Rick Kozak / Staff Maj. Gen Gilmary “Mike” Hostage III is director, requirements and integration (J-8), U.S. Joint Forces Command.

U.S. Joint forces Command (USJFCOM) in Norfolk, Virginia, is working to ensure that technical requirements are communicated early in the Pentagon’s C4ISR systems acquisitions effort.

New rules under development will streamline the process, but the participation of joint commanders is equally important, Maj. Gen Gilmary “Mike” Hostage III, director, requirements and integration (J-8), U.S. Joint Forces Command, said today.

“A big challenge is navigating an ocean of legacy systems,” Hostage said, speaking at the 6th annual C4ISR Integration conference in Arlington, Va.

Hostage reviewed the creation of an interim level of governance at JFCOM, designed to seek consensus at the one- and two-star level and pass that information up to the policy realm. “Adding bureaucracy is seldom helpful, but we are emphasizing a teaming approach,” he said.

In the command and control arena, Hostage believes that eliminating unproductive programs and focusing on ones providing tangible benefits increases the likelihood that legitimate requirements survive the acquisition process. Obtaining consensus among joint officers can be difficult, he said, especially with regard to creating an implementation schedule. Within this framework are “sunset dates” for legacy systems, which can often become a politically-charged process.

“The key is to establish priorities across a capability portfolio,” Hostage said. “It’s easy to become wedded to a given system or process. But in a net-enabled world, I don’t know or care where the data came from. Access to it is all that matters. “Creating a common vision, and then being a steward of that common vision isn’t easy. If it was, I guess we’d all go do something else.”

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