 So, ma'am, thanks for joining us today on Leadership Log, which is a podcast for the Air Force Lifecycle Management Center community on topics of interest. And the topic of interest today is learning about an organization within our organization, the Acquisition Center of Excellence. So, ma'am, if you could introduce yourself and give us a little bit of your career background. Sure, my name is Melanie Marshall and I am the division chief director of the Acquisition Center of Excellence. I'm here at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, which is kind of the home base for the Acquisition Center of Excellence. So, I have been in the Air Force as a civil servant for now 34 years, which I'm very, very proud of. December 18th is my anniversary date. I'll have 34 years. And I've always been here at Wright Patterson. I started as a Schedule B logistics trainee back in 1988 and worked many programs. And then after doing a stint in logistics and actually grading out on logistics, I actually went through one of the first reduction in forces that I can remember. And so, I was then moved over out of acquisition into protocol and did a stint in protocol at AFRL and then moved to what was then ASC protocol and was the deputy and then the chief of protocol. So, did that until 2001. And General Rajio had retired and General Rhodes came in and said, hey, I think it's time for you to go back into acquisition. So, moved back into acquisition as a program manager where I've been working ever since. So, I've had a great career here, lots of wonderful experiences and really, really awesome opportunity to be at the Acquisition Center of Excellence or the ACE today. Okay. So, now tell us what is the Acquisition Center of Excellence? What is it? Sure. The Acquisition Center of Excellence or the ACE or we call ourselves the ONE ACE is a group of multifunctional members who really are here to support on demand, give independent assessment and advisement to teams. We're force multipliers. And so, we are here to help teams think through their strategies, maybe challenges that they're having in execution, going into a milestone review. We focus mostly, and in the past, we were pretty much 99% all pre-award support. So, that means, you know, a new requirement going through the acquisition strategy and into a lot of the source selection as well as sole source acquisition. We do focus on a lot of support on source elections, but of course, we do support across even sole source. We've seen an actual increase in foreign military sales. So, which is that really is a great thing to partner with. And so, we're just here to really help teams think through these complex strategies and complex acquisition challenges that they're facing today. We're in five different operating locations. We did have six. Our Eglin team has been kind of combined with us here at Wright-Patterson because we've stood down that location, but we're still supporting our EB. We support across all of our AFLC MC directorates and organizations as well as at the AFMC level. So, we are really just here to be a force multiplier to help teams think through that critical thinking and to make good decisions to innovate execution. So, we had an episode earlier this year with the gentleman who was an acquisition officer early in the beginning of ASD, what it was called ASD at that time. And he was talking about how one of the problems they had was organizations kind of poaching experts from one organization to the other, all right? And they were constantly trying to just take the best people and pull them. So, it sounds like your organization is kind of that reach back capability to provide that level of expertise. Is that correct or? That is absolutely correct. We have, you know, we used to be mostly people that were very mature, you know, 20 to 25 years of acquisition experience. And now what I'm really excited to see is we have a great mix. And I think that we are representative of our organizations, right? We have some that are steeped in acquisition and we have some amazing junior force people in these organizations that are willing to just jump in and learn. Acquisition has really changed over the years. And so what we are trying to do is make sure that we can help people and we ourselves are embracing that change. We use, you know, years ago, we had 5,100. Everybody was a long-term, you know, EMD program. Right now, it is such an amazing time and acquisition with all the different authorities that we have through 5,002 that gives us all of the adaptive acquisition authorities and all different types of acquisition challenges and opportunities to go fast. And that's what we're really about across the Air Force is going fast. You can see it in, you know, all of the chief of staff's imperatives. You can see it in the operational imperatives. You can see it from AFMC to AFLMC. We're all trying to figure out what do we need to do to go fast, share information better and make better decisions earlier. And so what we are doing, what we're seeing is that even in our teams that we're working with, there are a lot of junior force that are being promoted quicker. And so they are sometimes looking for a one-on-one trusted agent to help them think through challenges and make decisions. We're also seeing teams that are challenged with very complex issues as they're dealing with their contractor or trying to figure out the best strategy for their program. And