The finalists for WashingtonExec’s Chief Officer Awards were announced March 17, and we’ll be highlighting some of them until the event takes place live, in-person May 10.
Next is Chief Technology Officer finalist in the Private Company category Dave Young, CTO of CAES. Here, he talks about recent achievements, career turning points and more.
What key achievements did you have in 2022/2023?
The years 2022/2023 were a great time for CAES. We grew the business to over $1.1 billion in revenue in a flat customer environment. We successfully completed the divestiture of our Space business and in parallel, acquired Ultra Specialized RF to create one of the largest independent advanced RF companies supporting the Department of Defense. We completed many successful technology initiatives which will revolutionize how the DOD senses threats and combats them in the RF spectrum. Our systems were deployed on Ships, Spacecraft, Aircraft for the Navy and Air Force as well as future hypersonic weapons.
What was a turning point or inflection point in your career?
A key turning point in my career occurred on the golf course about 15 years ago. Although I admit, I am not a great golfer, but I decided to join my company’s golf league to get to know my colleagues better. On this fateful “off Friday” on the golf course, I was paired with a “greybeard” named Luigi. Luigi spent the entire 18 holes quizzing me on everything from combustion dynamics of solid rocket motors to orbital dynamics. Clearly not the easy “off Friday” on the golf course that I expected!
After the round concluded, Luigi offered me a job as the Chief Engineer of the Conventional Strike Missile program, an Air Force hypersonic test program that was in development. It was my first opportunity to lead a technical team and was a great learning experience that I will leverage for the rest of my career.
Which rules do you think you should break more as a government/industry leader?
I think it is important to understand the distinction between a “law,” a “rule” or a “process.” Clearly, I would not advocate breaking any laws, but for rules and processes, I break them often. Our job as leaders is to not blindly follow these “rules,” but to understand the intent of the rule and process and to see if there is a more efficient of effective way of getting our job done.
One specific rule we seem to blindly follow is the belief that government requirements are the beginning of the acquisition process. In some cases, the customers are not aware of the technology that industry can bring to bear on their tough problems.
I encourage our team to constantly be canvasing both our technology tool chest as well as that of commercial industry to put together solutions for problems where the requirements aren’t written yet. We need to outsmart our adversaries and the only way to do that is to break some of the traditional acquisition processes that can slow down our delivery of next generation technology.