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i 

72–933 2012

[H.A.S.C. No. 112–95] 

DOING BUSINESS WITH DOD: GETTING INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FROM CONCEPT 

TO THE HANDS OF THE WARFIGHTER 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

PANEL ON BUSINESS CHALLENGES WITHIN THE 

DEFENSE INDUSTRY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JANUARY 23, 2012 
(II) 

PANEL ON BUSINESS CHALLENGES WITHIN THE DEFENSE INDUSTRY 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

BOBBY SCHILLING, Illinois 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

ALLEN B. WEST, Florida 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

LYNN WILLIAMS, Professional Staff Member 

TIMOTHY MCCLEES, Professional Staff Member 

CATHERINE SENDAK, Research Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2012 

Page 

HEARING: 

Monday, January 23, 2012, Doing Business with DOD: Getting Innovative 

Solutions from Concept to the Hands of the Warfighter .................................. 1 

APPENDIX: 

Monday, January 23, 2012 ...................................................................................... 27 

MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2012 

DOING BUSINESS WITH DOD: GETTING INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS 

FROM CONCEPT TO THE HANDS OF THE WARFIGHTER 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Hanabusa, Hon. Colleen, a Representative from Hawaii, Panel on Business 

Challenges within the Defense Industry ............................................................ 2 

Shuster, Hon. Bill, a Representative from Pennsylvania, Chairman, Panel 

on Business Challenges within the Defense Industry ...................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Cross, Dr. Stephen E., Executive Vice President for Research, Georgia Institute of Technology ................................................................................................ 3 

Huffman, Dr. Stephen, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, The 

MITRE Corporation ............................................................................................. 6 

Winarsky, Dr. Norman, Vice President, SRI Ventures, Stanford Research 

Institute ................................................................................................................ 4 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Cross, Dr. Stephen E. ....................................................................................... 35 

Huffman, Dr. Stephen ...................................................................................... 58 

Larsen, Hon. Rick, a Representative from Washington, Ranking Member, 

Panel on Business Challenges within the Defense Industry .................... 33 

Shuster, Hon. Bill ............................................................................................. 31 

Winarsky, Dr. Norman ..................................................................................... 44 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Summaries from Industry Roundtables in New Jersey, California, and 

Hawaii ............................................................................................................ 71 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

DOING BUSINESS WITH DOD: GETTING INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FROM CONCEPT TO THE HANDS OF THE 

WARFIGHTER 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, PANEL ON BUSINESS CHALLENGES WITHIN

THE DEFENSE INDUSTRY, Washington, DC, Monday, January 23, 2012. 

The panel met, pursuant to call, at 3:02 p.m., in room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bill Shuster (chairman of the 

panel) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BILL SHUSTER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM PENNSYLVANIA, CHAIRMAN, PANEL ON BUSINESS CHALLENGES WITHIN THE DEFENSE INDUSTRY 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, I want to call the hearing to order and thank 

our witnesses for being here today, appreciate you taking the time, 

spending it with us, hear your insights. 

As you probably know, the House Armed Services Committee 

[HASC] Panel on Business Challenges in the Defense Industry was 

set up specifically to look how entities, organizations, firms—small, 

medium, large, private, public—all do work with the Department 

of Defense [DOD] and the challenges that they face, the hurdles 

that they face, and specifically today talking about some of the 

technologies that institutions like the three of you represent here 

bring to the game, bring to the warfighter to help them do a better 

job. As I said, we are working on trying to understand the challenges that all those entities face. 

Equally important to the industrial base is the role of universities, nonprofit research institutions, and development centers in 

bringing those different scientific discoveries and new ideas to the 

market or to the Defense Department. 

In the many roundtables we have conducted with industry, the 

constant refrain has revolved around the problems in bridging the 

so-called valley of death in transitioning good scientific ideas and 

prototypes to actual production and programs of record. We hope 

that our witnesses today will be able to shed some additional light 

on the problem and hopefully make recommendations on how to 

improve the overall technology transfer and transition process. 

While the industry is the maker of things, universities and research institutes are the makers of new ideas; and without that 

cross-flow of ideas, technical expertise, and manufacturing capacity 

and capital, most of the great innovations in the marketplace today 

simply would not exist. Business, and particularly small businesses, are the backbone of this economy, but they rely on a robust 
2 

pool of new scientific ideas to create new commercial opportunities 

and keep the Nation’s economy competitive. Looking at how the 

process can be better supported is why we are here today. 

And, as I said, welcome our three really terrific witnesses. Dr. 

Stephen Cross is Executive Vice President for Research at the 

Georgia Institute of Technology; Dr. Norman Winarsky, Vice President of SRI Ventures, the Stanford Research Institute; and Dr. Stephen Huffman, Vice President and Chief Technological Officer for 

The MITRE Corporation. That is right, MITRE, right? Are you still 

in McLean, Virginia? 

Dr. HUFFMAN. McLean, Virginia, and Bedford, Massachusetts. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Okay. Well, Bedford is not a bad place. Bedford, 

Pennsylvania, is a little bit better than Bedford, Massachusetts, 

but it is all good. 

I am looking forward to the discussion we will have with our distinguished panel, but, before I do that, I would like to, first of all, 

introduce those on the panel. 

I think you have all briefly met Colonel West, who represents a 

district in Florida; Congressman Jon Runyan from New Jersey; and 

Colleen Hanabusa; and our ranking member, Mr. Larsen, is unable 

to make it; and Ms. Sutton is, I understand, having some problems 

getting here because of the weather. So our senior Democrat today 

is Ms. Hanabusa, but she has really been the star of the panel. She 

has made every hearing. She has traveled everywhere in the country we have gone. So it is a great pleasure. I yield to her for some 

remarks. 

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

STATEMENT OF HON. COLLEEN HANABUSA, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM HAWAII, PANEL ON BUSINESS CHALLENGES 

WITHIN THE DEFENSE INDUSTRY 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And, first of all, I would like to say to our testifiers today that 

this is a topic that is really very important to—Mr. Larsen has 

been an advocate of it and so has Ms. Sutton. So, believe me, if 

they could be here, they would be here. 

And it is one thing about being from Hawaii, is that I don’t get 

to go home. So it is just a matter of whether the sidewalks are not 

so slippery that I don’t take a spill, I will be here. 

Having said that, Mr. Chair, and again thank you for having this 

great hearing, I would like to ask for your unanimous consent to 

have Mr. Larsen’s opening statement put into the record. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Without objection, so ordered. 

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

Ms. HANABUSA. And with that, I think we are ready to begin. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Okay, great. Thank you very much. 

One thing, a little housekeeping, I need to introduce the summaries from the roundtables we held in New Jersey, California, 

Hawaii; and, without objection, the summary memos will be included in the record. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 71.] 
3 

Mr. SHUSTER. One thing I didn’t mention is Mr. Larsen and I 

have been doing this now for several months, and it seems to me 

that we were stood up for about 6 months and that we are coming 

close to the end to come out with some concrete recommendations 

we can put in the next defense authorization bill. But it seems to 

me this is probably going to be a longer-term process, because 

there are some big problems that I think we face getting those 

ideas and those new technologies to the DOD. 

So it is my hope that after we come forth with some concrete 

ideas and legislation we will continue this look backward over history. And it took about 4 years for Goldwater-Nichols to finally 

pound it into the Department of Defense’s head that they need to 

operate jointly, so I think this is another situation—this is not 

going to be 6 months or one piece of legislation. This is going to 

be over a period of time convincing folks who have been doing business for a long, long time the same way that they need to look at 

things differently. 

So, with that, I will hear testimony from our panelists. First, Dr. 

Cross, please. 