so there's so much information out there. It's too much for one person or one team, even us, to understand everything. So we have a lot of reach back with SAP AQX, our policy team, SAP AQC, SAP AQR, wherever we need to go, that's what we're doing now. And so we tried to, our mantra right now is leading while we learn. Acquisition keeps changing. And so while we're leading, we have to continuously continue to learn as our programs do. And so that's where we come together. And I think it's a beautiful blend when our program teams and our ACE and our external and internal kind of trusted agents in specialized areas can help make decisions. And so now, how big is your team? And you mentioned it, right, Pat, but do you have other locations and are operating bases? Yes, so we call our stuff the one ACE because we like to think as one and we like to learn as one and share as one. So we have Wright Patterson, which is the home base station. We have Hill, Hanscom, Robbins and Tinker. So there used to be about 69 of us and right now we're at about 60 with the Eglin being dissolved and that mission area moving to Wright Pat. So we're about 60 strong across the AFL CMC. And how do you keep in touch with the other elements at your remote locations? Do you guys travel or do you use a lot of remote connections? Yeah, so we have been totally remote. I've been in this job since August of 2020 and I've met all of my operating location chiefs and members through teams like many others. We're hoping to get together early in 22. But the great thing is, is that we've all become very proficient in using these technicals technologies. And so it allows us to collaborate very well. Every other week, myself and my other operating location chiefs meet and make sure that we're all aligned in our mission, sharing information. The great thing is that we have people from each one of the organizations that are pairing together now to help teams at different locations through workshops, through critical thinking. And then we have one of our greatest accomplishments lately is the standup of the digital enterprise launch team for acquisition or Delta. And so that is the team that is focused on the mission of helping organizations implement digital and helping digital transformation across the center. And so we're partnered with other organizations like the digital transformation office and the digital campaign and the other SMEs across the center and the command to help implement digital strategies. Okay, so you mentioned earlier that you used to be primarily pre award as far as your involvement in the process. So are there common situations that you typically do get involved in the, or are there particular places in the process that your team generally gets involved? Well, today I like to say there is no typical, right? We jump in wherever we're needed. Many programs do focus on support with us in the pre award. So acquisition strategy through contract award. We also are seeing an increase of programs that are coming to us for milestone decision support. What are the right documents? What's the timing? How, you know, how does it work when we go into the building and we're going through milestones? What are the must have, the statutory versus regulatory because that changes, you know, throughout time. And then as I said, there's so many programs that are coming to us because they're being modernized or their legacy in sustainment, but they're also interested in implementing digital thinking. So what can I do differently now that I'm already on contract? What should I be talking to my contractor about? How can you help me with a schedule analysis? I think something is going awry here. Can you help me with schedule health analysis? It's time for a milestone. So can we go through another risk workshop? So those type of things are where we're really seeing the stability, but we're also seeing an increase in new areas that normally weren't ours. Like, you know, we've had a PPBE for program managers. How to put together an RFP, you know, how does an IP, how should an IPT work? You know, what does airworthiness look sound like and feel like if I'm a program manager? How do I think about my stakeholders and how do I understand how to manage them and who should I put priority on? These are areas that are normally in our products and services normal catalog, but we're seeing a demand for them. And so what we're trying to do is meet that demand. So you mentioned digital earlier and I think some people think that if you don't start off on the digital path from the very beginning, then you really can't implement it. But there are digital tools that you can insert into the middle of the process or into a legacy program. So is that something that your group can help with? Yes, so our Delta team also is working. We have partners from the PLM environment. We have partners with, that are working on the acquisition and sustainment data product from the EZS. And so there are lots of ways that we have helped and we have worked with. For instance, if you look at some of our digital platforms, such as A10, you know, C130J, B1, who's making a digital twin, you know, B52, who was a legacy program and decided to go digital as they increased or updated their engine. There are lots of different programs that are in sustainment or they're modernizing. And they're like, okay, our baseline is legacy. We have nothing digital, but we're interested in going