need to 

regain our shipbuilding marine capability in terms of being able to 

conduct proper oversight and understanding what is going on with 

our marine industry. 

We know that in the Army, for example, they want to make some 

very specific growth in terms of program managers. And so there 

are areas that we can go through pretty good detail and say these 

are specifically by service where we are going to go the people that 

we are going to grow. 

We know exactly what we are doing in terms of the number of 

contracting officers that we want to increase, where we want to increase, the talent level that we want to have. So I am not at all 

here saying that the 20,000 folks that we think we need to grow 

over the next 5 years is insufficient. I believe it should be sufficient, based on what we know today. 

I can tell you that this is no small task, trying to hire 20,000 people over 5 years, and this is going to be—you know, it is a—we will 

do it. And I am very confident we can do it, but it is going to take 

us some time. 

And, you know, you need to be able to look at this in our call 

over a five-year horizon. When we get to about year two or three, 

if we need to adjust this one way or other, up or down, we will be 

prepared to do it. 

But I think we have got a very good plan that is executable. The 

services understand what they want to do and how they want to 

do it and that we can move forward. And I am satisfied that the 

size of the workforce in terms of the government employees, with 

the additions we are making, will be an ample and capable workforce. 

Mr. COFFMAN. On the bringing in some of the technical expertise 

that is currently done by contract, I think that is just a very—I am 

having a lot of difficulty where to draw that line, because when you 

bring somebody in, say, that has a great deal of technical expertise 

in a kind of a finite area, and maybe you would contract—maybe 

they got really six months of work on a project, so where do you 

draw the line in terms of what is routine and what is not? 
18 

Mr. ASSAD. I think that historically, as we are examining our 

contractor workforce, we are doing that. We are actually looking at, 

well, how long have we actually had these contractor employees 

working in this organization? I mean, is this truly a surge capability? And if it is, that absolutely should be contracted out. But if 

it is a long-term requirement and need, and it is an inherent capability that we want to have, those are the kinds of decisions that 

we are making to say we need those to be government employees. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Very good. 

Professor SCHOONER. That is one interesting, and I mentioned in 

my statement—I threw it in a footnote in there—that a fun barometer to use for the outsourcing of the acquisition function is just 

look at a single firm, Acquisition Solutions, and I like to use Acquisition Solutions as an example, because as a general rule they are 

experienced, and the government likes them. They feel like they 

get good service from them, and they have got a pretty good policy 

so that there is no conflict of interest, because they only work for 

the government. 

But we are talking about a firm that over the last 3 fiscal years is taking in about $35 million a year performing fundamental acquisition work for the government. So it is just one barometer. 

There are other firms out there, and there are a fair number of 

them, but it is some example of the fact that we have got a pretty 

significant need. 

One of the other things that I think, frankly, scares me a little 

bit about the reach and depth of Acquisition Solutions is how they 

not only provide so many valuable services to our acquisition community, but they are establishing themselves as the fundamental 

source of knowledge management in acquisition as well. 

And I think this is less true for the Defense Department and 

many of the other government agencies, but for many procurement 

professionals today, the place I go for answers first is their contractor, rather than a government source. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe my time has 

expired. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Coffman. 

With the consent of my colleagues, we will do a second round for 

those who would like. 

I am going to come back to the systems engineering question. 

Any of you, how would you define in quantitative terms the number of systems engineers that we need today to properly manage 

the procurement that we are doing, part A? And then part B, how 

far short of that do we fall right now? How many systems engineers do we need and how many do we have? 

Mr. ASSAD. We have approximately—and I will get you the precise number, but my recollection is 37,000 or so engineers, including our systems engineers. We want to hire 2,800 over the next 5 

years. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 77.] 

Mr. ASSAD. Our services believe that that is sufficient, because 

we do rely on and do utilize systems engineering capability from 

the industrial workforce, and we don’t want to stop that, because 

for the very reason that the congressman mentioned. We may have 
19 

a one-year task that needs to be done or a very specific task that 

needs specific types of skills. We can contract that out, and we will. 

What we are looking for precisely right now is we have a loss of 

some very specific skills that we want to have inherent within government, like marine engineering. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Well, does that 2,800 in your opinion also absorb 

the retirement loss that we are going to suffer? 

Mr. ASSAD. Yes, when I am talking about 2,800, that is growth. 

That is growth on top of the present number. 

Mr. ANDREWS. So that would assume that we fill the vacancies 

of people who retire and add 2,800 slots on top of that? 