STATEMENT OF DR. STEPHEN E. CROSS, EXECUTIVE VICE 

PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 

Dr. CROSS. Chairman Shuster and panel members, thank you 

first for the opportunity to testify today. My name, for the record, 

is Stephen E. Cross. I am a proud veteran; and I currently serve, 

as was noted, as Executive Vice President for Research of the Georgia Institute of Technology, more commonly called Georgia Tech. 

Over the past 25 years, I have been involved in defense research 

and technology transition activities through leadership positions in 

Department of Defense laboratories, DARPA [Defense Advanced 

Research Projects Agency], through the directorship of a federally 

funded research and development center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, called the Software Engineering Institute, and through my current position. I have also led 

many advisory boards related to your topic today; and, besides my 

academic appointment at Georgia Tech, I am proud to also serve 

as a member of the Defense Science Board. 

Georgia Tech includes the largest engineering school in the country, and it is ranked in the top 10 of technological universities in 

the world, has an enviable track record of economic development 

success, and I think this is attributable to both a culture and a 

unique integration of leading-edge research and technology transition and economic development. So in addition to the world-class 

faculty and graduate students, it includes what is called the Georgia Tech Research Institute, which is 1,500 people devoted to applied research and subject matter experts that work on many defense problems, as well as the State of Georgia-supported economic 

development arm that includes 225 specialists. 

It is—so we also have unique infrastructure and a culture where 

we work on classified problems right on the main campus. We 

pride ourselves on our agility and our ability to do research that 

anticipates future needs. So I will probably explore this more in the 

testimony today. 
4 

But the challenges that we face today are, if we look at military 

history, are not completely unprecedented. What is changing more 

than anything today is the rate of change. 

It used to be that we could rely on time to respond. I remember 

when I was still on active duty in Operation Desert Storm, we had 

5 months to respond until the Iraqis came into Kuwait. We just 

don’t have that luxury anymore, especially with cyber attack, for 

instance. We also used to be able to rely on our geography, but we 

can’t do that anymore. And we used to rely on just technologies 

that would come out of our laboratories in the United States. But 

the globalization of research means that we need to be aware of 

what is being done across the globe. 

So, not surprisingly, and of course I strongly urge continued support for defense-related research, but I also applaud this panel’s 

looking into improvements that can be made in the entire defense 

enterprise, both cultural and in business practices, so that we can 

actually ensure that our forces can continue to meet the future 

threat, have an unfair competitive advantage on the battlefield, 

and continually embrace practices of innovation. 

So I look forward to doing my best to answer your questions here 

today. If I fumble or if I don’t completely answer a question, I 

would be very happy to at any other time answer any questions or 

support your staff in any way I can. 

Again, thank you very much for this opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Cross can be found in the Appendix on page 35.] 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much, Dr. Cross. 

With that, Dr. Winarsky. 

STATEMENT OF DR. NORMAN WINARSKY, VICE PRESIDENT, 

SRI VENTURES, STANFORD RESEARCH INSTITUTE 

Dr. WINARSKY. Chairman Shuster and members of the panel, 

thank you for the opportunity to submit written testimony to you 

about independent nonprofit research and development organizations. 

I am Norman Winarsky. I am Vice President of Ventures for SRI 

International, a nonprofit research and development organization 

with facilities in Menlo Park and locations around the United 

States and internationally, including Princeton, New Jersey; State 

College, Pennsylvania; and Tokyo, Japan; to name a few. 

SRI International was founded as Stanford Research Institute in 

1946 and performs sponsored research and development for governments, businesses, and foundations. We are known worldwide for 

world-changing innovations in computing, health and pharmaceuticals, and in chemistry and materials, sensing, energy, education, national defense, and more. 

We bring our innovations from the laboratory to the marketplace 

through technology licensing, products, and spin-off ventures. Our 

innovations have created entirely new industries, billions of dollars 

in marketplace value, and lasting contributions to society. 

SRI invented the mouse, it helped advance the Internet, it invented HDTV [high definition television], and those yellow lines 

that you see in the ball games, that was augmented reality that 

was invented at SRI Princeton. 
5 

SRI’s most important contributions relate to innovation itself. We 

teach innovation best practices, which we call the discipline of innovation. We have started more than 40 spin-off companies to leverage our technology in new commercial applications, with total 

market value of those companies exceeding $20 billion. One recent 

example, SRI’s artificial intelligence project for DARPA, called 

CALO, led to the technology underpinning of Siri, the virtual personal assistant in Apple’s new iPhone. My role in Siri was cofounder and board member. 

However, I am not here to talk about my organization. Instead, 

I would like to inform the members of this panel about the important role nonprofit research institutes play in keeping our armed 

services strong and ready. 

Let me begin by thanking the members of this panel and the full 

committee for including in its report accompanying the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act the requirement that the Department of Defense brief the members of the Armed Services Committee on DOD policy relating to nonprofits. Nonprofits perform 

basic and applied research as well as development and limited production in a large number of areas. Since we are neither universities nor for-profit corporations, we are sometimes overlooked 

when procurement policies are established. In fact, we are often 

treated as if we are for-profits. 

Because we are chartered pursuant to 501(c)(3), nonprofits possess unique advantages over other organizations. For one, we have 

no shareholders. That means we can focus on the warfighter with 

the best possible solution, less concerned about bottom line. We are 

also impartial. Nonprofit research and development organizations 

are not affiliated with any government agency or corporate entity, 

nor do we endorse products or services. And DOD’s reluctance to 

use the Competition in Contracting Act exception that allows noncompetitive procedures to establish or maintain an essential engineering, research, and development capability is in—contrary to 

the intent of Congress. It is clear from the plain language of the 

statute that Congress authorized sole source awards to nonprofits 

because it recognized that we, like universities, FFRDCs [federally 

funded research and development centers], and government labs, 

exist to provide a public service. We would very much like to see 

this opportunity for nonprofits as well. 

The nonprofit community would also like to have the opportunity 

to participate in programs like the UARCs, the University Affiliated Research Centers, for which we are currently excluded. If nonprofits were given the opportunity to be designated as UARCs, then 

we would be able to much better support the STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] capabilities. Many of our organizations already provide internships, for example, to graduate 

students. 

On behalf of the independent nonprofit research and development community, we appreciate the role Congress is playing in facilitating a discussion between all sectors as to how to best serve 

the warfighters and the American taxpayer. We look forward to 

reading your report and working with you. I am happy to answer 

any questions. 

Thank you. 
6 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Winarsky can be found in the Appendix on page 44.] 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much; and, with that, Dr. 

Huffman. 

STATEMENT OF DR. STEPHEN HUFFMAN, VICE PRESIDENT 

AND CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, THE MITRE CORPORATION 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Chairman Shuster, honorable Members, thank 

you for the opportunity to appear before your panel. 

My name is Stephen Huffman. I am the Vice President and Chief 

Technology Officer of The MITRE Corporation. Our company’s 53 

years of experience, contributions, and accomplishments have given 

us the perspective that I believe is highly relevant to today’s topic 

of getting innovative solutions from concept to the hands of the 

warfighters. 

To maintain superior military capability in a declining budget 

environment, the DOD must explore creative ways of rapidly deploying new capabilities in an affordable manner. Achieving this 

objective will require the best innovative thinking of the DOD, Government, and private laboratories and research institutions, and 

suppliers in the defense industrial base. As a part of this effort, 

federally funded research and development centers, or FFRDCs, 

are well-positioned to contribute to transitioning innovative technologies from concept to fielded capability. 

The MITRE Corporation is a not-for-profit organization chartered 

to work only in the national interest. MITRE manages FFRDCs; 

and it applies its expertise in systems engineering, information 

technology, operational concepts, and enterprise modernization to 

address our sponsors’ critical needs. 

