[ Music ]
>> Megan Mahle: And with that,
I'd like to introduce Jay Martin,
who is the Principal Director for our Office
of Mission & Capability Support.
[ Applause ]
>> Jay Martin: Good morning.
>> Good morning.
>> Jay Martin: There is a unique group here
around -- I see operators.
I see veterinarians.
I see industry.
I see trainers.
I see DHS folks.
I'm pretty excited about this group here today,
especially for this TIES event.
Given my operational background, and I come from the fire service
and I won't get into the detail there,
but if something bad happens, leave through that door.
Follow me.
All right.
The thing that says exit to get out of here.
I usually like to tell people
and remind them how to leave a building.
As Megan said, my name is Jay Martin,
and I am the Principal Director of Mission & Capability Support.
So what does that mean to you?
We are the office within Science and Technology Directorate
that manages all of the requirements for research
and development for DHS components
and our first responder community
of which our canine detection program is a big portion
of the portfolio.
I'm not going to talk to you about interesting things today
around what you've come here to hear.
I'm going to give you context of what Don Roberts,
the program manager, is going to talk about the canine program
and how it fits into S&T.
And hopefully those of you who have a broader interest
in what we're doing
around industry engagement outreach will tell you we want
to do this type of event for a number
of our strategic programs in our program areas.
No slides so I'm going to use a lot of estimated numbers
and information, and I didn't want to put it on a slide deck.
So many of you know about S&T but for those who don't,
we are the research and development arm
for the Department of Homeland Security.
We -- our budget kind of fluctuates
but right now this fiscal year we're looking to execute
about $350 million in research and development projects
through the requirements and the program management
that my office provides.
We do that a number of ways.
First, we have about 600 federal and contract support,
most in the D.C. area, but we do have people sprinkled all
over the country and internationally.
We operate mainly through contracts
to do research and development.
We don't do a lot of science in D.C., but DHS Science
and Technology does operate five laboratories.
And they're focused on areas where you would think we focus
on which is biological, chemical,
aviation security, radiological areas.
We also invest a lot of money in academic research
through our Centers of Excellences.
And we have ten COEs across the country
at different universities that focus on a number
of principal areas where DHS has an interest.
And we also do a lot of work with industry
of which this is a piece of that.
We've got some remote offices of people out in Silicon Valley.
And everybody kind of rushed out there a few years ago.
They're taking that program and trying to expand it
across the whole of the U.S. but that gets us to industry
to be able to communicate what DHS needs and what DHS is going
to invest in and what we can afford to invest in.
I'll give you a little context of why that is.
Our process for understanding what our research agenda
or what we're going to do annually comes
through integrated product teams where we bring in our component.
And there are eight operational and a number
of headquarters offices to tell us what they need in terms
of technology and science in the future.
And through these IPTs, we generate a list of areas we want
to do investment on behalf of DHS.
And most of you are pretty familiar
with the mission space of DHS and it's huge.
Right.
We are an all hazard organization.
And we do everything from Arctic research in the Coast Guard
up in the Arctic gap to drug smuggling in the Caribbean
to TSAs passenger screening to FEMAs disaster response
to CISs immigration stuff and data analytics and biometrics.
And $350 million in no way will close the gap for technology.
So part of our IPT process is prioritizing by component
where the department, the U.S. government, and S&T want
to put their investments.
But that leaves a long list of things which we cannot cover
in terms of either developing new technology
or even discovering what's out there.
These types of events give us an opportunity to talk to industry
about what we need but we can't afford.
This current fiscal year,
IPT process generated 150 new high priority gaps
for the Department of Homeland Security and our state
and local partners which we invest research
and development dollars in.
That's a big list.
And we're doing that with ongoing research.
It takes up about 3/4 of our budget,
but I'd say we're looking at somewhere in the ballpark
of about $60 million of new investment this fiscal year.
So enough about money.
We have a huge need.
We can't fill it.
We need to talk to the community
about how do they support and help us do that.
To give you context about what -- Don is going to come up
and talk about this canine detection program.
To give a context about what our R&D portfolio looks like,
I have to tell you a little bit about what we're doing today.
So we have currently about 350 different research
and development activities ongoing
in science and technology.
And when I stepped into the program, I was like wow.
It's very hard to get your arms
around 350 things you're doing let alone measure your impact.
Right. How are you improving capability?
What are you delivering?
So through a team of leadership,
we talked about how do we bring these together
into strategic program areas,
areas where there is a high interest,
there's crosscutting needs across the department?
We've been investing in it for a long time,
or it's a problem that's endearing.
We're going to have this forever like airline security.
So we were able to bring together from 350 disparate,
discrete projects and activities down to
about 24 strategic program areas.
Detection canine is one of those areas.
It has a high priority for the department,
for our transportation security administration and our state
and local law enforcement, and Congress has an interest in it,
so they gave us money that said you will spend $12 million a
year on canine detection over five years.
That's a $60 million program in an area that all of you,
because you're here, have an interest in.
So we have the resource.
And Don is going to talk to you a little bit
about what his plans are, but I think there's a lot of area
where you can inform the program about either needs
or capabilities or technology or approaches
to the program, what's going on.
I talked about the requirements
for this detection canine program, principally for S&T.
We get our detection requirements from TSA,
but every component in DHS has a working dog program.
So Don is beginning to open the aperture to talk
about not just detection canine but what are we doing about,
you know, the disaster response and all of the FEMA dogs?
What are we doing about Secret Service and their gun dogs?
And what are we doing about cadaver dogs?
And, you know, any working dog specialty, the genetics
of breeding are probably somewhere
across those working dog areas.
So how do we bring them together
in this detection canine program?
So to give a little bit of an idea beyond,
and this is by no means is comprehensive, but a little bit
of an idea beyond the detection canine, this is one of 24
but logically you all can think about areas
where technology is evolving
where we would put a strategic focus, and 5G is one.
You know not only the use of a 5G network
but the security requirements and protocols we would have
to consider as government users as well as state and locals
to use the 5G network.
Biometrics and identity management.
That's an area where we really need to look across DHS
and the state and locals and begin to navigate privacy,
civil rights, civil liberties, other issues involved
with biometrics and identity management.
One area that kind of has a little bit of an overlap
with your interest is personal protective equipment.
So we invest a considerable amount of money
in protective equipment.
Not so much for law enforcement because DOJ has got that covered
but in responder rescue,
emergency medical services, and the fire service.
One big one that we're -- and we're all touched at least
in some way, opioid/fentanyl detection.
We are leaning into this pretty hard to figure
out how we catch this stuff coming into the country
through our express mail and our ports.
Right. Not so much the investigation piece
or the distribution in the country but how is it getting
in and can we detect it?
And finally an area where we're spending a lot of time
and money is in Counter-UAS.
Right. This problem of how do we identify, track, mitigate,
and kill unmanned aerial system safely around soft targets
or crowded places or around areas
where there is national security concerns.
So that I think -- I just wanted to give you a broad idea
of what S&T does, how Don's program fits in context
to our portfolio, how we support not only DHS users
but state and locals.
One thing I would probably stress too is our need
to do much more interagency cooperation
across the federal government
because we're not the only program doing working
dog investments.
So there's others out there that we could certainly leverage
in terms of standards or training or things,
and I would offer that as an opportunity to explore.
But thank you for your time.
I really appreciate your interest
and your involvement, you all showing up.
I'm kind of surprised.
We were expecting somewhere around a dozen people
so this is pretty surprising that we have the turnout we do.
And thank you and hopefully you have a good day.
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