Mr. ASSAD. Yes, sir. I think the number is about 6,000 folks a 

year we are hiring within the acquisition—that is on systems level. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Just in systems engineering, I am talking about. 

Mr. ASSAD. I will have to get for the record the exact number on 

an annual basis, but it is about 6,000 overall. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Does anyone on the panel disagree with that assertion as to that number is the goal? 

General FARRELL. I don’t know what the number is, but we 

ought to focus on the criteria, and the criteria is what does it take 

for government to be a good buyer? And all the major defense acquisition programs need systems engineering expertise. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Yes. 

General FARRELL. If you see a program that is contracted out 

with something like a total system performance responsibility, a 

TSPR, or a lead systems integrator, you might assume that the 

government doesn’t have enough systems engineers or expert pricing people to do that job. 

Mr. ANDREWS. General, I think you are touching on a question 

Mr. Conaway and I want to know the answer to. Are all these people being added all entry level? Or are there going to be some 

laterals added as well? 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, let me tell you that the targeted level that we 

are using for our systems is GS–14 and 15. So we understand that 

we are going to have to be very competitive to get systems engineers. Now, we have a systems engineering intern program and a 

management development program that we are looking at. 

Mr. ANDREWS. But the short answer is it is a mix of lateral and 

entry level. 

Mr. ASSAD. That is correct. 

Mr. ANDREWS. What is the blend? Is it 70 entry, 30 lateral, 

or—— 

Mr. ASSAD. I don’t have that number for you, but I will get it 

back for the record and give it to you. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 77.] 

Mr. ANDREWS. Professor, did you want to comment on this question? 

Professor SCHOONER. I am not in a position to quantify on the 

number, but it is quite clear, based on what the general research 

shows and what we are hearing both from the program officers, but 

also specifically from the private sector, that this is a huge hole. 
20 

I think it is great that they are taking an aggressive approach, 

but I again think they need to do both. I think they need to bring 

in the senior people, but they need to grow them, too. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Yes, I think this is an encouraging answer, but 

one obvious finding is that there is this huge hole. 

Let me shift ground for my final question. The committee is very 

interested in much more emphasis on the requirement process in 

procurement. We have learned in our work thus far that a lot of 

the problems that metastasize later in the process grow from an inadequate requirements process. We don’t think things through well 

enough. We don’t have the right kind of requirement design. 

To what extent do you think that procurement professionals 

should be involved in the requirements process, and not simply 

jump in later on? What do you think about that—any of you? 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, I think that there has to be a handoff, a well 

understood and an integrated handoff between the requirements 

generators and the acquisition professionals. And the earlier we 

can get into that process in terms of understanding what the 

warfighter really needs—and frankly, that is where systems engineers come into play is understanding what is the right solution to 

address the warfighter’s need—is helpful. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Is there any reason that you shouldn’t be in on 

day one? 

General FARRELL. It is a given. Well, the operators are the guys 

at stake in the corners—the warfighters. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Right. 

General FARRELL. And it should be their requirement. But there 

should be some discipline in the process, so therefore there has to 

be a healthy tension between the acquisition professionals on the 

one hand and the operators, who are stating the requirement, on 

the other. And there needs to be somebody at the time refereeing 

that process. 

And the way we have seen it work the best is when the Air Force 

used to have the chief referee between the head acquisition guy 

and the head operator, who is demanding the requirement. 

Mr. ANDREWS. That would be a fun job. 

General FARRELL. It works. But somebody has to say—the acquisition guy has to say, ‘‘What you are asking is going to take a total 

redesign. It is going to add this many years. It is going to add this 

many dollars. Is that what the Air Force or the Navy or the Army 

wants?’’ And the chief has to say, ‘‘No, we are going to take a more 

measured approach.’’ 

And one of the things that we need to reinstitute that we kind 

of walked away from is block development, which says that the 

first thing coming off the line doesn’t have all of the unobtainium 

in it. It is kind of a basic—— 

Mr. ANDREWS. Is that on the chart of periodic elements? 

General FARRELL. Yes. It is a basic article. It has got a measurable increase over the thing that it is replacing, but it is going to 

grow over time with the block two, the block three and the block 

four. If you put block development in every program, you would see 

a measurable improvement in its cost and schedule performance. 

