AFNWC holds annual review of Small Business Innovation Research program

The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center recently hosted its second annual Small Business Innovation Research Program Management Review at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico.

The SBIR program is a congressionally mandated program in which federal agencies with research and development budgets above $100 million must spend a percentage of it to strengthen the role of small businesses in federal research and development.

Approximately $1.8 billion is allocated annually by the Department of Defense to support the financing of cutting-edge technologies developed by small businesses.

This year’s PMR provided directorates and senior leadership with the opportunity to assess the execution of projects in the AFNWC SBIR program, share successes and lessons learned, identify potential opportunities for collaboration, and evaluate transition planning.

“We had a few major goals with this year’s PMR,” said Col. Thomas Niday, chief scientist at AFNWC. “One is ensuring effective project execution, the second is finding opportunities to transition these efforts if they’re successful, and the third is to increase collaboration opportunities by getting together in a room. Everybody gets to share their effort.”

To meet these goals, directorate and project leads briefed AFNWC senior leaders on what their technology does, how they validate that the technology worked as intended, and how they plan to transition the technology to the warfighter.

“We need to make sure that we’re responsibly executing taxpayer dollars for these and for future efforts,” Niday said. “We also need to ensure that we have a path for these efforts to transition.”

Championing this year’s PMR was Waldine Messmore, deputy program executive officer for nuclear air delivered systems and center senior functional for program management.

He stressed AFNWC directorates should improve communication and collaboration among each other.

“I think a lot of people, especially the folks that who are participating in PMR, think that the point of the briefing is to just provide information to those sitting on the panel. There is an element of that…but the main point is to collaborate,” Messmore said.

“The CT team did a fantastic job by opening the PMR, setting the expectations of what type and level of information we’d all be discussing, and encouraging participation from attendees. Additionally, the team set the stage for all of us by thoroughly reminding us what SBIR is all about,” Messmore said. “I was expecting each of the directorates and project leads to provide a good background of the programs as well as the status and the way forward, particularly on transitions. That expectation was clearly met.”

To ensure that directorates are supported in their SBIR efforts, Niday plans to increase communication through monthly capability development team meetings; future SBIR summits; and his office’s SharePoint site, which is currently being updated.

“By increasing the frequency of information exchange, information will go from the directorate to the programs, then to the Office of the Chief Scientist as the supporting and facilitating organization, and then to each other,” Niday said. “Additionally, we are building a SharePoint site where people will be able to view what is going on with the SBIR program, how to get involved in it and what programs are already there.

“I’m looking forward to the next [PMR] and continuing engagement with the team across the center,” he said.

For more information about the AFNWC SBIR program, contact the Office of the Chief Scientist at afnwc.cz.workflow@us.af.mil.