An FFRDC is a unique organization that assists the U.S. Government with scientific research and analysis, development and acquisition, and systems engineering and integration. FFRDCs address 

problems of considerable complexity, analyze technical questions 

with a high degree of objectivity, and provide creative and costeffective solutions to government problems. 

To ensure the highest levels of objectivity, FFRDCs are organized 

as independent entities with limitations and restrictions on their 

activities. This unique standing provides special access to government information and provides a long-term perspective. Since 

FFRDCs are prohibited from manufacturing products, competing 

with industry, or working for commercial companies, both industry 

and government confidently provide them with sensitive information. FFRDCs operate as long-term partners with their sponsoring 

government agencies and achieve a deep understanding of their 

sponsor’s evolving roles, issues, and challenges. 

MITRE has supported numerous rapid capability development 

programs that address urgent operational needs. In our experience, 

there are three keys to success: Number one is to work closely with 

the operational users to understand their needs, the second is to 

adapt mature technology and build operational prototypes to prove 

the concept and get user feedback, and the third key is to acquire 

operational capability through an agile acquisition strategy. 
7 

Operational users have the best understanding of the capabilities 

they need. However, they rarely have the in-depth technical knowledge necessary to conceive a solution. FFRDCs are well equipped 

to bring technical knowledge to the end users and work closely 

with them to solve their problems. Whenever possible, MITRE deploys staff to the field to study firsthand the special challenges our 

end users, including warfighters, face. 

Agile acquisition is a strategy for providing multiple, rapid deliveries of incremental capability to the user for operational use and 

evaluation. The incremental deliveries can be made every few 

weeks or every few months, and each iteration will be built with 

continuous user participation and feedback. 

The advantages of this strategy are, first, that development can 

begin immediately without the time and expense needed for the development, refinement, and approval of functional requirements; 

and, secondly, significant user involvement during the development 

process guarantees that the capabilities delivered will meet the 

user’s needs. 

An example of the successful application of an acquisition strategy is the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node [BACN], an 

innovative solution that uses commercially available components to 

provide communications gateways airborne where the warfighters 

need them most. MITRE serves as the lead systems engineer on 

the BACN program for the Airborne Networking Division at the 

Air Force’s Electronic Systems Center. These airborne gateways 

significantly shorten command and control response times by enabling machine-to-machine transactions, data-link translations, and 

voice bridging. By the end of 2010, the BACN team had deployed 

five aircraft carrying the new operational nodes into theater. 

In addition to directly supporting government capability development and conducting their own research, FFRDCs play an important role in interacting with other sources of innovation and channeling them toward government needs. 

FFRDCs often serve as brokers for interaction between government and industry on technical issues. For example, in the not-toodistant future, soldiers will routinely use smartphones with situation-specific mobile applications. It is not difficult to imagine the 

existence of a robust industrial ecosystem supplying the DOD with 

various mobile applications through the DOD’s own app store. To 

bring that moment closer, MITRE created the Government Mobile 

Applications Group, which includes participations from commercial 

companies such as Apple and Google and a number of government 

agencies. Dozens of representatives from government and industry 

meet quarterly to discuss the DOD’s special needs, for example, for 

extra security, and how to lower barriers to quickly fielding products. 

FFRDCs also interact with industry to transfer the practical results of FFRDC work to the commercial sector through such methods as cooperative research and development agreements, technology licensing, open source participation, and contributions to industry standards. 

The current fiscal environment requires significant reduction in 

DOD spending without jeopardizing national security. I believe 

that with the best innovative thinking of DOD, government and 
8 

private research institutions, and suppliers in the defense industrial base, the DOD can maintain its superior operational capabilities even in an austere fiscal environment. Federally funded research and development centers play a unique role in addressing 

this challenge, working with government, academia, and industry 

to transition innovative technologies from concept to fielded capability. 

Again, I thank you for the opportunity to address this panel. I 

request that my prepared statement be included in the record, and 

I would be pleased to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Huffman can be found in the Appendix on page 58.] 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much. 

I want to start off with Dr. Winarsky. You had mentioned that 

sometimes nonprofits are treated like for-profits. What does that 

look like? 

Dr. WINARSKY. Well, relative to, for example, the opportunity to 

participate in the UARCs, which are university participation, the 

nonprofits have not been permitted, or other types of RFPs [requests for proposal] or BAAs [broad agency announcements] that 

correspond to university or FFRDCs just don’t mention nonprofits. 

This would be very helpful if the nonprofits could be thought of as 

a major force that can help and accelerate bringing products to the 

warfighter. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Most universities I know, Penn State in particular, 

claim they are not for profit. 

Dr. WINARSKY. They are nonprofit. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Well, some would question with that. 

Dr. WINARSKY. Right, right. 

Mr. SHUSTER. But you operate very similarly to what they do? 

Dr. WINARSKY. We do. The difference is universities have an educational goal, you know, educating, advancing knowledge in the 

world. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Right. 

Dr. WINARSKY. We also have an invention goal. We are not educators, and that is partly why this happens, but we have a goal of 

making an impact on this world. We are nonprofit with a mission 

for the health and peace and prosperity of mankind. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Right. Do you work closely with the universities? 

Dr. WINARSKY. We do. We were originally, as you know, spun out 

of Stanford University. And, in fact, for example, the CALO program that I mentioned that led to the creation of Siri, we were 

prime with DARPA. We had 23 subs, including Stanford, Berkeley, 

Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and, you know, the who’s who of the AI [artificial intelligence] world. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Right. Thank you. 

As I mentioned in my opening statement, we have heard over 

and over throughout our roundtables and our hearings about the 

valley of death and how do we bridge that from research to education programs. Each of you could take a few minutes to talk 

about your recommendations on improving that process. You know, 

how do you see it? What has your experience been? 

Dr. CROSS. Sure. Let me make a brief comment about the valley 

of death. 
9 

Mr. SHUSTER. Is your mike on? 

Dr. CROSS. Yes, Mr. Chairman, it is now. Just showing that I am 

trainable. That is good. 

The valley of death is a problem usually when we think about 

technology transition as a linear process of going from the research 

laboratory to some kind of demonstration until full-scale development or use in a commercial application. But it is not a linear process at all. Some people describe it as sausage making. It is really 

a messy process with a lot of give-and-take and back-and-forth. 

One of the things that I have found to be most useful is to have 

infrastructure in terms of laboratory or facilities where all the parties can come together and people can have wide bandwidth communication. Let me give an example. 

When I was a DARPA program manager, before Operation 

Desert Storm, our command and control systems—and I worked 

quite closely with both MITRE and SRI on this; they were both 

supported by my programs—we really couldn’t respond to the kind 

of deployment that we saw from Europe to Saudi Arabia that was 

going to have to take place very quickly. And what we were able 

to do is all come together in a command center at Scott Air Force 

Base and have the developers work with the warfighters, work 

with the trainers, work with the testers, work with everybody 

across the DOD spectrum, and we worked pretty much night and 

day to build a system. 

So we had high bandwidth communication. We were all working 

together on the same infrastructure. There wasn’t any confusion. 

There was clarity on what the goals for the project were, and we 

were all motivated to solve that problem. So that is one of the reasons the valley of death happens. 

Another reason it happens in our own work at Georgia Tech, and 

I suspect in other research universities as well, is where we are 

trying to go into the commercial market with intellectual property 

that we have created often through defense or other Federal 

sources of funds and, you know, there is just a gap in terms of the 

venture capital funding that is available or the cadre of CEOs 

[chief executive officers] that could help create these spin-out companies. 

I could explore later, if you wish, some of the things we have 

tried to do to address that, and I know other universities are doing 

the same, but those are a few examples. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Winarsky. 

