Hanscom’s junior workforce ready to take on real-world problem in challenge

  • Published
  • By Patty Welsh
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. --  A team of junior personnel are in a competition to use innovative resources and out-of-the-box thinking to address a military challenge and held their kick-off meeting June 9.

The Air Force Research Laboratory Commander's Challenge is for personnel with less than 10 years experience who will design, develop and demonstrate a solution to an urgent warfighter need. This year's challenge is to how to detect and defend Air Force bases from the emerging threats posed by small unmanned air vehicles or drones and is sponsored by the Force Protection Division here.

The division's deputy, Lt. Col. James Damato, provided a bit more context about the issue.

"Small UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] are readily available on the commercial market and many can carry up to a 10 pound payload and have 45 minute endurance," he said. "As these commercial capabilities increase over the next few years, so will the potential risk to Air Force operations."

He added that he's pleased the Air Force is proactively looking to address the issue.

"I'm really excited the Air Force has grabbed this and is really starting to innovate and invest money," he said. "What we hope to see out of these teams is an innovative, new approach. They have no starting point - only a whiteboard and limited resources - and have to figure out how to solve this problem in an innovative, inexpensive way which could ultimately produce a viable and cost-effective solution."

Several senior leaders were on hand to offer encouragement and advice.

Maj. Gen. Dwyer Dennis, Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence and Networks program executive officer, told the team about the first commander's challenge, which also addressed a force protection issue. The challenge at that time addressed gate running occurring at deployed locations, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The winning team came up with an invention, often referred to as a "jack," a crossed metal product that is still used at gates today.

"The vision is to get a real product that we will employ to keep people serving out of harm's way," he said. "Really open up your aperture; by thinking outside the box, you'll provide another attack vector that bad guys will have to work against. Your product will matter."

The Hanscom team consists of Emily Coppin, Capt. Christopher Giacomo, 1st Lt. Justin Kellett, Jennifer Pomphrett, Paul Sikora, Derek Stanley and Hanna Timberlake. They will work on the problem for six months and then compete their solution against other teams from the Air Force Materiel Command.

Hanscom's Associate Director for Engineering and Technical Management Dennis Miller, said he believes this is a "great opportunity" for the participating personnel.

"Besides doing something really important, use this opportunity to learn but also have fun," he told them.

The challenge was developed by former Electronic Systems Center Commander Lt. Gen. Ted Bowlds in 2006, when he was a major general serving as AFRL commander.