Air Force’s PEO C3I&N Looks to the Future
At the center of command and control for the Air Force, Hanscom Air Force Base and, in particular, the program executive officer (PEO) for Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence and Networks (C3I&N), is positioning itself for the future.
“Today, our cyber and networks portfolio is responsible for a large number of the capabilities that our warfighters are utilizing in the cyber domain, as well as other domains, from our base infrastructure modernization to working with industry to bring other capabilities as a service, to the monitoring of our endpoints to determine whether anyone or anything has gained access they should not,” said Maj. Gen. Anthony W. Genatempo, the PEO for C3I&N at the Air Force’s Life Cycle Management Center (LCMC).
The general spoke at the AFCEA Rocky Mountain Cyberspace Symposium on February 12.
The PEO’s work—with the help of the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) and Alexis Bonnell, AFRL’s chief information officer and director of the Digital Capabilities Directorate—bringing large language model-based capabilities into the solicitation process continues, Genatempo confirmed. The goal is to better support its acquisition workforce.
For airmen to improve their electronic warfare capabilities, which is especially crucial in a near-peer fight, the PEO is working to improve its so-called Lantern facility. This effort is in addition to the work done by the Electronic Warfare Directorate.
“[It is] the connectivity that we're working to bring into place right now,” Genatempo explained. “Right now, it's localized. We are able to bring in some outside units in Massachusetts, out of Fort Devens, and our National Guard units come in to utilize us. What we're really trying to do is expand that connectivity to make it at least continental, so that we can participate in and be an additional node for more exercises.”
The electronic warfare range improvements will also complement the Air Force’s and the greater Department of Defense’s emphasis on conducting and participating in more exercises.
“The exercise path that I think the Air Force is on, and I think the joint force is on, is just going to be getting increasingly larger, with more and more variables,” Genatempo offered. “And the more facilities that we have that we can connect into and provide those nodes and endpoints, as well as the secure aspects of it, to make that a realistic exercise, I think that is something that we're going to see over the course of this next year.”
When asked how the activities of the president’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, might impact the PEO’s vendor-related projects, the general said that while some initial information was being filtered down to the LCMC from DOGE, the situation was changing rapidly.
“The Life Cycle Management Center has been meeting twice a day since last Monday, and then a couple of other ad hoc [policies] thrown in as new guidance have been forwarded down to LCMC,” Genatempo explained. “And it has changed multiple times, with different iterations, and different implementations have come forward.
“I don't have a good answer for you because I do not know what that is going to look like yet,” he continued. “I'm not even sure our Air Force knows what that's going to look like. This has all happened within the past week and a half. And how or what the DoD [Department of Defense] guidance is going to be down to the services, down to our major commands, down to our centers, down to me, that is not something that we have seen yet.”
We truly are working very hard to distill what is being presented [by DOGE] and figuring out how to best implement that.
The general promised his PEO workforce—and the industry—that when he had more information he would provide it.
“We truly are working very hard to distill what is being presented and figuring out how to best implement that,” Genatempo said. “And I don't have any really good information yet on that aspect right now. We're concentrating on the workforce aspects that have come out in the last week and a half. And I promise that as I have information, I will be able to share that.”
He reminded the crowd that people provide the foundation to the military.
“No matter what it is we discuss at a conference like this today or others like it, no matter what technologies we bring to the table, no matter what ideas are brought forward, there truly is only one network that is paramount to all and to the success of our nation, and that's the human one, and that has been true throughout our history.”
The Rocky Mountain Cyber Symposium is organized by AFCEA International's Rocky Mountain Chapter. SIGNAL Media is the official media of AFCEA International.