Dr. WINARSKY. Wonderful question. 

The valley of death is real. Invention—going from invention to 

implementation is often where ideas fall. SRI specializes in crossing the valley of death. That is one way that we as a nonprofit actually differ. 

One of the things, in terms of what could be done about it, first 

of all, focusing on the customer need is crucial, even in 6.1, 6.2, 

when you are doing fundamental research at SRI, everyone focuses 

on who is the customer and what is their need. That is in antithesis to focusing on the technology and how can we advance it. It 

is not quite antithesis in the sense that it is opposition, but in fact 

you have to do both. You have to constantly look at market need. 
10 

So in the case of Siri, for example, with CALO, the cognitive as- sistant learns and organizes this huge DARPA program, $150 million. There was always the advancement of AI technology, learning 

in the wild in a way that people had never done before, artificial 

intelligence for all small devices and large. But understanding the 

use and who might have it, who might use it, was what led to the 

creation of a venture, Siri, and led to the continued success there 

that would then, as we have heard, almost certainly assist the 

warfighter as well. 

So I would say, first of all, focus on customer need. Second, as 

your experience with your own businesses, focus on the market and 

the revenue opportunities that you might create that could sell to 

the warfighter so that this might be possible. Teach the language 

of innovation. Very few people actually understand what is a value 

proposition, what is value, and SRI does that, in fact. And realize 

that we should be able to cross the valley of death not all the time 

but many times with a rigorous innovation process. So that sounds 

a little funny because it can be the—innovation can be the work 

of a mad genius overcoming all obstacles, but it can also be the 

work of a genius team facilitated—not overcoming but actually supported in reaching its market. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Dr. Huffman. 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Yes, I think one of the key things in overcoming 

the valley of death is really to recognize that research and development [R&D] of advanced technology is inherently risky, so those 

who are doing research are more likely to take risk, risk of failure 

in the research. Those charged with delivering a fielded capability 

have the charge to eliminate risk from their activities. They want 

a certain outcome so that they can guarantee that a capability will 

be delivered to the warfighter at a time certain. 

So those two things are inherently in conflict, taking additional 

risk with research on the one hand and trying to get the risk out 

of your acquisition program so you can ensure capability. 

Again, I think a key is to get the end users more closely engaged 

with the development of the technology and capability so they can 

see interim steps along the way and be able to provide incremental 

feedback to the developers. Some of the most success we have had 

is, as Dr. Cross said, when we got all the developers, the users in 

the same infrastructure and very closely operating together so that 

they could basically try out interim products, give immediate feedback to the developers, and then modify what they were doing, and 

that has proven successful on a number of occasions. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much. 

That is one of the things I think we have heard from the for-profits, is they are unable or not allowed to talk to the end user going 

through some of these processes. It makes it extremely difficult, 

which makes absolutely no sense to me if, you know, what you 

three have said, is you have got to be in the room with all hands 

on deck, everybody trying to figure out how to best put this product, this technology forward. 

So, with that, I will yield to Ms. Hanabusa. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Dr. Winarsky, in reading your prepared statement, of course, I 

am not sure how many people can claim nine Emmys and one 
11 

Academy Award plus a DARPA award, but, having said that, certain parts of your statement have got me somewhat confused. 

You state that nonprofits like yourself excel at transitioning 

products from the laboratory to the assembly line. Yet on the prior 

page you said that because nonprofits are treated differently from 

the FFRDC that Mr. Huffman speaks to and universities and not 

able to receive sole source contracts that you really cannot take 

that product and develop and sell it commercially. 

So I am trying to figure out from your two statements exactly 

what it is that when you talk about dealing with the Defense Department, which we are curious about, what is it that SRI does and 

what has been the prohibitive parts of your structure or the way 

we do procurement that just makes it prohibitive for you to do it? 

Dr. WINARSKY. Sorry if there was any confusion. 

We are able to, as a nonprofit, develop technology and deliver it 

to the warfighter. Just because we are a nonprofit doesn’t mean we 

are not able to overcome these obstacles. So we can, in fact, overcome them, and we have demonstrated that many times. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Can you give me an example? For example, what 

exactly comes to mind as something that you have been able to do 

as SRI? 

Dr. WINARSKY. So today in the—in Afghanistan and Iraq there 

is a system called TerraSight that SRI developed that enables you 

to view outside the bases and see everything that is going on. 

There are other flying systems that we can’t go into depth on that 

can determine or find IEDs [improvised explosive devices], for example. So many, many technologies have left SRI and gone to help 

the warfighter, including the invention of the mouse, going back to 

that day. 

So it is not like it is not possible. It is just much more difficult 

to take the process and work with the warfighter in a way that 

universities and other FFRDCs and other organizations are capable 

of doing. Rather than prevent, that wasn’t meant to be my indication, it—by virtue of giving this capability to us, we will be able 

to accelerate and be far more—even more productive and more efficient. 

Ms. HANABUSA. So the capability that you are asking for is 

UARC or is it—and procurement? 

Dr. WINARSKY. As one very specific concrete example, yes. And 

the other example is that the DOD would consider us for sole 

source because we are nonprofits when there is sponsored research 

in other occasions. 

Ms. HANABUSA. So why are you—do you know why, if you do 

know, you are not treated as a sole source like everyone else and 

that you must compete with manufacturers, which is I think what 

your statement was here? 

Dr. WINARSKY. The competition is with everyone, manufacturers, 

universities, and the like. I don’t know why we—my best guess in 

terms of our discussions about this is that we are a small group 

relative to the others, and that—basically overlooked often in terms 

of these procurements. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Is there a problem with the commercial application of whatever you may create when dealing with the DOD? We 

have heard a lot of that, that, you know, there is an issue about 
12 

the creation and then what you do after that in the commercial application of it. 

Dr. WINARSKY. Do you mean the valley of death again? 

Ms. HANABUSA. Right. 

Dr. WINARSKY. Yeah. So there is always a problem with the valley of death. Invention is often by researchers, for example, and 

they are looking at technology to advance the technology. But, in 

fact, unless it is really 6.4 and beyond, it is very difficult for manufacturers, primes, to say this is what we want. And, you know, it 

hasn’t been constructed for them. It has been constructed in a parallel path. So whether the manufacturers that make these products 

want that is very difficult and takes a great deal of collaboration 

with the manufacturers, too. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you. 

Dr. Huffman, in your description of what you do and the ability 

to go in—for example, when you said you have put them on the 

ships and then, you know, they get to really interact with what is 

going on, let me understand. You are sort of an entity that you are 

not doing the actual research and development, you seem to be 

doing more of the T&E, the testing and evaluation, of what is then 

brought to the warfighter. Am I correct in that understanding? 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Well, actually, all of the above. 

We do—we are a systems engineering FFRDC, so we are not into 

pure research. We do our own research and development to explore 

new concepts and develop proof of principle, proof of concept prototypes. We work very closely with the Government in acquiring 

operational capabilities so that we help translate their needs into 

the requirements that industry can then provide solutions for and 

help the Government be basically an informed consumer. 

I like to use the analogy of a building architect as the type of 

service we provide to the Government. The architect works for the 

client, not for—has no vested interest in who is going to build the 

building, and really make sure that the client’s needs are met, that 

they can do trade-offs of the capability that they will be acquiring 

versus the constraints they have in terms of cost, schedule, and 

things like that. 

So that is basically how we really work from the early concept 

all the way through to the test and evaluation. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. 

And with that, Colonel West is recognized. 

Mr. WEST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ms. Hanabusa as well. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here; and, as I shared Dr. Cross, 

you know, my time selling Cokes at Georgia Tech was a great opportunity for me to learn some responsibility and, of course, get a 

chili cheese dog at the Varsity. 