digital. And so in our Delta team, we have developed a digital implementation assistance, kind of a format to help really thinking, teams think through critical thinking. And so it's all about if you are interested in that, asking the right questions to help determine what may be the best model for you. Digital can apply in many different areas and in many different ways. In some instances, for instance, for PLM, it may be the first piece is making sure we have all the data and the correct data rights and intellectual property that we can do what we want to do in this, in sustainment. It could be, you know, what has, what is driving the worst, you know, readiness issue or reliability issue? Maybe that's an area that we wanna focus in on. So there are many different opportunities to look for a program to look at, does digital make sense for us? And so we are really working and partnering with other SMEs to help make those critical decisions and make more importantly, help that critical thinking. So your team is really kind of broad, broad based. What, when you're selecting new members, what are some of the characteristics that you look for? So obviously you're not just hiring on seasoned professionals, but you're also taking on junior force as well. Is there any common characteristics that you look for? So, you know, mostly we're looking for people who have, if possible, have had a range of experience from ACAT-1s to really, you know, ACAT-2s and 3s. We have people that focus on FMS because we're seeing a huge population of FMS programs that are coming to us for support and they're doing really innovative things in their contracts. And so that's driving, you know, a need to understand the FMS policies and the way of doing business there. But really most importantly, we are looking for people who not only embrace the acquisition of old, but embrace what's happening in acquisition now and what's to come. There's still a lot of learning when digital came around. We kind of put together a book club within the ACE family and said, okay, if we're going to help, we've got to learn, but we're not embedded in any program. So how do we learn? So it involves a lot of partnership, critical thinking, researching, working together, developing workshops, being able to take, you know, constructive criticism and just kind of change things around. And more importantly, listening to the demand signals of our customer base and then going after that knowledge and then creating the workshop or the tool to help through that support. So yes, you're right. The last three people that have joined our team have not been 20 plus years. They're more like six to eight years, but they've had a great experience through training programs. And so they're eager to learn. And the most important thing is that they're going to take this experience as they go back into the workforce. After they leave the ACE, they will have seen a lot of different expertise, a lot of different experience, and they'll have that tool set in their tool belt. You know, it's interesting that you mentioned continuous learning because we all know the acquisition process is constantly being refined. It's always changing, it's evolving all the time. What are some of the key modifications that you've seen in recent years in the acquisition process? So, you know, I think when Dr. Roper, when he established, you know, kind of the adaptive acquisition framework and helping teams really pushing go fast, speed with disciplines, innovative acquisition and execution. 5002 to me changed a lot of the game because out of that, we had specific policies that really, to me said, I'm giving you the authority to do things differently. If I'm doing a software program, don't think of it in all the milestones as you would in a major capability program. Think of it differently. How can we go fast? How can we get, and really it's all about continuous insight, continuous development, continuous building in many of these new authorities. So, you know, software pathways, defense business systems, that is a huge area for acquisition and we just can't think of it the same way, right? And so when, I think when 5002 actually became available, it forced a lot of teams to say, okay, maybe there is a better way to do this, you know, middle tier capabilities when we were doing rapid fielding and rapid development and rapid prototyping, you can't do things the same way as you did in a five year, you know, or four year development program. And so it forces you to dig a little deeper and think about things. And then, you know, this whole tailor in versus tailor out, which means streamlined to begin with and then figure out what makes sense. And so I think that that really has allowed acquisition to really try things differently. And really it's about that community, you know, those people at higher levels, making sure that you get that buy-in early of your strategy and what you are planning to do and what you're not planning to do. So I think that that's really what I've seen more in acquisition. It's no more of just take the last program's template. It really is thinking through earlier and making good decisions based upon what you know, what you think is gonna happen, the money that you have, you know, the risk that you see, what risk you're willing to take. You know, we're seeing a lot of that as far as kind of our, what is our strategy for building? And so those kind of things I think