Murrett: GEOINT is the Glue
NGA DIRECTOR PROVIDES BROAD OVERVIEW OF GEOSPATIAL INTELLIGENCE GOVERNANCE, TECHNOLOGY, PARTNERSHIPS AND SUPPORT FOR THE WARFIGHTER.
(Editor’s Note: Following are edited excerpts of the address given by National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Director Vice Admiral Robert Murrett at the 2007 GEOINT Symposium.)
As time goes on, we see more and more evidence that GEOINT is the glue that holds together much of the intelligence community, other agencies and our coalition partners. The integration and collaboration that we have with our key partners is something that will get more emphasis over time, and is one that NGA is making significant strides on, particularly over the past few years.
One of the most important things for us at NGA is governance, and I’ve gotten some useful advice from my predecessor and the NGA Advisory Group [NAG], led by Peter Marino. We continue to put a lot of effort into our primary governance mechanisms, both for NGA and the National System for Geospatial-Intelligence [NSG]. The most important, and one that takes up a lot of time for senior officials, is the NSG Senior Management Group [NSMG], which is our community management function. It meets together four times a year and brings together all the elements.
The NST conferences are for the NGA support teams, which we have deployed in more than 150 locations. We just had the third conference of the year a few weeks ago. The wisdom that you get from our externally assigned personnel is of huge value. The conferences dedicate three full days to interacting with a large number of our people. Roughly 15 percent of NGA personnel are externally assigned. It’s an area of particular strength for us, and one of the key things we do from a governance standpoint is to listen to those people as closely as we can. The balance that we have between our externally assigned people and our core reachback in Washington and St. Louis is a source of strength.
The NGA Advisory Group is very worthwhile, and continues to provide a lot of useful functions for us, in addition to the frank advice they provide, the interaction they have with industry and the specific homework assignments that they have, such as Peter Marino’s recent study on commercial remote sensing.
We do quarterly reviews of our principal line and other organizations with our expanded leadership group, and they are detailed sessions that can last for three hours. They are really worthwhile. Doing those agencywide reviews on a quarterly basis enables us to understand what we are doing collectively and provides the most useful governance we can across the agency. In addition, the interaction we have with our Commonwealth partners is vital.
In December, we’ll be reviewing our 12 focus areas and statement of strategic intent, and giving them a scrub. They’ve been around for more than a year now. They are consistent with the turnover that I had from General Clapper. They represent continuity, and they go back a few years. I don’t anticipate too many changes, but you need to do periodic reviews. We also see continuity in terms of our principal overseers, both the DNI and the undersecretary of defense for intelligence. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how consistent the guidance we’ve gotten from our principal overseers has been.
If you gave my calendar to a computer analyst, they would tell you that I spend the majority of my time running the NSG and being the senior representative for geospatial intelligence in the government, rather than running the NGA. When I go to the Hill to talk about future capabilities, it’s not so much about being director of the NGA as it is about being the lead of the NSG. Bringing together all the entities of geospatial intelligence is something we have put a lot of effort to. I put as much energy into running the NSMG meetings as anything we do.
PARTNERSHIPS, STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY
I’d like to talk about partnerships, standards and technology. These are three very important themes, in terms of the people aspect of things, enforcing standards across the GEOINT discipline and the advancements we’ve had in technology, which is related to our partnership with industry. I’m convinced that therein lie the answers to many of the challenges we face today.
There are several specific examples of the things we have done in NGA support and the impact they have had. One of the things we’ve done to improve is a focus on analysis, which is something that we don’t talk about as much as we should. In this case, it is the geospatial support teams that we have deployed in many places around the world, not least in terms of combat support. Some of us have visited the forward deployed personnel that we have, and you can never underestimate the impact that NGA personnel embedded with operational entities around the world have. It’s in Afghanistan, but also in places like DHS and FBI. One example of the places that we really make a difference is Darfur. The geospatial analysis that we have done has made a huge difference.
Particularly in terms of our relationship with industry, we are always looking for better tools and user interfaces, so that our analysts can more effectively provide products. It takes a lot of painstaking detail, analysis and imagery to provide products like these, probably more than it needs to take given the technological tools we’ve got. That is something we’re anxious to participate with industry on.
Natural disasters are also a key part of the support we provide, such as to FEMA. Today, for example, we’re providing support to teams fighting the wildfires in California.
In terms of technology, we’re looking at three areas: the storage, automated processing and dissemination of data. The things that technology is bringing to those areas, and specifically from American vendors, are pretty remarkable. Full motion video, for example, is an expanding mission set for us at NGA. People often ask me, aren’t you concerned about the storage of full motion video. My answer is yes, but I’m also encouraged by the advances that we’re seeing in terms of storage, which are almost outpacing the requirements we have.
