This is Captain Mark Kohlheim, US Navy and SSC Pacific Commanding Officer. At SPAWAR, he’s responsible for a whole lot of innovation for the world. They employ 4,200 people and operate like a not for profit with revenues of $2.5 billion. In that workforce are 150 Ph.D.’s and 800+ masters degrees. Most amazingly, they won the #1 best place to work in the United States!
Larry and I had an opportunity to hear Captain Kohlheim speak to an intimate gathering of MIT Graduates as a guest at the MIT Club the other evening. I frankly wasn’t looking forward to it, thinking it would be a lot of war talk. Boy, was I wrong!
Yes, there is the threat of a lot of stuff going wrong, and Captain Kohlheim is in charge of what he calls being on the “left” side of the boom!
There were plentiful acronyms, but Captain Kohlhiem brought me to attention with his capacity to look forward. For instance, he said, “We are in a global economy, we need to be able to interoperate. Everything we do as an economy is touched by cyberspace. What is coming beyond cyber? The coming ubiquitous environment is to become predictive. We can’t do that right now. But we need to.
SPAWAR is currently running 800 projects ranging from ocean to space, many revolutionary, disruptive technologies. What Captain Kohlheim wants is to get to the next game changer! He wants to create an unfair advantage.
This isn’t just a good idea. It’s a process of mixing government/military with cooperative research and development agreements for technology transfer. And it’s in San Diego!
I was struck by his observation that we do not generate enough scientists and engineers in this country and it’s a national tragedy. But he is not only worried about that, just like in every other aspect of this rich, diverse resource in San Diego, he’s seeing that SPAWAR is doing something about it in the form of educational outreach programs. “Society gets what they celebrate,” he said.
I am impressed with the opportunity to have this intelligent and informed military force here in San Diego working for innovation that transfers those innovations not just in keeping this land safe, but in helping this country to generate the next generation of innovations.
We live no more than five miles from the Old Town SPAWAR headquarters, and I had no idea! I am grateful to have had this exposure so that now I can appreciate another of San Diego’s many rich resources for its contribution to the world, not just the United States.
This is what I heard, it is not an official report from SPAWAR, but I am sure I got enough of it right to appreciate the resource and speak to its power as a generative environment for innovation that makes a significant difference. Captain, I salute you.
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