By Calvin Biesecker
The relationship between industry and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is “fair” at best and there needs to be a more open and robust dialogue between the providers of security products and services and the various DHS customers, a number of industry officials said yesterday.
Interaction with DHS is “fair on a good day,” Mark Shaheen, managing director Civitas Group, a consulting firm in the homeland security area said at a small conference sponsored by the Homeland Security & Defense Business Council. Shaheen and his colleague David How, CEO of Civitas, said that DHS is still a “start up” organization.
The problems for companies trying to tap into the homeland security market that were mentioned by panelists yesterday for the most part are the same ones voiced over the past few years. These include a lack of transparency, immature acquisition and program management organizations, inconsistency between the department components, and a lack of understanding by DHS about their out-year plans.
There is”reluctance” on the part of DHS to talk directly with contractors, said Fred Schwien, director of Homeland Security Strategy for Boeing [BA] the past year and previously a senior adviser at DHS. He’s had “spotty” success getting to know the DHS customers from his perch at Boeing, singling out work the company has done with the Science and Technology Directorate’s Chemical and Biological Division as a positive experience.
When it comes to what DHS is planning five years from now, “they don’t have the answers,” said Michael Kelly, director of Homeland Security for Battelle. Shaheen said it’s been difficult to get a “realistic view” from DHS regarding strategy, which is even more troublesome at the program manager level.
Kelly, who also described the interaction between DHS and industry as fair, said that S&T has tried to provide contractors with insights to technological needs but that in the end these have fallen short and “they didn’t tell us much.” However, it’s worse with other directorates, he said, pointing to the Transportation Security Administration as an agency that is “going to do what they are going to do.”
Shaheen also said there is a “lack of appreciation” on the part of DHS for knowing what it takes industry to pursue homeland security opportunities. He said there are two companies that Civitas has worked with that provide services to the intelligence community and have technology applicable to DHS but they have given up on homeland security because the department is too difficult to work with.
Several panelists noted that DHS officials go out of their way to be “fair” in the procurement process, making it difficult to talk with program officials. There is a “reluctance to engage with industry for fear of being perceived as unfair,” said Lee Buchanan, a partner with the venture capital firm Paladin Capital Group.
Buchanan also noted the differences between the defense business model that is employed for working with DHS that allows industry to basically deal with a single customer and the commercial model, where industry is confronted with the states and localities and the multiple agencies that populate these levels of government. A direct sales force is too expensive to pursue the state and local markets, which are getting more grant monies to spend, so companies have to find channel partners, he said.
For Boeing, it’s hard to go beyond the federal and foreign government customers, Schwien said.
While most of the comments from the industry panel pointed to changes DHS needs to make to improve the working environment for contractors, a panelist did point to areas where industry can help. One is developing the association organizations that exist for the defense industry to constantly work these issues with DHS.
Schwien said that DHS is in a difficult situation because it is always being second guessed and that some issues will never be resolved. Shaheen commented that DHS is also at the mercy of a lack of political and societal decisions that still have to be made that will provide clearer direction, noting that there still is no national level guidance on “what we want border security to be.”
Anne Petera, the director of Homeland Security for Lockheed Martin [LMT], said that industry has to be “patient” in the development of the trusted partnership with DHS, noting that “strong partnerships” with the Defense Department have taken years to develop for the industry. Petera previously worked at DHS in the National Protection and Programs Directorate.
“The most important thing is to better understand [the DHS] mission,” Petera said. Procurement doesn’t make the top 10 in DHS missions, she said. It’s important to get the message across to DHS that industry wants to be a partner not just a profit maker, she added.