When I look—my alma mater is actually the University of Tennessee, and the University of Tennessee has a Defense Business Institute that is there. And so as I am sitting here and I look at the 

title here, ‘‘Getting Innovative Solutions from Concept to the Hands 

of the Warfighter,’’ I would like to throw this idea out here and see 

what you all think about this. You know, if there is some kind of 

way that we could develop, you know, regional research and devel-
13 

opment partnerships between, you know, our colleges and universities with, you know, the military—I will give you a great example. 

Georgia Tech is not that far from Fort Benning. Fort Benning is 

now the maneuver warfare center for the United States Army. All 

infantry and armor is coming out of there. Or we look at the Research Triangle where Duke and the University of North Carolina 

is. Right down the road you have United States Special Operations—I mean, the Army Special Operations Command and the 

airborne, you know, forces there at Fort Bragg. 

You know, is this a way that we can maybe streamline so we 

don’t have these valleys of death or things like this, where we can 

develop these types of partnerships with our colleges and universities with these installations that are close by, you know, being 

Naval installations, Air Force or whatever, as we look across the 

country? So that we can start looking at, you know, if there is 

something that I am dealing with at Fort Benning, I want to see, 

you know, how can we take this concept and bring it to fruition, 

I can drive up the road to Georgia Tech, and the students at Georgia Tech or wherever can immediately come right down to Columbus. And that cuts down, you know, on the travel time and everything. So is that a viable solution to help us go from concept into 

the hands of the warfighter? 

Dr. CROSS. Congressman, it is; and if I can give a couple examples of what we are doing in Georgia along those lines. 

Specifically with Fort Benning, the State of Georgia supports 

both the infrastructure of Georgia Tech and our economic development outreach. So we have 27 locations throughout the State of 

Georgia, including a location in Columbus, Georgia. And one of the 

things that is going on right now with the National Guard in Georgia, Fort Benning’s increasing emphasis, as you mentioned, the maneuver function that came from Fort Knox with unmanned vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles, if we go over to Warner Robins 

Air Force Base, they are the sustainers now for the Global Hawk 

and the Predator, so unmanned air vehicles. And if we go over to 

Kings Bay, just south of Savannah, there is a lot of emphasis in 

the Navy with undersea autonomous vehicles or intelligent torpedoes. 

Much of that great work is done at the UARC at Penn State. So 

what we have done in the State of Georgia is we have set up a coalition, if you will, that involves the National Guard, the State government, the military operations in the State, and the research 

universities, Georgia Tech, but other research universities, to look 

at how do we bring, what—in a use-inspired research way, what 

are the open research issues that a research university can look at 

and how can we accelerate those research results into practice 

through that entire ecosystem, if you will? 

There is another existence proof of where that works really well. 

If we go to—it is Robins Air Force Base—I am sorry—and the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center where the electronic warfare systems for the Air Force are maintained, and much of that research 

is done out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, 

and what we have developed at Georgia Tech is a great deal of forward-looking research in electromagnetics and electronic warfare, 
14 

but also through our applied research function, the Georgia Tech 

Research Institute, the institutional memory for electronic warfare 

systems in the Department of Defense. And we can upgrade those 

systems very quickly and then produce production plans that companies can take forward and produce, and we have many examples 

of where we have done that as well. 

So creating these partnerships is very much key for addressing 

the valley of death and working closely with the warfighters, and 

it is spot on. 

Dr. WINARSKY. Great question, Congressman West. I would say 

absolutely it would be highly valuable. I mean, SRI basically believes that innovation comes from learning from the customer. So 

customer need, building a differentiated technology approach, understanding the benefits to the customer, and understanding the 

competitive approaches to doing all those things. If we have those 

four ingredients, then we can create great value for the customer. 

And in the case of what you just described, that would far better 

improve our ability to have those ingredients. We would understand the warfighter’s needs. They would be right with the technologists. Otherwise, you have the separation. Oh, I am going to 

advance what I am doing, but I am not quite sure what it is good 

for. 

It is a little like, you know, tech transfer without—what you suggested is a little like driving in a car where technology is behind 

you and business is in front of you and you are driving by looking 

in the rearview mirror. So what we need to do is more of what you 

suggested. 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Well, I definitely agree. 

I think Dr. Cross mentioned one of my favorite terms, useinspired research, which is having a purpose to why you are doing 

research. In my role, I interact very frequently with our academic 

partners, and one of the things that they are really asking me for 

is help us understand what the real needs are. They want to work 

on things that ultimately they can see someone benefiting from in 

the future. So they are highly motivated to have that, but they just 

don’t know how to connect to have a good avenue, and that is one 

of the roles that we try to play. 

I think one of the other things that can help with such a mechanism, as you might suggest, one of the other things they lack often 

is connection to sources of data or information with which to test 

out their ideas. I can make anything work in a laboratory environment almost, but when you get out in the real world, things get 

messy, and they need to be able to acquire information and data 

to test their concepts, and very often there are barriers for universities to be able to access that kind of information and data. 

Mr. WEST. I think that what you just talked about was an unmanned vehicle center of excellence, and if we could kind of have 

that type of synergy, I think it would go a long way. 

So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. 

Mr. Runyan. 

Mr. RUNYAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thanks for your testimony today. 
15 

Dr. Winarsky and Dr. Huffman, you are kind of talking about 

the exchange of ideas, the need for them or a new idea. Dr. 

Winarsky, in that realm, give me an idea of percentage numbers 

of the original ideas or you are furthering a current technology. 

Dr. WINARSKY. SRI has about 2,000 projects a year. We are continuing with all of those projects to serve the government requests. 

Sorry, not all, about 70 percent of those. The rest are commercial. 

We create two or three ventures a year, but only because that 

is what—the ventures we create we expect or have to be potentially 

billion dollar companies in order to get Silicon Valley to invest in 

it. But then, in terms of transitioning to the warfighter, I am sure 

there is maybe 50 or so that—maybe more—that transition and 

make great success for the warfighter. 

Mr. RUNYAN. In talking about—and I will have all of you eventually weigh in on this. But when you talk about the federally funded 

research—and, obviously, we know the budget crisis we are in, and 

I know all of us sitting on HASC, we deal with it on a daily basis. 

Because we are going to lose our next generation of colonels and 

all that kind of stuff when you have these drastic cuts. So can each 

of you kind of talk on whether we are—you know, where we are 

talking education, we are talking STEM and all that stuff, how 

that is going to affect our ability to move forward and that fine line 

that we have to walk. Dr. Huffman. 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Certainly. I think the STEM education problem is 

not just a problem for DOD. It is a problem for our Nation as a 

whole. I think the number of engineering graduates, you know, 

continues to fall off. 

It used to be that we lived for many decades on the intellectual 

capital provided by citizens of other nations who immigrated to the 

United States, were educated, and stayed here because this was 

where you could pursue a career in high technology and engineering. That is no longer the case. We have competitors in other countries who now welcome those people back to work in their industries. They are developing their own universities, not quite yet 

maybe to the level of ours, on average, but continuing to improve. 

That is great for the world in general, but for us as a nation and 

our competitiveness economically, I think science, technology, engineering, mathematics is critical for our future. 

Mr. RUNYAN. Dr. Winarsky. 

Dr. WINARSKY. I agree completely. 

We have a terrific shortage of people in all of these areas. They 

are crucial for innovation, which is going to be the way that we create wealth and health and success for this country. 

I would say that we are also seeing innovations in education 

itself that can help. Education is being transformed in e-textbooks. 

There is a course at Stanford right now, by the way, that is offered 

to 60,000 students simultaneously, one course. 

So there is ways to teach a nation, even, and open this up to the 

world in ways that we never had before. But in terms of the crucial 

nature of bringing more students in the science, technology, education, and mathematics area, absolutely essential. 

