Acquisition leads topics at Industry Day

  • Published
  • By Minty Knighton
  • Team Eglin Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla --  The 4th Annual Air Armament Center Acquisition Process Update Industry Day took place March 15 at the Eglin Conference Center. The event featured briefings on current acquisition topics and was hosted by Dr. Bruce Simpson the AAC Deputy Program Executive Officer for Weapons.

The forum featured 12 acquisition briefings by Dr. Simpson and other distinguished leaders from the Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Cost Analysis Agency, Defense Acquisition University, the National Defense Industrial Association, and the AAC.

"Industry Day provides an environment to further foster communication and synergy with our industry partners," said Dr. Simpson. "Better communication results in better delivery of capabilities to the warfighter, on time and on cost."

The following two days were reserved for one-on-one sessions. These were informal roundtable discussions with individual company senior leaders and Dr. Simpson, along with other presenters from Industry Day. Its purpose was to share candid individual viewpoints from industry and exchange thoughts, ideas and information between AAC and individual industry partners which could not be shared in the open, formal forum.

The event attracted many company presidents, vice presidents, marketing representatives, lead senior engineers, and others, for a record 50 firms with 141 participating (up from 46 and 125 respectively in 2009). Attendance exceeded 170.

Before the event, AAC's acquisition personnel attended a training class to become well versed with the industry day material in preparation for follow-on meetings at all levels with Eglin's industry partners. To date, 426 of Eglin's acquisition personnel have received the training. 

"This annual event provides an excellent government/industry forum to facilitate two way communication on the latest acquisition policies and challenges," said Reuben Manasco, director of the acquisition excellence division, who helped in facilitating the event.

Watch for the Jan/Feb 2011 notice in the Federal Business Opportunities website at https://www.fbo.gov/ for further information.