Defense Development
Monthly Debriefing
April 2007
We have just completed over the last several months, Phase I and Phase II of the Indiana Defense asset study. Those phases covered all the research, mapping of assets and roadmapping of where our Indiana assets could lead. Now we are in Phase III, which includes a robust and aggressive public meeting and engagement stage.
The first process of this stage includes “Care-about” meetings, where we have individually met with stakeholders in the Indiana defense community to really get an idea of what they care about. We’ve talked to a variety of parties, including prime contractors, university researchers, and small business owners. In these meetings, we have attempted to listen, rather than hitch a state agenda on them, so their input can be accounted for in our ongoing research.
The next step was a series of “Fireside” meetings. These meetings are designed to be a bit more regional in nature. There were as many as 50 people at each meeting held in Fort Wayne, West Lafayette, Indianapolis and Columbus. Our survey team presented its findings, and gave a bit more detail, and covered what we see as some of the preliminary strategic recommendations. Now that these meetings have been completed, we will begin to drilldown into particular sectors of the defense market where we’ve identified Indiana does its most or best work, creating focus teams to work in just areas as combat and non-combat vehicles, sensors and linguistics. These are just some of the areas Indiana has done well in the past, or might want to focus on in the future. The results of these focus team efforts will be what amounts to a business plan for each sector.
A more regional focus is next, with meetings in all six Indiana Economic Development Corporation regions. At that point, we will look into how what we are finding from the study fits into each of these regions. We’ve focused on the business sectors involved, and now look at the communities, city and towns across Indiana to find out what they think is important, and identify what might be opportunities for those communities. The outcome from these meetings will be regional business plans. As you can see, we will be layered with industry business plans, sector business plans, and regional business plans, as we try to overlay an overall strategy.
The regional meetings will be held in Valparaiso, South Bend, Fort Wayne, Bloomington, Columbus, and Indianapolis. They will wrap up around Memorial Day. At that point, the Indiana Defense Asset Study will be essentially complete. At that point the state will take the research and development done through the first two phases and the public input from Phase III and wrap everything up into one large strategic plan for all the states defense assets. By midsummer, we expect to have a written report on the results of the study available to the public.
We have modeled this process after a previously successful one here in Indiana called “Biocrossroads”. I think the Life Sciences industry in Indiana would say that Biocrossroads has served them well. We hope to have that same measure of success with the Defense Asset Study.
Sincerely,
Jason Lovell
Manager of Defense Development
Previous monthly Debriefings
Dec 2006|January 2007
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