PALT, CTTSO, and Other Acronyms

We took a bit of time with our friends and families to celebrate the birth of America last week, but we launched right into the second week of July with a busy schedule that included a trip to PEO-STRI’s PALT and a GSF Huddle.

The PALT

If you’ve never heard of a PEO-STRI PALT, let’s cover a few basics:

• Program Executive Officer (PEO): the main stakeholder responsible for cost, schedule and performance in a DoD acquisition program and/or portfolio.

• Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (STRI): based in Orlando, this Army PEO has a mission to develop, acquire, provide, and sustain simulation, training, testing and modeling solutions to optimize warfighter readiness.

• Procurement Administrative Lead Time (PALT): the monthly PALT Industry Day provides attendees with the status of PEO-STRI programs, ongoing procurements, and an opportunity for industry to request updates on specific procurements of interest in a “question and answer” forum.

We like PEO-STRI PALT (now you get it!) events because they are very transparent and informative, making them well worth the drive from Tampa to Orlando (or possibly even a flight into Orlando). We’ve been inviting our GSF Partners and Internationals Liaison Officers from Tampa to attend these monthly events, and they are universally considered worth the effort.

For this month’s PALT event, which took place on Tuesday, July 10th (see the full schedule for 2018 here), GSF President Stu Bradin and current Skillbridge Intern Chuck Neu headed to Orlando with some Corporate Partners to get the latest contract updates from the PEO. They also had a good lunch with the attending partners, attended a quick PALT at NAVAIR, and visited GSF Partner Design Interactive. We learned a lot about their recent win of a Homeland Security Award. You can read all about that here.

We are working on a few more events and activities that we think will come out of those engagements! Stay tuned…

GSF Huddle

July 11th brought an exciting day for the GSF–with our second ever GSF Huddle. This one was only open to GSF Corporate Partner reps, as it included a Capabilities Committee Meeting and an interesting briefing from our local CTTSO representative. That leads us to another quick definition session…

• • GSF Capabilities Committee (No acronym!): is responsible for:
    • • Identifying future capabilities for global SOF;
    • • Developing the Foundation’s capability programs through a cooperative process involving the Foundation’s Partners; and
    • Presenting drafts of specifications and any other related major documents to the Strategic Committee for approval.

• Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO): reporting to the ASD/ SOLIC, CTTSO has a mission to identify and develop capabilities to combat terrorism and irregular adversaries and to deliver these capabilities to DoD components and interagency partners through rapid research and development, advanced studies and technical innovation, and provision of support to U.S. military operations.

Ok, here we go. This was only our third ever Capabilities Committee meeting, and it went really well. It was more information sharing than a group conversation, but we had a lot to update our committee on and it included a multitude of documents that we’ve developed to help navigate the world of SOF. We’re excited to get feedback from our Committee Members and Partners, as we’ve opened more outlets for our team to contribute and give feedback.

After that meeting, we were honored to host Mark Kobe from CTTSO, who gave an excellent presentation on his organization and what you can do to get involved in its mission. Our attending Partners were pleased to learn about how they might benefit from a relationship with CTTSO, and we’re hoping some good things come from this educational experience.

The real GSF Huddle began after both sessions, when we were really able to take advantage of our venue — the Tampa Club. It’s a beautiful venue that offers expansive views of Tampa and St. Pete, where you can see torrential rain storms and blazing sun shine out of the same panoramic window. There our group enjoyed a beverage or two together, reflecting on the day’s events and planning for upcoming opportunities.

We hope to see you all at some of those. Check out the GSF Calendar to see where you should join in.