Mr. ASSAD. All right. Thank you, Mr. Congressman. That is specifically what the material development decision process is all 
21 

about that we have instituted in DOD Instruction 5000. It is to get 

the warfighters, the requirements generators, together with the acquisition folks, pre-milestone A, to say do we really have a solution 

and do we understand what your requirement is? How do we concept that? 

Mr. ANDREWS. My final comment would be one of the witnesses— 

I think the professor—talked about encouraging ROTC education 

and whatnot, that any sort of integrated education we could do 

with our warfighters and our civilian procurement people make an 

awful lot of sense, that to the extent that some of our men and 

women in the field that are driving the requirements for us also 

had some skills and knowledge in the procurement area, that they 

got some skill set would be a very, very positive thing. 

Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Chairman. 

The hiring process you mentioned, Mr. Assad, the expedited— 

what would we call the hiring process? 

Mr. ASSAD. Hiring authority. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Well, the expedited hiring authority versus competitive or regular or the—— 

Mr. ASSAD. Oh—oh, no, sir. The expedited hiring authority is 

still competitive. What it does is it enables us to keep positions 

open for a longer period of time, kind of a rolling admissions type 

of a thing. 

Mr. CONAWAY. What is the time differential between a typical 

hire under the standard model versus the expedited model? 

Mr. ASSAD. I can just see to my own personal experience. The 

regular process at times has taken us 7 to 8 months to hire somebody, and in an expedited hiring authority, we can get them in in 

90 days. That is pretty good. 

I mean, you know, they know up front that they are going to be 

hired. That is the important thing. It is that uncertainty of someone who is looking for a job—do I know I am actually going to be 

hired? And if they understand that they are, then they do understand they have got to go through, in some cases, security clearance processes, other cases—— 

Mr. CONAWAY. So the expediter allows you to tell them, well, we 

are hiring you. 

Mr. ASSAD. Right. 

Mr. CONAWAY. But that means they have got to make personal 

choices to wait on whatever that is. They have got some confidence 

to do that. And that is where that 13 number came in earlier that 

you only had 13 people bail out on you under the expedited model? 

Mr. ASSAD. That is correct. Yes, sir. That is correct. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Any sense of how many people bail out under the 

regular model? 

Mr. ASSAD. Well, the problem is that in many instances—I don’t 

have a precise number, but I can tell you anecdotally oftentimes 

what happens is you go back and tell somebody you want to hire 

them, and they are gone. They are already working for somebody 

else. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you. 

Professor, you mentioned incentives in the private sector that 

aren’t available in the public sector. Can you give me some sense 
22 

of what kind of incentives we could offer to government employees, 

given your understanding of how the government works and how 

incentives programs that we have in a lot of places get hung up in 

the union issues and, you know, all those kinds of things? 

Professor SCHOONER. Well, I actually commend Mr. Assad. In 

some recent testimony he has talked about the fact that DOD is 

looking at this issue again, and I think anything they do is a good 

example. But the least cost, most effective one I have seen in the 

last generation was Vice President Al Gore gave away hammers on 

frames, and that worked pretty darn well. It didn’t cost very much. 

People loved the pat on the head. 

Mr. CONAWAY. So it is the recognition more than money. 

Professor SCHOONER. I think that is part of it, but I also think 

we can do more with money as well. 

Mr. CONAWAY. All right. 

And then one final question for the whole panel. Talking about 

contractors in this day and age is a lot like talking about lobbyists. 

It is almost used as a pejorative, and that is not fair on either one 

of them. 

Do we really have a good understanding of what a good contractor looks like when you see him? I mean, we have certainly got 

some contractors throughout this 52,000 that at least you should 

talk about, who we get good value from when they do the job for 

us. Do we understand which is which? 

Mr. ASSAD. I think we do, and I certainly don’t want to intimate 

at all, Mr. Congressman, that we are not getting good value from 

the contractors that are working for us. In general they do a good 

job. I think what this is just is a recognition that there are some 

capabilities that we just need to increase our own particular capability. 

Mr. CONAWAY. That leads to a kind of aside. One of you mentioned inherently governmental functions and tightening up, generally tightening up. What did you mean by tightening up? I didn’t 

know which way that tightening went. 

General FARRELL. It is a very loose definition in its application. 

There are also some spinouts. I have got a paper here that we did 

in the National Defense Industrial Association, which we provided 

for your staff. And the paper goes through it. We sent it to OMB. 

But basically definition in this application is very loosely applied. 

There are some spinout definitions like positions closely associated 

with inherently government. Who knows what that means? 

Mr. CONAWAY. Okay. 