Mr. RUNYAN. Dr. Cross. 

Dr. CROSS. I agree completely, Mr. Congressman. 
16 

Just personally, I was interested in becoming an engineer in the 

early 1960s in third grade when President Kennedy announced the 

moon shot, and, you know, I wanted to be part of that. That was 

exciting. That drove a whole generation of people going into science 

and technology. 

We spent a lot of our volunteer time at Georgia Tech—and I 

know this is done at other nonprofits and research universities, 

too—going out into the public school system and trying to get kids 

interested in science and technology. One of the ways we have been 

able to do that quite effectively across the country is through robotics and supporting robotics clubs in schools; and kids get really, 

really excited about this. So showing them that there is actually a 

path and a future in science and technology is very critical. 

Now, as was mentioned, at a research university like Georgia 

Tech, our product are the students; and one of the concerns I have 

about the future of S&T funding from the DOD is what would be 

really irreversible in terms of production of Ph.D. students that 

stay in this country and work. It takes about 10 years now to train 

a Ph.D. student, about 6 years for the education. Increasingly in 

engineering, post-doctoral assignments are required. It is common 

in the sciences. That is 2 to 4 years. 

So from the time you start your graduate studies until you are 

actually hired as an assistant professor at an American university 

or a nonprofit or an FFRDC, you are looking at 10 years; and the 

cuts in funding will cut down the number of such students we can 

have. 

So we really have two problems. One is getting kids interested 

in the first place, and the second one is the irreversibility if we cut 

out that pipeline. 

Mr. RUNYAN. And I just—I brought that point up really to talk 

about because we always talk about hollowing out our force from 

the military operations aspect, how we now are a support force in 

the same manner, and it is really something. Because if there is 

no need for it—like you said, you know, if there is a need for it, 

there is interest in it, and people are going to gravitate toward it, 

and we have to be careful with that. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much. 

With that, I am going to yield another 5 minutes to Ms. 

Hanabusa. We outnumber her over here only in numbers, not in 

brain power. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Cross, I don’t want you to feel left out. You made a statement 

about what we needed to do was the ability to do research for future needs of the military. 

Dr. CROSS. Right. 

Ms. HANABUSA. And I am just curious, because this has been an 

issue for me, is what is the military going to look like in another 

20 years, 30 years, and how do we define it. So when you say to 

address the future needs, and we know research begins and it 

takes a long time before we get the final product. I think an example we have is like F–22s, 17 years in the making, or something 

along those lines. 

Dr. CROSS. Right. 
17 

Ms. HANABUSA. So can you tell me in your mind when you made 

that statement, who do you feel defines the future needs? 

Dr. CROSS. Well, it should be defined in—— 

Ms. HANABUSA. And don’t say us because—— 

Dr. CROSS. It should be defined by the user, Congresswoman. 

The warfighter should be the ultimate source. And if we use this 

valley of death metaphor and visualization of it, we should be on 

the far side of the valley of death, looking and trying to understand 

what the users are going to need. 

There is examples from military history. One I like to cite is at 

Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama, back in the 1930s. It was 

before there was an Air Force. It was the Army Air Corps. And 

they knew that in a future combat that daytime high altitude 

bombing was going to be required, so the military was training and 

they were testing systems there before we had engines that were 

powerful enough to lift an aircraft to 25, 30,000 feet. 

So that is an example of a venue for innovation where the 

warfighters and everybody connected to that was working together, 

and that was driving the technology requirements where there was 

missing technology, and that drove the research. 

At Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, when they first built an aircraft 

with engines that still weren’t powerful enough, they built the runway up a hill so the airplane could get enough velocity coming 

down the hill just to get it up into the air and test these systems. 

So I am not saying we should do things at that high risk, but 

these venues that are created to brainstorm—Skunk Works would 

be another term for that—to look and brainstorm about the future. 

Ms. HANABUSA. We went to Skunk Works. 

Dr. CROSS. Okay. 

Ms. HANABUSA. But the other thing—and, Dr. Cross, the other 

thing I throw into this is the fact that almost every single person 

who has spoken to us—and the most recent was I believe General 

Chiarelli. He said, the one thing that you can count on is the fact 

that what we have been 100 percent perfect on is that we have 

been 100 percent wrong in predicting what the war is going to look 

like. 

Dr. CROSS. Uh-huh. 

Ms. HANABUSA. So, for example, we were beginning Afghanistan 

and Iraq with World War II technology. And so I guess that is the 

concern. We know what we needed in Afghanistan and Iraq, but is 

that what the warfighter is going to need in the future? Because 

we may not be in that arena. So how do we define it? 

And you made also a statement that the U.S. needs to be aware 

of developing technologies worldwide. 

Dr. CROSS. Right. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Are you aware of anything in government or 

someone? Is your entity, for example, actually studying what is 

going on worldwide in terms of defense type of technology? 

Dr. CROSS. Well, in terms of technologies for materials, electronics, absolutely. 

We, for 22 years, have had—I didn’t put this in my written testimony, but it is on our Web sites. We have had a campus in Europe, 

in France. We have partnerships in China, in Singapore, in Ireland, and Panama. Researchers today, regardless of any of the or-
18 

ganizations they are in, this is a global pursuit, and your colleagues doing research are going to be at the best universities, the 

best research organizations worldwide. So to have credibility, you 

are going to be interacting with them, and that is very important. 

So, absolutely, we are engaged in research on a worldwide basis. 

Ms. HANABUSA. And this is one that I am going to ask every one 

of you to answer. 

One of the concerns everyone has, of course, is that as the defense budget begins to collapse or we start to cut the defense budget, and normally one of the things that always gets hit first is research and development, that seems to be one of the categories that 

gets cut. If there were to be major cuts, how would that affect the 

number of actual professors or people employed at Georgia Tech? 

Dr. CROSS. Sure, Congresswoman, if I could respond, it is going 

to be linearly related to the cuts. So you could—we are very competitive in terms of receiving defense research funding. It is about 

a third of our overall research portfolio. And for a proportional cut, 

there will be a proportional number of faculty and, more importantly, graduate students. Faculty are not completely supported by 

research. Usually, they are covered for 9 months by the tuition and 

by the State support in a public university or by whatever the 

budget is for a private university. But it is traditionally 3 months 

that they are trying to cover with research support. But the graduate students will be cut, and that will be—and, to be honest, that 

is where the real innovation comes from, the younger people who 

are driven and willing to work 20 hours a day and 7 days a week. 

Ms. HANABUSA. How much of your budget is defense related? 

Dr. CROSS. Approximately one-third of our research portfolio. Our research portfolio was $643 million last year. It is approximately $230 million in defense-related research. That is not all 

basic research. That includes 6.2 and 6.3(a) as well. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Dr. Winarsky. 

Dr. WINARSKY. Yes, so the question you want me to answer is, 

given major cuts, how would SRI respond? 

Ms. HANABUSA. Right. 

Dr. WINARSKY. My feeling is it would be worse than linear. And 

that is because SRI has and hires people here in Silicon Valley, in 

one of the most difficult places on the planet to recruit great engineering staff, given Google and Apple and Microsoft and everyone 

else around us. And should there be this decline, it has an effect 

on the staff that says, you know, this is harder and harder to do 

something that we want to do greater and greater. 

By the way, during a period of time that we have never seen 

greater market disruptions. Market disruptions are happening in 

mobile, bio, in cyber security and everywhere else. So the impact 

will not only reduce the staff for working on R&D for the Government. It will encourage them to go elsewhere. So we would very 

much like not to see a reduction. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Dr. Huffman. 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Yes, I think certainly we would obviously be affected by significant decreases in proportion. I think we would expect that. 