are really helping. This continuous ATO is another, you know, big help for programs such as that are heavy in software and defense business systems. You know, that continuous ATO, that DevSecOps, you know, development, security, you know, then operating, it's a continuous cycle. And so I think those kind of things have been amazing for me in the 34 years of my experience to see that progression. I grew up in an area where all programs were soul sourced, you know, CLS to the contractor for life. It is no longer that game. And so that drives a willingness to learn and it drives, you know, willingness to change, to try different strategies to go fast. So does your organization work specifically with AFL-CMC organizations or do you reach out to other organizations outside of the center? Sure, so our primary responsibility is to supporting the AFL-CMC mission, but we do support AFMC. We've worked with, you know, AFSAC, NACIC, we've worked with Nuke Weapons. And through the center level agreements, there are some center level agreements that specifically call out acquisition support to some of these organizations. We do support, you know, as resources are available and as on the demand, but more importantly, you know, now is a time that we have to work with other organizations for insight and knowledge and learning. And so, you know, in an area of some of these areas, you know, we're reaching out to the Navy and we're reaching out to the Army and we're learning from them, you know, space. We have a team that has been working with them trying to figure out what they're doing in the area of digital for program management. And so it causes us to kind of go past the normal AFL-CMC center to learn from. SAF-AQXE actually has a team that's called Acquisition Center of Excellence. And so every other week, we have a tag up that SAF-AQXE supports with all of their, our ACE across the center as well as our program element groups that really help us make sure that we stay aligned with what's going on in the building at the SAF-AQX, helping us with new policy insight, helping us, you know, sometimes we go to them and say, hey, I think this is what this policy is saying, help me, you know, am I interpreting correct? Who can we talk to to talk through this? So, you know, it really is a good way to really meet people outside. We've done a lot of work with AFPID and DAU, you know, trying to learn from them, bringing them into organizations where we don't have that level, that depth of expertise. And so we're reaching out to them to partner with us in different things. So, yeah, so it's not just us teaching ourselves, we have to be able to learn and share across the lines. So what do you see coming into the future? Well, you know what, I see more challenges. I see a continued call to go fast. I see a continued need to keep learning. I see a continued need to keep collaborating. I think that with the operational imperatives and a lot of the AFMC and center goals and the center goal of, you know, how are we gonna go fast through digital without really any enterprise funding? There's always a need to learn from others and to, if you think you have a good idea to share it. And I think that what we're gonna see is a continued need to bring people to organizations like the ACE that are willing to learn that will leverage what they know and kind of partner with what they're learning from, even our customers, we're learning from them every day because they're embedded into those execution organizations. So we know what they're doing, but it's even as important to understand what worked and what didn't and why. Because we like to handle our best practices and lessons learned from that execution standpoint. It's okay to advise, but it's really important to understand what was the side effect of that, what was the second, third and fourth order effect of that. How did it work? And so I think what I see in the future is more of that sharing. I see more complex acquisition I see that we're just getting started in digital. I don't know where that's going with really a lack of enterprise funding, but I've seen some amazing work at the division and portfolio level where they said, hey, we're taking a stand, we're gonna use some of our portfolio money and we're just jumping in and we're gonna figure it out as we go. And so that is really exciting and amazing to see. So I think that in closing, I think that the ACE is, we're gonna continue to learn while we lead as teams are. I see some teams doing amazing work and I'm learning and from them and I'm really excited to say that we're partnered with them. And I think that the center will keep meeting the mission which is building that capability faster through innovative acquisition and execution. So, man, that pretty much brings us to the end of our time. Is there anything that I forgot to ask you about or anything that you'd like to reiterate? No, I think we've hit all the salient points. It's been a pleasure to do this podcast with you. It's an honor that the Acquisition Center of Excellence or the ACE was chosen and seen as a needed and a force multiplying organization. If you need us, please call us. You can find us on the Air Force portal or on the SharePoint. If you need to reach out to us, just give us a call and we'll be happy to help. All right, ma'am, thanks very much for joining us on the Leadership Blog. We appreciate your time. Thanks for being here. Have a great day.