Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Friday will make his return to Silicon Valley, where he will announce the Defense Department’s involvement in a new economic initiative, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said on Tuesday.
Photo: U.S. Department of Defense.
Carter will meet with top business leaders in the area and host a roundtable at the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental’s (DIUx) Moffett Field office, which he established in April to facilitate more engagement with innovative business and startups located in the tech hub.
“He’s going to meet with…a range of businesses,” some of which may not seem relevant to the Pentagon, Cook said during a briefing. However, Carter wants to see not only “technology and innovation for the force of the future, but ideas. What are these people working on that could ultimately down the road benefit the Department of Defense?”
Cook declined to name any of the companies that will be attending the roundtable on Friday. He also said he couldn’t point to specific technologies or equipment the department would be looking to buy as part of the initiative.
Some companies continue to have reservations about doing business with the Defense Department because of the complexity of contracting with the government, but Carter is serious about breaking down those barriers, he said.
“This is a secretary who is very serious about this. This is not bumper stickers,” he said. “This is an effort to seriously engage part of the U.S. economy that could help this department in a significant way and at the same time benefit a lot of the companies out there.”
Before arriving in Silicon Valley, Carter will visit three military installations. On Wednesday, he will travel to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois for an “assumption of command” ceremony for Gen. Darren W. McDew, who was recently confirmed by the Senate to take the reins of U.S. Transportation Command. Next, he will head to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada to observe the service’s Red Flag air-to-air combat training exercise. On Thursday, he will witness an amphibious training exercise at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California.