I think, also, as my colleagues said, the desire of talented engineering professionals to come and work for an organization which 
19 

primarily supports the government and particularly the DOD and 

declining defense budget will be very difficult. They will seek opportunities elsewhere in the commercial sector because they perceive that as more stable, more opportunities to move up, particularly if they are early in their careers. So I think that would probably be a bigger impact than the direct reduction in our work, 

would be the perception of the workforce that maybe this is not the 

career path for me. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. SHUSTER. One more quick question. As far as compensation 

between—I would assume scientists and researchers in the Government make less than you folks pay versus what Google and Microsoft, would that be accurate? 

Dr. WINARSKY. Yes. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Significantly? Do you pay significantly more than 

a government researcher or scientist would make versus—significantly more than government? 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Well, again, I don’t know the government pay 

scales, so I can’t comment on that. 

Mr. SHUSTER. It can’t be more than about $175,000. 

Dr. HUFFMAN. We are in a competitive market for talent, and we 

work very hard to try to understand, you know, what the market 

is paying that talent so that we can attract and retain those individuals. But primarily in an organization like ours you find a lot 

of the motivation of the staff is really about the missions we support, and they are closer to being—you know, desiring government 

service than making huge amounts of money in a start-up. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Go for all three of you basically? 

Dr. CROSS. Mr. Chairman, your rankings there are accurate. I 

would just point out one of the things that all of our organizations 

do is public service is important, and we support people coming 

back into government service from our organizations under the— 

with the Inter-Personnel Act [Intergovernmental Personnel Act Mobility Program], the IPAs. And so this is one of the ways that the 

government is able to have the high-caliber, relevant technical capabilities that it is able to have. But, you know, it is capped, too, 

in pay for doing that. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Right. 

Dr. WINARSKY. One of the other ways we are able to retain staff 

and—again, in this most difficult environment—is, when we do create a venture or a license, SRI rewards a share of the royalty or 

equity to the staff. So even though we don’t have any ourselves as 

a nonprofit, when they help create and innovate, they are motivated by helping make that happen. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Right. Thank you. 

And, with that, Mr. Schilling. 

Mr. SCHILLING. Thank you, Chairman. 

Welcome. Sorry I was late. I was helping my wife get six kids 

to the airport. Pretty good excuse, I guess. 

So let me—I guess what I am trying to figure out here—so would 

you say basically what we are saying is to get rid of death valley 

or minimize it, basically by taking the end user or the warfighter 
20 

with the researcher and get those folks basically together, is that 

pretty much what we are saying? 

Dr. WINARSKY. That is one way. 

So another way—that is a direct way. Here is the warfighter. 

Here is the technology. Let’s get together. 

Another way is commercialization, and then the warfighter can 

buy it off the shelf, basically. The GPS [Global Positioning System] 

is a good example of that or Siri or mobile phones or any of those 

other technologies. We do both at SRI. 

Mr. SCHILLING. Okay, very good. 

I know this will probably range all over the place, but what is 

the average time from concept to the end product from research? 

Dr. CROSS. Congressman, it does range all over the place, but if 

I could just pick up on my colleague’s comment about the commercial sector. The commercial sector is incentivized to be fast and to 

get products into the marketplace. Plus, the investment they make 

in maturing the technology is much higher than you can typically 

make in the DOD, which now gives the DOD a competitive advantage of buying back commercial products at a lower cost than they 

could possibly do over the long life cycles that the acquisition process kind of subjects everybody in the DOD to. 

Having said that, I have to point out that the DOD is better than 

other government agencies. So that is one answer to that. 

But industry, it is the speed of the market, how quickly can you 

get it to the marketplace. 

Mr. SCHILLING. Very good. 

Mr. Cross, you had mentioned in the testimony—and I just want to clarify this—Georgia Tech’s research expenditures were $643 

million. 

Dr. CROSS. That is correct. 

Mr. SCHILLING. Did you say about a third of that money goes to 

DOD? 

Dr. CROSS. That is correct. And I could get you the correct numbers. About 40 percent of—I have to do these numbers correctly 

now, because I have to break them down. It is approximately onethird that is based on defense sources. I would say about 10 percent of that is related to basic research, quite a bit of the supply, 

6.2, and then development work that we have as subcontractors to 

defense contractors, for instance. 

Mr. SCHILLING. Okay, very good. 

As you pointed out, we are in a time of budget crunching, I guess 

you might say. How do we ensure that we maintain the competitive 

edge when we cannot fully fund all the research that is needed? 

Dr. CROSS. Congressman, if I could—part of it is not being able 

to predict exactly what is needed, but having the capacity to 

produce options for the future is one of the things we need to think 

about doing. If we look at the definitions of basic research and applied research that are used by the DOD, it is to create understanding and knowledge of phenomena and of opportunities. So 

that doesn’t mean it has to be created inside the DOD. We need 

to do a much better job I think also working with our international 

colleagues and technology scouting. Wherever those ideas come 

from. This I think is a perceptive innovation, casting the net wide, 

crowd sourcing, looking for ideas anywhere, and then being able to 
21 

realize that those are good ideas and apply them in this use-inspired research methodology. 

Mr. SCHILLING. Very good. 

Mr. Winarsky, I have got—I am one of the new kids on the block 

like these three are—well, two guys. 

Mr. WEST. He is big enough to make two. 

Mr. SCHILLING. He is two of us. 

How are FFRDCs created? And then basically—maybe this could 

be for Mr. Huffman—and how do we narrow down which projects 

that they research, I guess? 

Dr. HUFFMAN. FFRDC—there is a section of the Federal Acquisition Regulations that cover the creation of FFRDCs. They are basically to be employed whenever the Government can’t acquire the 

services either from in-house resources or from normal means. So 

there has to be a special reason to do it. 

Basically, an FFRDC is created by a government agency when 

they have such needs. There is a very tight governance process— 

or definitely should be—in terms of the operation of FFRDC to ensure that the work performed by the FFRDC is meeting those special needs. In the case of the Department of Defense, Congress has 

chosen to limit the size of the FFRDCs that the DOD employs, and 

DOD has a comprehensive management plan that governs how the 

work is selected and how the governance process works. 

Mr. SCHILLING. All right. Very good. 

I yield back the 2 seconds of my time. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you very much. 

A couple questions concerning who you mainly work with, do 

business with, the three of you. Are they mainly dealing with the 

large primes or do you go down from large primes all the way down 

to the mom and pop who is developing something in his garage? 

Who are you working with out there? 

Dr. CROSS. Go right down the line. 

We work with most of the DOD research organizations, DARPA 

and the laboratories on their competitively selected awards. We 

have master agreements with most of the large defense companies—the Boeings, the Lockheed Martins. We will work directly 

with them, both the transition technology and to be subcontractors 

on their projects. 

And we also in the State of Georgia try to work with small companies that either spin out of research universities or locate there 

and plug into the State infrastructure for that support. So we work 

with everybody, sir. 

Mr. SHUSTER. The majority of the work is being done, obviously, 

with the primes, because they have the majority of the work. 

Dr. CROSS. Well, the 6.3(a), the development work, is done with 

the primes. There will be a subject matter expert on some aspect 

of the technology. With the DOD laboratory and research infrastructure, we work on grants and contracts that are competitively 

selected and awarded by those organizations like a DARPA or an 

Air Force research laboratory. 

Dr. WINARSKY. About the same as Dr. Cross mentioned is what 

we do. 
22 

I would also add some of the companies we work with we create, 

we incubate and make companies that we then spin off, and then 

they sell to the warfighter or to commercial. 

Mr. SHUSTER. How does a company come about, one person with 

an idea? 

