Defense Acquisition University in expansion mode

BY KATHY HAGOOD

        Defense Acquisition University’s South Region campus in Huntsville has grown from serving 4,000 students in 2002, the year it opened, to currently training more than 40,000 students a year.
         With the Department of Defense bringing more defense acquisition jobs in-house that number is expected to swell.
         DAU offers classroom, online and onsite training in defense acquisition, technology and logistics for DOD military, government and contractor employees through courses that range from a few days to ten months. Typical courses average between three and five weeks.
         The Huntsville campus now employs 100 instructors and in February opened its own freestanding 60,000-square-foot training facility with 12 classrooms in Thornton Research Park.
         “It’s been rewarding to be able to expand our ability here to serve the defense acquisition workforce,” says James McCullough, campus dean.
         An agency of the U.S. Department of Defense, Fort Belvoir, Va.-based DAU’s five regional campuses and their satellite training centers educate more than 200,000 defense acquisition employees each year.
         The university’s mission is to help ensure taxpayer dollars are spent as wisely as possible by keeping acquisition personnel up to date with best practices and new mandates.
         “DAU helps ensure a high level of consistency in defense acquisition and ensures proper practices are used throughout the workforce,” says Rick Gallman, associate dean of outreach and mission assistance for the Huntsville campus.
         A congressional mandate for acquisition personnel training and certification was created through the 1990 Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act. The legislation was a response to public outcry after the U.S. Government Accountability Office alerted the nation to problems with defense spending in the 1980s.
         Defense acquisition workforce members are required to participate in ongoing continuing education. DAU helps support training needs not only through coursework but also with an online knowledge base, an “ask a professor” service, and several print publications.   
         New defense acquisition initiatives and policy changes are disseminated by DAU through with Rapid Deployment Training (RDT). Through RDT revised policy training materials are quickly posted online and DAU faculty are sent to perform onsite training, even as far as to Taiwan, when needed.
         DAU faculty members and administrators primarily are former defense acquisition personnel and subject matter experts. About 30 percent are retired military with acquisition expertise, such as retired Maj. Gen. Robert “ChedBob” Chedister, director of MDAP (Major Defense Acquisition Program) engagement for the Huntsville campus.
         Chedister and other DAU representatives foresee greater demands for defense acquisition training coming because of the mandate given by Secretary of Defense Gates in April 2009 to “insource” more support services vs. contracting them out.
         “About 20,000 more DOD acquisition jobs will be created ramping the DOD acquisition workforce up to 160,000 members as we make the transition,” Chedister says.
         DAU considers Huntsville a natural site for the South campus because of its proximity to Redstone Arsenal, the Missile Defense Agency, and Marshall Space Flight Center. Satellite training centers are located near Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and Robins Air Force Base in Georgia.
         “The Huntsville area serves as a acquisition organization center of gravity,” McCullough says.
        About half of the students at the Huntsville campus come from the surrounding area and the other half are on travel. Most of the students who travel are DOD workers, and are coming from national and international locations.
        “We’ve had students come from as far as Guam, Kuwait and Afghanistan,” McCollough says.
        While the government foots the bill for DOD military and civilians, contractors or their companies must cover travel and lodging if needed. The training itself, whether in the classroom or online, is complimentary for acquisition employees working on DOD contracts.
         DAU students who travel to Huntsville to take courses are part of the university’s economic impact to the area.
         “Last year it was estimated that we contributed more than $4 million to the local economy, but our economic impact is considerably greater when you take into consideration that our presence makes this area more attractive for defense acquisition and DOD agencies in general,” McCullough says.
         Redstone Arsenal gained the Army Materiel Command, the Space and Missile Defense Command headquarters and much of the Missile Defense Agency's work thanks to the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission decision.
          The DOD additions, which are ongoing, are expected to add billions of dollars over time to the four-county Huntsville-area economy through payroll, contracts and construction increases, according to a 2007 University of Alabama study commissioned by the City of Huntsville. The annual payroll of Redstone Arsenal alone was projected to increase by $280 million as a net 4,000 new jobs are phased in.
         Huntsville was ranked No. 8 this year in the latest “Forbes” ranking of the Best Places for Business and Careers for 200 metro areas. The city is listed as No. 2 for projected job growth and No. 3 for projected economic growth.