In 1985, Scarbrough was reassigned to III Corps and Fort Hood, Texas where he served in multiple operational assignments as a battalion S4 and battery commander in a division AD Chaparral/ Vulcan Battalion. In 1988, he was reassigned to the 31st Air Defense Artillery Brigade, III Corps and served as chief of the Air Defense Element. In 1989, Scarbrough entered into his functi

onal area; research, development and acquisition, and has served in numerous acquisition management and staff positions to include: project manager for the Army’s Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities Program and director, Army Space Program Office; program executive office (PEO) for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (IEW&S); and product manager (PM) for the Army’s Information Warfare Program, PM Signals Warfare, PEO IEW&S.

Scarbrough’s other assignments include program director, Special Operations and Conventional Special Programs, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology; director, International Cooperative Programs Activity, United States Army Research, Development and Engineering Command; chief of staff to the Army Acquisition Executive; and assistant deputy, Acquisition and Systems Management, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.

Scarbrough has earned two master’s degrees—in business administration from the University of Oklahoma and in strategic studies from the United States Army War College. Other professional schooling includes the AD Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Army’s Command and General Staff College, the Air Force Air Command and Staff College, the Department of Defense Systems Management College, and the National Defense University’s CAPSTONE General and Flag Officer Course.

His decorations and awards include the Legion of Merit with one oak leaf cluster, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Meritorious Service Medal with six oak leaf clusters, the Army Commendation Medal with one oak leaf cluster and the Army’s Achievement Medal with one oak leaf cluster. He is also authorized to wear the Office of the Secretary of Defense Identification Badge, the Army Staff Identification Badge, the Army Air Assault Badge, and the German Air Force Air Defense Badge in Bronze.

Q: What are the top three chemical and biological threats in today’s operational environment?

A: I’m going to leave identifying the top individual chemical or biological threats to the intelligence experts and I’ll speak, in more general terms, to categories of biological or chemical threats. The rapid pace of chemical and biological technology development and proliferation through the information age, as well as the globalization of technology and expertise in these areas, when combined with extremist beliefs, poses a real threat to our armed forces and nation. The great gains in knowledge made in the biotechnology sector can also make it much easier for an informed adversary to develop and deliver an effective biological attack, or to engineer or enhance biological agent lethality. Chemical technologies development is also evolving at a rapid pace, which, again, can allow an informed adversary to potentially develop existing or emerging nontraditional agents.

We must also keep our focus on naturally occurring biological threats. The men and women of our armed forces are deployed across the globe and many of these areas have unusual disease endemic to the area. Again, due to globalization of information and expertise, our nation’s enemies may very well choose to use a naturally occurring infectious disease against us. Last, but not least, we must ensure our armed forces are ready in the event there is a requirement for us to respond to pandemics or biological agent attacks against our homeland.

So, for the reasons I outlined earlier, the broad threat areas beyond the “traditional” threats we currently focus on are: emerging engineered biological threats, emerging nontraditional chemical agent threats, and emerging naturally occurring infectious diseases.

Q: To follow up, describe how JPEO-CBD allows servicemen and women to remain safe and operationally ready in that environment.

A: All of our initiatives in the JPEO-CBD support the readiness and safety of our servicemen and women. We field between seven hundred thousand to one million pieces of equipment a year that directly support the units and the warfighter and can be used in support of our national efforts.

We have eight joint project managers, with a ninth that is close to being chartered, that develop and field capabilities.

Joint project manager [JPM] Individual Protection develops and fields integrated personnel protective equipment. They have fielded the Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology and they are now fielding the Joint Service General Purpose Mask, the Joint Block 2 Glove Upgrade, the Alternative Footwear System and the Joint Combat Vehicle Crewman Coverall.

The JPM for Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Contamination Avoidance provides advanced point and standoff detection capabilities. They have fielded the sensor suite for the Stryker Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Reconnaissance Vehicle, the Automatic Chemical Agent Detector Alarm, the Joint Chemical, Biological and Radiological Agent Water Monitor, and sensitive site exploitation capabilities in response to a Joint Urgent Operational Need Statement, and they are now fielding the Joint Chemical Agent Detector.

The JPM for Biological Defense develops and fields point and standoff biological detection capabilities. They have fielded the Joint Portal Shield and they are now fielding the Joint Biological Point Detection System.

The JPM for Collective Protection provides collective protection for warfighters and their equipment. They have fielded Collective Protective Systems for multiple naval ships, Chemically Protected Deployable Medical Systems, Collective Protection Expeditionary Medical Systems and they are now fielding the Chemical and Biological Protective System.

The JPM Guardian provides detection, analysis, communications, protection, response and survey capabilities in support of homeland and installation defense. They are fielding the Analytical Laboratory System, Unified Command Suite, commercial off-the-shelf upgrades for Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams, the Integrated Commercial Intrusion Detection System, Force Protection Suite, Battlefield Anti-Intrusion System and Installation Protection Program capability sets.

The JPM for Information Systems provides the warfighter with integrated early warning capability, an accredited hazard prediction model, consequence management, and course of action analysis tools. They are now fielding the Joint Effects Model and the Joint Warning and Reporting Network.

The JPM for Chemical Biological Medical Systems provides pre-exposure biological medical countermeasures, therapeutics for chemical agents and diagnostic equipment to the warfighter. They are fielding the anthrax and smallpox vaccines, and the Joint Biological Agent Identification and Diagnostic System.