Dr. WINARSKY. No, we have a rigorous process—it sounds again 

strange to have a rigorous process of innovation, but, in fact, we 

do it to help the process. So we start with the market need. We 

create a commercialization board. That board reviews and incents 

by funding, helps recruit team members to the venture, helps define the value proposition and so on. And then we move that along 

to create the venture—usually venture capital work as well, investors. 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Well, we work exclusively for the Federal Government in terms of who pays us. We interact with all of the above, 

certainly with the large prime contractors all the way down to very 

small organizations. We are primarily in the information technology business, so it may take a lot more wherewithal to build an 

F–35 than it does to develop the software application that can be 

employed by the DOD. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And how do you—I guess you are working with the 

Federal Government exclusively. How does industry know what is 

available to work with you folks? Do you have a program of education, of marketing? I don’t know what you would call it. 

Dr. CROSS. We have an array of services here. We have strategic 

partnerships through master agreements with many companies; 

and, frankly, we leverage our alumni network quite a bit at Georgia Tech, too. We pride ourselves on people that have gone into the 

executive ranks of major companies. The State of Georgia and their 

Department of Economic Development is on our campus, and they 

are very proactive in advertising to companies on our behalf. Most 

research universities, their reputation speaks for themselves as 

well. So that is very helpful. 

We also have some specialized contracts. I will just cite one that 

I did in my testimony. It is called the Military Sensing Information 

Analysis Center. It was a contract we won from the Defense Technology Information Center, DTIC, and it is the repository for defense sensor technology. It goes back to the 1950s. And so we are 

a dissemination service on behalf of the DOD for information in 

this area as well, and any industry in the United States can come 

in and use the services there. It is like an online library. So, many 

different approaches. 

Dr. WINARSKY. We also have a diverse number of approaches, 

strategic partnerships working closely with the DOD awards, working and talking to our peers and friends and going to conferences, 

all of that. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Do you play a role, if any, in technology transfer 

from the Federal labs? 

Dr. CROSS. The one example I can give you, it is not a DOD laboratory but the Department of Energy laboratories. We are in a 

partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and working very 

closely with them in high-performance computing. We have faculty 

in our college of computing that are deployed there. 
23 

But there are not many instances that I can point to elsewhere. 

I think most of the instances that I have heard about and seen 

from my own military time is where there is unique infrastructure 

or colleagues, but it is most of our efforts like at SRI are trying to 

take the intellectual property that we are allowed to own through 

the Bayh-Dole Act and accelerate it into commercialized activities. 

Mr. SHUSTER. All right. 

Dr. WINARSKY. We may work on occasion with some of the DOE 

labs. Argonne might be an example of that. To my knowledge, I 

don’t know of many instances. 

Mr. SHUSTER. You had mentioned, Mr. Winarsky, about taking 

this technology and you needed to—billion dollar companies to deal 

with. I just wondered if any of you are familiar with the Army Venture Capital Fund? 

Dr. WINARSKY. I have heard of it, yeah. 

Dr. CROSS. I have heard of it as well, but I don’t have—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. No experience with it at all? 

Dr. WINARSKY. We were supposed to be responsible for that fund, 

but we lost that competition. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Okay. I learned about it—I don’t know where we 

were—in Hawaii or somewhere in the last week or so. 

I have no further questions. I don’t know if any other folks on 

the panel do. 

Mr. WEST. Just one. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Sure. 

Mr. WEST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Do you all get the opportunity to go over to the combat theaters 

of operation maybe to get an opportunity to see some of these tools 

that are being implemented in the theaters—Iraq, Afghanistan, 

Kuwait, wherever? 

Dr. HUFFMAN. I haven’t personally done that, but we have a 

number of people who do that on a regular basis. 

Dr. WINARSKY. Same with SRI. 

Dr. CROSS. Okay. It is ad hoc, but through these advisory boards 

like the Defense Science Board, their opportunity. 

But one of the things that I want to commend the DOD for is 

a program that they run through DARPA—and I believe it is 

through the Institute for Defense Analyses—that recruits young 

scientists from all of our organizations to have that experience, to 

go out into the theater, to go out to the national test range, to learn 

what it is like to carry 120-pound packs, so we need to do more research on batteries, et cetera, et cetera. So those programs are extremely valuable for providing the young researchers the opportunity to understand what use-inspired research is all about. 

Mr. WEST. And last question, what do you think are the two 

most critical or vital areas where the not-for-profits and with your 

capability and capacity can help the Department of Defense in research and development? If you look across the different type of 

battlefield functions, where do you think the top two, where you 

guys can really have the most impact? 

Dr. WINARSKY. Persistence surveillance is one. We can have a 

tremendous impact in deploying. And cybersecurity is another. 

Dr. CROSS. In our case, Congressman, it is going to be many specific areas. Autonomous systems will be one, for reasons for a pre-
24 

vious answer to a question. Certainly cybersecurity for the future. 

And then I think the next generation of electronics and some of the 

materials that we are developing would be very important as well. 

Dr. WINARSKY. Robotics, by the way, is going to have a major impact as well. 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Our area is information technology, and 

cybersecurity is one of the top areas that I think we are trying to 

make a contribution, as well as intelligence surveillance, reconnaissance, and communications, moving large volumes of information 

and turning it into information that the warfighters can use. 

Mr. WEST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. 

Anybody else? 

Ms. Hanabusa. Sure, go ahead. 

Ms. HANABUSA. I have a question. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Sure. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Dr. Winarsky, Dr. Cross gave us an idea how 

much of his research budget is DOD. Can you tell me how much 

of whatever—I know you are a nonprofit, but how much money 

comes in that is DOD related? 

Dr. WINARSKY. In terms of total government, it is about 70 percent. That includes—my guess is about 20 percent is NIH [National 

Institutes of Health] and NSF [National Science Foundation]. So it 

is 40 to 50 percent, somewhere in that range probably, with the 

DOD. 

Ms. HANABUSA. And can you tell us what that equates to in 

terms of money? 

Dr. WINARSKY. Total budget for SRI is about—total revenue, rather, is about $600 million a year. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you. 

And do you have any ideas about how many—you have 2,100 employed people. So do you know about how many of them are actually working on DOD-related matters or are they just all crosstrained, that you can’t say? 

Dr. WINARSKY. No. I am trying to think. There are five divisions, 

and I would say three out of five, but one is much larger, so I 

would say somewhere around 70 percent are DOD. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you. 

And we know, Mr. Huffman, you are totally government, but can 

you give us an idea for MITRE how much is your budget and how 

much you think might be affected? And, also, of the FFRDCs that 

you actually supervise, if I understand where you oversee, how 

much that equates to in terms of money, too? 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Okay. Overall, the DOD provides about 60 percent 

of MITRE’s revenue. We manage five FFRDCs, one for the Department of Defense, one cosponsored by the Internal Revenue Service 

and the Department of Veterans Affairs, one sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration, one sponsored by the Department of 

Homeland Security, and one sponsored by the U.S. courts. 

Ms. HANABUSA. How much does that equate to in terms of 

money? 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Total about $1.35 billion annually. 

Ms. HANABUSA. And that is all of MITRE? 

Dr. HUFFMAN. All of MITRE. 
25 

Ms. HANABUSA. And 60 percent is DOD? 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Roughly $950 million I think is DOD. 

Ms. HANABUSA. And of the FFRDC that you said is DOD, do you 

know how much money that is—— 

Dr. HUFFMAN. Approximately $950–$980 million. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, and thank all of you for being here. We 

appreciate you taking the time and helping us try to understand 

this. 

Again, we look forward—I know the staff may be contacting you 

with some further questions for clarification, so we appreciate any 

help you can give us. 

Thank you all very much, and this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:16 p.m., the panel was adjourned.] 

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