Steffanie B. Easter, First Civilian Director of Navy Staff Office of Chief of Naval Operations & former Principal Deputy Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition Logistics and Technology

In this week’s episode of Building the Base, Hondo and Lauren join Steffanie Easter, Senior Vice President

and Chief Sustainability Officer at Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions, to discuss the future of the defense industrial network. 

Steffanie’s vast experience in acquisition across the services leads her to emphasize the need for communication not only among the services, but also among industry partners. She explains that DoD must learn to balance information sharing with strategic competition when working with industry to innovate defense technologies. To that end, the DoD must share its needs and encourage teaming with small businesses, who are flexibly poised to produce disruptive capabilities for the warfighter.

Hondo, Lauren, and Steffanie go on to discuss a variety of topics, including: 

• DoD's risk-averse culture
• Small businesses in the defense industrial base
• Teaming for small business integration
• The services’ language barriers
• Skillset development v. acquisition