General FARRELL. There is a process under way now to define 

that. OMB has got the stick on that, and they are supposed to report out on 30 September, but if they don’t come out with a tight 

definition of that, it is going to be very difficult between government and industry to sort out what we do. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Should they have that definition out before they 

get out the estimate for the 2009 deficit? Never mind. That is an 

inflammatory comment. Any other comments on your contractors 

versus their contractors? 

Professor SCHOONER. Very briefly on this. First of all, the public 

perception of this issue is simply incorrect. Our contractors provide 

the United States Government excellent value for money. And I 
23 

have spent a lot of time traveling around the world working with 

other governments on their procurement systems. We have the best 

procurement system in the world. We get terrific value for our 

money. 

At the end of the day, we can take any individual example. If I 

were to just give you one quick one, the public believes deep in 

their heart that Kellogg Brown & Root has done a bad job in the 

LOGCAP contract. That is wrong. 

I believe that a generation from now, military history may reflect 

that the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract 

is the most significant advance in military history ever. Never has 

a military had the ability to project so much potency and sustainability around the world with such speed. Mr. Assad mentioned 

surge capacity. This is a remarkable model, and the public has absolutely no idea, because they are focused on errors at the margin. 

Having said that, the errors at the margin are what are caused 

by not having enough people to effectively manage our contracts. 

But these are superb contractors doing excellent work for our Defense Department. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Next. 

General FARRELL. Yes, sir. The kind of people we need to bring 

into government are highly technical, skilled guys. If we are going 

to insource things, we should not insource what I call the arms and 

legs business. 

Mr. CONAWAY. The what? 

General FARRELL. The arms and legs business—people carrying 

things, delivering things, performing basic logistics functions, because the industry is much more agile than government when it 

comes to hiring and laying those people off and making the financial adjustments. 

To follow on the professor’s comment, somebody like Kellogg 

Brown & Root, over half the people supporting those guys in Iraq 

are former service guys. And when somebody comes up—if a soldier 

comes up and I am supplying water or meals, and they say, ‘‘You 

know, we need three crates of water or we need two trucks of 

water,’’ I don’t ask the guy to sign an invoice. I deliver it to him. 

And when I deliver to him, I don’t tell him to drop his rifle and 

sign the fact that I have delivered it. 

But you have seen GAO go out there and audit those things and 

say, ‘‘We can’t verify the fact that, you know, two trucks of water 

was delivered on such and such a day.’’ These guys are doing incredible work out there, and we ought to give them credit for it. 

Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you, Mr. Conaway. 

Mr. Coffman, do you have any follow-up? 

Mr. COFFMAN. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

I think that there was some discussion about the mix between 

military and civilian procurement officers, and there was a comment about just the training and professional development of military personnel versus civilians. Do we have the right mix of military personnel versus civilians in procurement? 

Mr. ASSAD. I believe we do, Mr. Congressman. We have about 

2,200 Air Force personnel, uniformed Air Force personnel, who are 

in the contracting profession, if you will. We have a thousand who 
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are in the acquisition profession. We have about 400 Army, to soon 

grow to a thousand, in terms of contracting professionals. So we 

have got a pretty good mix of military. 

We are focusing on military capability primarily on supporting 

the battlefield, and that is where it needs to be. We need acquisition program managers, who are capable of managing major weapons systems, but in terms of doing the actual logistics and contracting support itself, our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines 

need to know and have the skills that are necessary to operate on 

the battlefield and support those soldiers who are on the battlefield, and marines and airmen and sailors. 

And I think that we have got a pretty good mix. Mr. Schooner 

mentioned our development programs. We have an outstanding development program in the Air Force in terms of growing its acquisition professionals. The Marine Corps has recently over the last two 

years completely restored and revitalized its acquisition professional management curricula and their development program for 

Marine officers and Marine enlisted. It is very impressive. 

So I think we are in pretty good shape with regard to what we 

need. The Army is going to have a challenge, you know, over the 

next four or five years. They are continuing to grow. They have a 

good idea of the number that they need. They are not there, but 

they have a plan to get there. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, gentlemen. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you. 

I would like to thank my colleagues and thank the panel for excellent work here this morning. I think the committee is very much 

focused not on quantitative questions, but on qualitative ones. I 

think if we approach this issue from the question how many people 

should we have working on this problem, we are not going to get 

the right answer. 

