September 22, the Government Technology & Services Coalition asked Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen about small and mid-sized companies and their challenges in the current market. Below is the transcribed exchange:

GTSC: We work on behalf of a number of CEO’s that work in the national and homeland security space. But, they’re small and midsized companies and we’re heartened to hear that many at DOD are talking about small businesses and what they can bring to the table. What is your advice about their best way to engage in that conversation with you?

Mullen: Figure out how to survive. That’s an area I’ve worried about a long time. And, I don’t want to be overly critical of the big defense conglomerates, if you will, or companies, but I’ve seen far too many, young innovative, bright, adaptable, quick, efficient organizations just die on the vine. My experience is two things happen, they get bought up, they lose in that growth, they lose who they were or they get killed. And so, I’ve been a big fan of them in terms of technology, innovation, adaptability, creativity, all those things. So I would hope that-I’d like to see- a future that allowed them to survive; that we could make, and because quite frankly they become threats inside the business world. And there’s more energy generated to try and kill them to make sure, than to look at them and ‘see that might be a great idea, we need to try and make that work;’ and I think we need to do that, quite frankly. I don’t mean to be overly cynical about surviving, but I think that’s key. And that’s going to be harder in a downsizing environment as our budget gets smaller. So, there will be consolidations, as there always have been, and in consolidation I just hope we can retain those characteristics to look to the future. I would hope that we are able to invest in a way that sustains a solid S&T world, a real research and development effort, not a what I would call program, part of the program R&D, which often is just another way to say this isn’t part of the program, but it is, but it isn’t taking you forward. But to know what the technologies are, so even if we can’t bring them to the fore right now, when it does turn, and it will, we would be in a position to do that.

And I think figuring out how to recruit and retain creative young minds. That think differently than people like me, is absolutely critical. In the government we don’t do that very well. Because too often it’s last in, first out. So there’s a host of challenges. I mentioned in my remarks, the industrial base. I think we have to be very careful about our industrial base, I think technically and physically, if you get rid of something, you can bring it back. I get that. I think the likelihood that if you make a decision which ends a certain part of our industrial base, it doesn’t come back. The skills go away the people go away and the enormity of the investment to bring it back, if you’ve got that wrong, it’s not gonna be there. So theoretically you can get it back, but it’s not going to happen. That’s why I think the care, there has to be care there, and there is some sloppiness in the industrial base, there is some inefficiency in the industrial base, and I think that’s ok;. When I say some, I mean some; it’s not ok as a way of life. When I see companies, even in the defense industry, and it’s something I worry about because we can’t afford this overall in defense, I call it a death spiral and a near death experience. Some pull out of the death spiral and the near death experience makes you do things that you could never imagine long before you got to that point that you have to do to survive. Can we make those choices before we ever get into any kind of spiral? And in government it’s that much more difficult. I want to encourage them, hang on, hang in there, keep pounding. Look for all the help you can get, strategically, as well as inside the business so those CEO’s are in.