 The U.S. Army Futures Command got a little bit bigger as more than 14,000 Army scientists, engineers and support personnel officially joined the family February 3rd. In a ceremony at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, two four-star generals transitioned authority by shuttering the U.S. Army Research Development and Engineering Command and activating the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command to be known as CCDC. When we start to wind down and come out of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think the message is very, very clear that we need to refocus ourselves on large-scale ground combat and we need to refocus ourselves on the future. Under Army modernization plans, CCDC will be one of the pillars in the goal to adapt, innovate and integrate technology at speed and scale, so it can maintain what officials call assured battlefield dominance into the future. It should really drive you and make you passionate each and every day. It's how we make sure that future soldier has the tools they need to fight and win on future battlefields. RDECOM, since it stood up in 2004, had been part of the U.S. Army Materiel Command. Why did the Army choose to make this change? A change that is part of the most significant command structure change the Army has gone through in the last 40 years. Because we have not faced a greater challenge in our ability to maintain technological overmatch in the last 40 years. CCDC will comprise eight major and three international centers and laboratories, including the Army's Corporate Research Laboratory, the Army Research Laboratory, known as ARL. I see new challenges and a reason for being and a more tremendous opportunity as we become a bigger part of the team taking on bolder actions to force the future. In the coming weeks, the CCDC leadership will visit the workforce to conduct town hall meetings and communicate how the change will improve Army science and technology efforts to support the soldier of the future. In the first such event, Major General Cedric T. Wins met with the ARL workforce at the Adelphi Laboratory Center in Adelphi, Maryland, February 1. The general told the workforce that leadership recognizes the importance of maintaining the identity of the Army's Corporate Laboratory. He said the workforce brings expertise and experience to the Army Futures Command that will drive innovation, so the future force is safer and more lethal. This gives me an opportunity to actually get down where the workforce is, to get into their environment, make them comfortable about challenging me on any questions that they have or any concerns that they have about this and understand what this transition is all about with respect to the standing up of the Army Futures Command, as well as CCDC coming into the Army Futures Command.