What I prefer to see us do is derive some qualitative standards, 

where we say, ‘‘How can we have the very best procurement system 

from the point of view of the uniformed personnel and the taxpayer,’’ and then figure out the skill sets necessary to achieve that, 

and then work the quantity out from there. 

I think we have a great opportunity in the budget commitment 

that the secretary of defense has made to fill out the workforce, but 

I think it is our responsibility—it is incumbent upon us—to take 

full advantage of that opportunity and make sure that we give Mr. 

Assad and his colleagues the tools in recruiting, training, educating 

and retaining high-quality people, who will be able to do the work 

that needs to be done here. 

I am particularly impressed by the fact that General Farrell’s 

story, I think, is very telling, that I don’t want to see us fall into 

the trap of stereotypical assumptions, good or bad, about contractors and/or public employees. There are negative stereotypes for 

both. There are positive stereotypes for both. We don’t want to be 

in the stereotype business. 

We want to encourage a system where we have sensible lines to 

draw between where we insource and where we outsource based 

upon the merits, and then we get the best on both sides, and we 

reward people and incentivize them to do the job as well as they 

can. 
25 

Because you have done such a good job this morning, your reward is that we are going to ask you more questions later on in 

the process, I am sure, and if you gentlemen would avail yourselves 

to that, this panel’s intention is to present legislative recommendations to the full committee in time for the fiscal year 2011 bill that 

will come out next year. We are certainly going to be asking you 

for your thoughts as we go forward in that process. 

With that, the panel stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 9:11 a.m., the panel was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

JULY 21, 2009 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

JULY 21, 2009 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

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RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ANDREWS 

Mr. ASSAD. As of June 30, 2009, 36,039 members of the organic defense acquisition workforce occupy acquisition positions designated as engineering in the Systems Planning, Research, Development and Engineering (SPRDE) career field. Competency assessments and other initiatives will continue to inform capability and capacity needs. In addition, as a part of the Secretary’s acquisition workforce growth 

strategy, approximately 2,800 SPRDE government employees will be added through 

2015. [See page 18.] 

Mr. ASSAD. During fiscal year 2008, 1,756 of the 2,161 hires to SPRDE acquisition 

positions of the defense acquisition workforce were external DOD hires and the remaining 405 were DOD internal hires. Seventy-three percent of external DOD General Schedule (GS) hires were at the GS–09 or lower level. Fifty-seven percent of 

external DOD National Security Personnel System hires were at Pay Band 1 and 

43 percent at Pay Bands 2 or 3. Of the 1,756 external hires, approximately 38 percent appear to have been recent college graduates. [See page 19.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

JULY 21, 2009 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ANDREWS 

Mr. ANDREWS. Can you describe in more detail the competency modeling you are 

conducting? GAO has suggested that the modeling will be useful for identifying the 

capability you currently have in the workforce, but it may be less than useful in 

telling you what you need in the workforce. How do you intend to ensure you do 

indeed have the workforce you NEED? 

Mr. ASSAD. The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (USD (AT&L)) has deployed a joint competency management initiative to update, validate, and standardize functional competencies for each career field within 

the DOD AT&L workforce and to support workforce planning, gap analysis, development, and training applications. Each competency model defines technical and professional competencies and the related elements and key behaviors needed to be successful in the corresponding acquisition career field. 

The Department’s Contracting Community is the first to have utilized its competency model to assess workforce capabilities and gaps and to identify training and 

development needs. The Contracting Competency Assessment, completed in September 2008, targeted 20,573 contracting professionals DOD-wide and achieved a 

participation rate of over 87%. The purpose of the assessment was to assess individual capabilities and training needs and evaluate overall organization/command 

capabilities and gaps. Assessment results were provided to each participating organization/command to provide senior procurement executives and contracting leaders 

with an organization/command-level view of their workforce’s overall proficiency levels. A key role for senior contracting leaders was to apply their leadership judgment 

to these results in order to identify workforce gaps and the appropriate gap closure 

strategies, thus aligning their workforce with their mission and developing a workforce for the future. 

The Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund (DAWDF) and the FY2010 

Defense Budget together provide senior leaders with the means to close workforce 

gaps and adjust human capital strategies. Today the Department is implementing 

DAWDF initiatives to include training enhancement and capacity expansion, retention and recognition efforts, career broadening and academic programs, intern programs, recruiting incentives, outreach programs, journeyman hiring programs, and 

a focus on hiring expert knowledge and/or highly qualified experts. In addition, the 

Department will grow the contracting workforce and increase the DOD organic acquisition management capability. Together, these actions ensure that we will indeed 

have the workforce we need to deliver mission-critical capabilities. 

