Fiscal Year 2005 Funding Update

The CTMA program funding grew this year to $12.75 million – an increase of more than three times last year’s funding.  The increased funding level will allow the program to address important maintenance and repair needs for the war fighter while also addressing issues of reducing costs and increasing efficiencies for the industry partners.   This funding was made possible by the hard work of Senior Vice President Rebecca Taylor and her government relations team.  Thanks to all who worked so hard to made this happen and we look forward to working with our partners to form new projects when these funds become available early next year.

Meet Dave Pauling:

David Pauling was recently appointed the Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Maintenance Policy, Programs, Resources, and Material Readiness, replacing the late Bob Mason.  This office is responsible for the CTMA program and working with NCMS to identify and approve projects.  We asked Dave to respond to several questions:

Can you give us a brief background on yourself?

I graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1970 with a B.S. in Mathematics and from Penn State University in 1975 with an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering.  I completed the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at Ft. McNair in 1992 and the Senior Officials in National Security Program at Harvard University in 1994.  I served as an Army Officer/Helicopter Pilot with a combat tour in Vietnam, a Flight Test Engineer at the Naval Air Test Center, Systems Program Manager for various Naval Aviation propulsion and power systems, Technical Director and then Principal Assistant Commander for Research and Engineering (NAVAIR) for Naval Aviation propulsion and power engineering, and Deputy Assistant Commander for Logistics at Naval Air Systems Command before moving to my current position.

What aspects of the CTMA program most impress you?

The CTMA program leverages government and industry resources for technology development that has potential benefits in both the public and private sectors.  It provides a force multiplier opportunity for government and industry partners whereby each investor gains significantly more benefit for much less investment.

Where would you like to see improvements or the program evolve?

I would like to see projects tied closely to government outcomes in terms of cost and readiness improvements.  It is intuitive that these projects have potential benefits and predicting cause and effect on system availability and/or life cycle cost will provide greater support for funding and sponsorship.

Are there any broad technology or application areas you would like to see as a focus?

Certainly those technologies that address the environmentally induced problems we are encountering today in the area of operation are most desirable as are those that restore legacy system reliability and cycle time reduction in the maintenance arena.  Another key technology area is modeling; e.g. modeling the tangible effect of a CTMA project on system life cycle cost or readiness.

What are the prospects for future funding?

The prospects for future funding may be tied closely to how well CTMA projects can be modeled/predicted to advance readiness and/or life cycle costs.  Such predictions of outcomes would enable a better understanding of the value of CTMA to national security.

Any other comments?

I fully support CTMA and very much appreciate all who participate with us in advancing technology for application in the maintenance and material readiness area.  There clearly is a special benefit this program brings to the warfighter and it’s up to us to capture and relate such in tangible terms that all can understand.

New Project Ideas (click on topics to see descriptions), if you are interested, contact the project manager listed: 

We appreciate your feedback. Please contact Chuck Ryan with suggestions or input on other topics that would be of interest to you in this newsletter. The CTMA Program is sponsored by the Department of Defense; the content of this newsletter does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the government; no official endorsement should be inferred.