Significant advances in technology are going to be rolled out in the next two or three years, and they are going to make a big difference. The advances are the real answer to a lot of the challenges that we have because of the increased amounts of data that we’re being called on to collect, process and disseminate. We can’t lean forward too far in terms of acquiring and adapting that rapidly changing technology. I’m particularly encouraged by some technology developments in the area of storage of video that are going to be rolled out in the next 18 months, which are going to have a big impact.
One of the things that I have a particularly strong interest in is user interfaces. I talk a lot with people about their primary user interface, and I get some really interesting answers. I’m also impressed by how adept many people in industry and NGA are, particularly if they’re under age 25, in doing things with user interfaces that others may not have thought about. Our user interfaces are not quite as good as they could be, and that’s an area where we could do better.
We don’t want to lose sight of how much progress we’ve made. Ten years ago, we only had a low-three-figure number of workstations at 11 sites around the world, heavily focused on a certain type of dissemination. Today, NGA is responsible for multiple thousands of workstations at 150 sites around the world. I mention that not to understate the challenges we have in the future, but to show how much progress has been made in integrating an architecture across the NSG. We should all think about where we want to be in 2017, and if progress continues the way it has been in the last 10 years, it will be pretty remarkable.
One of the things that Jim Clapper institutionalized, and we have continued since, has been the investment that NGA has in personnel embedded in other entities around the world. Sometimes the aspect of combat support gets the most attention, but we have all kinds of NGA support teams, and every one of them is important. The balance between externally assigned personnel and the core capabilities in Washington, St. Louis and elsewhere is one of our key challenges. It’s very dynamic, and we put a lot of effort into making sure that we make that balance effectively.
Another key answer for the challenges we have today is our international agreements. We have hundreds of international agreements, such as the Multinational Geospatial Co-production Program [MGCP], which includes 28 nations. The interaction that we have with international partners, all of whom also have resource constraints, makes it clear that the answer to those constraints is within ourselves. The MGCP, for example, eliminates overlaps in production and allows us to more efficiently rely on each other for production in specific parts of the world.
We’re also building a new building. We had a groundbreaking recently in Springfield, Va., for the New Campus East. It’s important to us, but only because it will make us more effective in our external impact. People underestimate the inefficiency of our operations because we’re sprinkled around the Washington area. Our consolidation of operations in the East is very important and will realize great efficiencies for us. It’s a four-year program, with two years to build the outside skin and two years to fill it. We’re planning to move in September 2011, which is a lot sooner than you may think. Our facilities in St. Louis will also continue to be as important as ever.
INDUSTRY INTERACTION
Our interaction with industry is vital. Under the aegis of the USGIF, I have been to several meetings with a cross section of the industry leadership. This is something that the NGA Advisory Group has stressed—to do as much industry interaction as we can. Industry is constantly making different kinds of decisions in terms of where to put investments, and those of us in the IC need to keep them as well informed as possible, so that those decisions will enhance our relationship and be beneficial to the country. So I’m glad for the vigorous industry interaction we have.
I’d like to talk to six points, which are consistent with our focus areas. I’ve already touched on balancing mission requirements across all the different people we work with and the other entities we’re embedded with. It’s a big challenge. If I were standing here with General Hayden or General Alexander, I suspect that they would tell you the same thing, that that is a big challenge for all of us, because each of us is committed to doing everything we can for our sons and daughters in harm’s way. That’s a primary mission that we all have.
We have to balance that vital mission with the other vital, perhaps not as immediate, things that we have to do—proliferation, monitoring developments in potential peer competitors, support for domestic missions, and support for research and development. It’s one of our biggest challenges, and there is no single answer to balancing those mission requirements.
We’ve also talked about partnerships, and the importance of partnerships of all types, whether with industry, our allies and other international partners, but also with our partners in the intelligence community and defense. In terms of our dealings with NSA, for example, I tell people that one plus one equals five. The partnerships that we have across the IC, the other functional parts of the intelligence community and other agencies are absolutely vital. Never underestimate the amount of institutional support that exists among our overseers when they see intelligence agencies working with each other. When we come up with proposals that cut across all the intelligence community, such as data centers for example, the amount of institutional support is substantial.
Expanding our engagement with the academic sector is absolutely vital. I’ve already mentioned the importance of technology, and most of that comes from the academic sphere, along with industry—the basic science that we leverage in our InnoVision Directorate. It’s something that we can never neglect or take for granted.
I want to reinforce the importance of what we do, the importance of our analysis and the vital way that GEOINT can be the glue that holds the rest of the intelligence community together. Sooner or later, it comes down to the geographic coordinate in any contingency. Our most important successes and contributions are built on collaboration across the IC, defense and other partners. The places where NGA people tend to be more effective are those either in our core locations or externally assigned that are directly or virtually embedded with others. They have a sense of the mission requirements of those they are working with, whether in the Navy Yard or Bagram.
If you understand those special requirements and have the mindset of the people you are embedded with, it makes a huge difference. We will remain alongside our operational partners to adapt and grow, as we have in the past and continue to emphasize in the future. ♦