A hallmark of the contracting effort was the extensive involvement of senior procurement executives and leaders across the Contracting Community in updating the 

competency model, ensuring participation in the assessment, and applying assessment results to the human capital planning process. This leadership involvement is 

a workforce best practice and ensures leaders are actively engaged in the current 

and future relevance of competencies used to assess and develop the workforce. Periodic competency model reviews are planned to ensure currency of the competencies 

in light of emerging and future needs. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Are there particular types of contracts that are more challenging 

to oversee and manage? Do individuals assigned to those contracts receive any special training? 

Mr. ASSAD. It is as much the complexity of the requirement as the type of contract 

that determines the level of contract surveillance and the training required. The 

Subcommittee on Sufficient Contract Surveillance under the Panel on Contracting 

Integrity was charged with reviewing Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) 

functions and developing a DOD Standard for COR Certification. It also focused on 

the type of training required for appropriate and effective contract surveillance. 

While the effort is not yet complete, the subcommittee established three levels of 

required competencies and training requirements based on the nature and complexity of the work. 

• Level A is a contract with low performance-risk, fixed price requirements without incentives. COR duties/responsibility would generally be limited to minimal 
82 

technical and/or administrative monitoring of the contract. Training requirements are spelled out in the standard. 

• Level B is other than low risk, e.g. the contract requirements may include (1) 

more complex work; (2) work that is performed in multiple locations; (3) incentive arrangements or cost-sharing provisions, or (4) is a cost type or time and 

material effort. COR duties/responsibilities are of increased complexity. The 

training requirements for CORs in these cases are greater and are again spelled 

out in the standard. 

• Level C are those contracts that have a unique requirement, such as major 

weapon systems, earned value management (EVM), environmental remediation, 

certain OCONUS contingency efforts, etc. COR duties/responsibilities involve 

highly complex or specialized requirements and the standard for the training 

requirements address this complexity. 

The Subcommittee is working with the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) to 

develop all the appropriate training and certification requirements for CORs. 

Mr. ANDREWS. What do you view as the current weaknesses in the acquisition 

workforce? And, in your view what are the causes for those weaknesses? Conversely, 

what are the strengths? 

Mr. ASSAD. Our biggest current weakness in the acquisition workforce is the significant decline in the size of the workforce during the past 15 years. On April 6, 

2009 Secretary Gates announced his plans to grow, reshape and rebalance the acquisition workforce to address this compelling weakness. The intent is to reshape 

and rebalance the size of the acquisition workforce with measurable targets for 

growth. This will enable appropriate oversight, pricing, and technical management 

of our major weapon systems and services contracts. 

Our greatest strength remains the high quality and strong dedication of our people who make up the acquisition workforce and the quality of training delivered to 

develop the competencies and skills of the acquisition team. We have a workforce 

that truly cares about the acquisition mission and strives to provide best value products and services to the soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen who are currently operating in conflicts around the world. 

Mr. ANDREWS. With an aging workforce—both within DOD and the private sector—how should organizations be planning to ensure that the acquisition community has the skills and experience needed for the future? 

Mr. ASSAD. The planning process for different organizations will be different – it 

is not a ‘‘one size fits all’’ situation. The Department’s acquisition workforce planning construct to ensure that the DOD has the right skills and experience needed 

for the future was based on the following principles: 1) senior leadership involvement; 2) data-driven workforce analysis and decision-making; 3) ensuring that the 

right participants are involved to include functional and human resource managers; 

4) ensuring there is a defined strategic intent with the appropriate resources; 5) promoting partnering between functional and line managers; and 6) ensuring that force 

planning and comptroller personnel are actively involved. 

Approximately 68% of the defense acquisition workforce is in the Baby Boomer 

generation. The Secretary’s strategy for growth of the acquisition workforce, enabled 

by the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund, provides for significant 

entry-level and journeymen hiring. DOD’s hiring strategy is data driven and will 

vary based on the functional community. In general, approximately 60% of new hiring is for interns and 40% for journeymen. The strategy is supported by initiatives 

and tools such as expedited hiring authorities, retention incentives, improved recognition opportunities, improved competency gap information, and expanded training and development resources. These tools and initiatives will ensure the Department is taking appropriate actions today to produce the skills and experience required for the future. 

Mr. ANDREWS. What role should the acquisition workforce play in the upfront requirements definition and pre-award planning for either products or services? 

