By Emelie Rutherford
The Air Force is setting up a new program-executive office (PEO) for strategic systems that is intended to ensure future acquisitions jibe with the service’s nuclear- sustainment efforts.
Brig. Gen. Everett Thomas, commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, told House lawmakers yesterday that his service’s leadership has granted approval to establish the office, led by a flag-level program-executive officer, in the spring or summer of this year.
The PEO was recommended in a September 2008 report by a commission on the Air Force’s nuclear activities that was led by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger.
“This PEO for strategic systems will ensure future acquisitions efforts are properly aligned with near-term sustainment challenges,” Thomas told the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee yesterday.
To ensure these efforts “remain integrated and synchronized with day-to-day operations in sustainment,” he said, the new PEO will be co-located with the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirkland AFB, N.M.
The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center (AFNWC), a specialized center responsible for nuclear sustainment, was activated in March 2006. Thomas was assigned to be its first flag- level commander last spring, when the ICBM program office also was moved to it.
Thomas told reporters yesterday that the Schlesinger report highlighted the need for the new strategic-systems PEO. Previously, for nuclear sustainment the PEO was combined with the space systems PEO at the Air Force Space and Missile Center.
Thomas said the Schlesinger report prompted the AFNWC to ask: “‘Do you guys really know, collectively, cumulatively, how much nuclear acquisition you’re doing, and if that should rate its own PEO.'”
After conducting a study, he said, “We went, ‘Wow, he’s right. We have a lot of programs that are ongoing right now, and that we will further undergo.’ And so it rated its own PEO.”
Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz agreed the acquisition office should be established, Thomas said.
The PEO, after it is up and running this spring or summer, will handle all big-dollar acquisition category 1 programs. The program executive officer will also keep an eye on smaller programs handled by a more-junior defense-acquisition officer, he said.