Mr. ASSAD. The acquisition workforce should play an active and collaborative role 

in the definition of requirements by ensuring that: requirements are clearly stated; 

associated technologies are mature; and integration and manufacturing risks are 

identified. The acquisition workforce plays a principal role in pre-award planning 

by selecting business strategies designed to satisfy the government’s requirement in 

a cost-effective manner. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Not only military personnel but senior civilians rotate through acquisition offices on a fairly regular basis. A weapon systems program lasting 20 

years could have 10 different program officers, none of whom have any real ownership of the program. This leads to complacency—no one wants to point out problems 

on their watch. Should we require longer terms, at least for civilian personnel, for 
83 

program managers? If so, should it be for the life of the program or at certain milestones? 

Mr. ASSAD. I expect that major system Program Managers’ tours will comply with 

statutory guidelines and current Department policy. Section 1734 of Title 10, United 

States Code, generally requires the Program Manager and Deputy Program Manager of a major defense acquisition program to be assigned to their position until 

completion of the major milestone (e.g., system design and development) that occurs 

closest to four years in their position. DOD Instruction 5000.66 provides additional 

guidance and establishes the requirement for a written tenure agreement. 

May 2007 policy memo, ‘‘Program Management Tenure and Accountability,’’ emphasized the need for Program Managers to have sufficient tenure to achieve expected outcomes and to improve both systemic and personal accountability. Signed 

tenure agreements capture that expectation. There are waiver provisions in place, 

but the Military Departments are aggressive in limiting approvals of waiver requests. The Navy reports, for example, that nearly two-thirds of their Program Managers serve until the agreed upon tenure is completed. 

We have long recognized the need to balance the need for individual career development with sufficient tenure to provide for stability and accountability. Department policy already calls for longer tour lengths for assignments to acquisition positions and our planned financial incentive program will further encourage people to 

stay in their positions longer. However, the Department also believes there is value 

in rotating experienced members of the acquisition corps to other programs so they 

transfer lessons learned across the acquisition community. This, too, is recognized 

in statute (10 U.S.C. 1734) which generally calls for the rotation of those serving 

in critical acquisition positions (both military and civilians) after five years. 

The Military Departments all recognize the need to balance Program Manager 

tenure with the career development needed to grow future acquisition leaders. They 

are using available flexibilities to tailor tenure appropriately based on the program 

and its point in the life cycle. For example, the Army staggers rotations to ensure 

continuity of program goals and responsibilities. At their Project and Product Managers level, they attempt to ensure all Program Managers in one office do not rotate 

out of their positions in the same year. In addition, civilians who serve as Deputy 

Program Executive Officers and Deputy Program Managers are often in their positions for five or more years, providing dedicated continuity of effort. 

We will continue to use assignment policies that look at individuals’ career development and overall program manning to improve the acquisition workforce as a 

whole and still meet individual program objectives. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Besides mandating that an individual have certain DAWIA certifications (which they could obtain early in their career), there appears to be no identified career path for talented individuals in the acquisition field. What initiatives 

need to be taken to ensure continuing training/education and the possible development of a more defined career path for acquisition personnel? 

Mr. ASSAD. We have a very structured and defined career path for both military 

and civilian members of the defense acquisition workforce. The DOD acquisition 

workforce development program is structured to support the continuing professional 

development of individuals throughout their careers. The objective of the program 

is to develop a professional, agile, motivated workforce and to ensure that individuals are prepared for current and future performance success. The career development program supports attainment of acquisition competencies and continuous 

learning to include updates on evolving policies and procedures. Acquisition leaders 

are responsible for providing personnel opportunities to grow in three defined areas: 

1) education, 2) training, and 3) experience. These three elements provide a structured approach to ensure individuals are qualified for critical and advanced acquisition positions. It is much more than just DAWIA certification. 

Members of the acquisition workforce and their supervisors establish tailored 

plans for continuous learning in order to increase functional proficiency, maintain 

currency, increase leadership and cross-functional competencies. They are also required to complete 80 continuous learning points (CLPs) every two years. Members 

are expected to possess the competencies necessary to perform in their current assignment and develop their potential for career progression. 

We recently enhanced our career development framework. This new framework is 

designed to guide acquisition professionals to competency development beyond the 

minimum standards required for certification, based on specific types of assignments 

within an acquisition function/career field. Certification and Core Plus development 

guides are available at http://icatalog.dau.mil/onlinecatalog/CareerLvl.aspx. Support 

resources include new certification requirements and training, over 200 web-based 

continuous learning modules, knowledge management and best practice tools, and 

other, component-specific, development guidance and resources. Many of these re-
84 

sources are also used by other federal agency acquisition workforce members. In addition, DOD members are encouraged to pursue career opportunities through career 

broadening to include assignments and tours of duty with other federal agencies. 

The Department continues to improve upon career development resources. For example, DOD is updating competencies and conducting individual assessments which 

provide valuable information to identify gaps and further develop and enhance skills 

sets. Metrics have been developed that provide insight into the qualifications of all 

members. Also, there are Directors of Acquisition Career Management for all the 

military services and for the defense agencies. These individuals work with individual members to ensure they have career development opportunities that allow 

them to grow and compete for promotions throughout their career. 

The Department’s strategic acquisition workforce planning is focused on ensuring 

we have the right workforce we need to meet current and future mission requirements, including the right competencies and the right numbers. 

Mr. ANDREWS. We have been told that there are no senior level courses on service 

contracting being taught at the Defense Acquisition University? Why is that when 

service contracts account for so much of the DOD budget today? 

Mr. ASSAD. DOD has increased services-specific training resources to include 

training for senior leaders and managers. In 2007, DOD established a Learning 

Center of Excellence (LCOE) for services acquisition at the Defense Acquisition University. The Center of Excellence, in partnership with the components, has been 

very active in creating new services training resources. Results include creation and 

deployment of a new mid-level course—ACQ 265—Mission Focused Services. This 

course is targeted to employees, managers and leaders involved in developing service requirements, business arrangements, and performance management or oversight strategies. The course is case-based and requires students develop key elements of a service acquisition. 

DOD has also deployed new-start services acquisition training for local multi-functional teams. Using the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund, DAU developed and taught 14 Service Acquisition Workshops (SAWs) this year. These action learning workshops use ‘‘real’’ new start acquisitions and help engage the local 

team and their leadership early in the acquisition process to create performancebased requirements and business strategies. 

DAU is also developing the Service Acquisition Mall or SAM. SAM will be an online resource available to participants in the services acquisition process, assisting 

them in developing and executing service acquisition requirements using a performance based approach. SAM is organized by Product Service Codes grouped into 

Knowledge Portfolios of similar type services. SAM will contain training from the 

SAWs and best-in-class examples of performance objectives, performance standards 

and performance assessment metrics for the different types of services within a 

knowledge portfolio. Planned enhancements include developing ‘‘smart tools’’ to 

guide users through the service acquisition process and provide them with the tools 

and to convert old statements of work into performance based requirements. 

Finally, in partnership with the Air Force and the University of Tennessee, DAU 

has developed an online senior level awareness training module. This module was 

piloted recently with Air Force leadership and the Missile Defense Agency. Based 

on pilot feedback, the training is being finalized and will be widely available in the 

first quarter of 2010. 

DOD recognizes the importance of services acquisition and will continue to improve its training resources to support improved acquisition outcomes. 

Mr. ANDREWS. What do you view as the current weaknesses in the acquisition 

workforce? And, in your view what are the causes for those weaknesses? Conversely, 

what are the strengths? 

Professor SCHOONER. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. ANDREWS. With an aging workforce—both within DOD and the private sector—how should organizations be planning to ensure that the acquisition community has the skills and experience needed for the future? 

Professor SCHOONER. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. ANDREWS. How do you view the DOD initiative to increase the workforce? 

Professor SCHOONER. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. ANDREWS. Acquisition jobs can be a tough sell these days, what do we need 

to do to attract college graduates and even mid-career experienced individuals to 

join the acquisition community? 

Professor SCHOONER. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. ANDREWS. Besides mandating that an individual have certain DAWIA certifications (which they could obtain early in their career), there appears to be no identified career path for talented individuals in the acquisition field. What initiatives 
85 

need to be taken to ensure continuing training/education and the possible development of a more defined career path for acquisition personnel? 

Professor SCHOONER. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. ANDREWS. We have been told that there are no senior level courses on service 

contracting being taught at the Defense Acquisition University? Why is that when 

service contracts account for so much of the DOD budget today? 

Professor SCHOONER. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. ANDREWS. What role should the acquisition workforce play in the upfront requirements definition and pre-award planning for either products or services? 

Professor SCHOONER. [The information was not available at the time of printing.] 

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