In the event that contamination may not be avoided, our JPM for Decontamination provides a system of decontaminants and applicators specifically adapted to work together to decontaminate current and emerging threats, and they are now fielding the Joint Service Transportable Decontamination System–Small Scale, and the Reactive Skin Decontamination Lotion.

We are in the process of chartering our ninth JPM, Transformational Medical Technology. This joint project manager will provide post-exposure biological medical countermeasures and diagnosis in platforms to rapidly develop medical countermeasures to emerging biological threats.

All together our joint project managers have fielded more than 272,000 pieces of equipment this fiscal year, with another 500,000 items to be fielded by the end of the fiscal year.

In addition to the responsibilities of each joint project manager, we have many initiatives under way to ensure our equipment is meeting the needs of the current and emerging threats. One of our initiatives, in the area of both engineered and naturally occurring infectious diseases, is to leverage our capabilities with those of other agencies, such as the secretary of Health and Human Services [HHS], the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, to achieve early warning of health threats, early detection of health events and overall situational awareness of disease activity through Global Biosurveillance. An example of this is our vaccine effort for Filovirus. We are coordinating our development effort with the HHS to ensure we have a viable candidate to take through the Food and Drug Administration licensure process. Capabilities such as our biological detectors and the Joint Biological Agent Identification and Detection system make significant contributions to the bio-surveillance initiative.

An effort is under way to integrate medical countermeasure development within the federal government. We are increasing our investment in medical countermeasures development, as well as building platforms and processes to rapidly develop therapeutics to unknown biological agents, to include infectious diseases. We have recently developed, in 83 days, a new method to identify and diagnose the swine flu; this development process normally takes 18 to 24 months. We have also recently rapidly characterized an effective treatment for H1N1 in an animal population, and while we still have a lot of work, we have made significant progress in this area.

Another initiative under way is an effort to advance our detection, medical countermeasures, decontamination and individual protection equipment to provide capabilities against nontraditional agents, and I am pleased with this initiative’s progress as we expect to field these capabilities in the near future.

As you can see, we are in the business of fielding equipment and medical countermeasures to our joint services, so when they need the equipment, it will be there and be ready to provide the service it was intended for.

Q: Please update us on the JPEO’s development of a CBRN Enterprise Architecture.

A: We have developed a Chemical and Biological Enterprise Architecture to support acquisition decisions, to leverage and to integrate proven chemical and biological defense systems that are deployed to our forces throughout the world, and to closely align our acquisition systems to the capabilities needs of our warfighters today and for the next decade. We are constantly updating the architecture to make it better and to ensure integration of our products is captured. We have also established four Trail Bosses that will take our individual programs and make them part of a systems-of-system and/or family-ofsystem approach. The four Trail Bosses are information management/ information technology, nontraditional agents, biosurveillance, and major defense acquisition program support for CBRN capabilities. Our program managers will continue to lead and manage individual programs, while the empowered JPEO-CBD Trail Bosses will focus on the challenges of integrating our systems and equipment both internally and with the services’ systems and equipment. This effort will pull together the joint project offices within the Joint Program Executive Office and develop one common enterprise architecture based on the government’s information technology-focused Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework. My goal is to get back to common approaches, encompassing people, processes and technology, for acquiring, managing and disseminating chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense related information within the Department of Defense and Homeland Defense communities.

We’re still working this effort, but I am confident that this will be a transformative and enabling process. By leveraging ongoing efforts, we have already seen the importance, the implications and the payoff of working across our organization. We’ve developed integrated and powerful solutions for the warfighter through the use of bestpractice standards, existing ownership and related activities. This work will establish an efficient framework for our business activities, data and technology, and improve our ability to develop more robust systems for the warfighter and the first responder. Improving efficiencies across our organization will ultimately develop and field integrated solutions and capabilities to the warfighter faster.

Q: Your help wanted list: describe the three most urgent technology challenges across the JPEO-CBD portfolio that you need the industry-academic team’s help to address.

A: We have multiple, and complex, technology challenges that require help. I’ll list our most pressing at this time:

We are looking for technologies that will do standoff detection for chemical and/or biological vapor, aerosol and liquid surface agents. We are also looking for point detection across the entire spectrum of threat agents, to include biological and nontraditional agents.

We are looking for a family of systems [technologies] that can decontaminate the entire spectrum of threat agents quickly and efficiently, which are easy to use and do not harm the equipment we use or the environment. We are also looking for removable/strippable coatings for equipment to protect them and determine when contamination is present. We are also looking for sprays that will alert our warfighters and others of where the hazard is located on their equipment or vehicles.

We are looking for technologies that can filter out all agents for the individual warfighter. This would include finding a way to integrate these technologies into the future helmets, vice wearing a separate mask.

Q: How can a small business or member of the academic community make your office aware of a new technology application or product?

A: We participate in social media outlets and use our public website http://www.jpeocbd.osd.mil to provide an open line of communication for small businesses and members of the academic community to make us aware of new technologies and products. They are also always welcome to contact our Future Acquisition Directorate, at 703-681-9600, to set up briefings to share new chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense related technologies. In addition, we, and our nine joint project managers, host industry days and advanced planning briefings to industry, provide representatives and a display at many major U.S. and international chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense conferences. Our next advanced planning briefing to industry is scheduled for September 8 and 9, 2010, at the National Harbor, Md.

Q: As a follow-up, outline your office’s outreach effort to the small business community.

A: We execute the DoD small business set-asides policy. A “setaside for small business” is the reserving of an acquisition exclusively for participation by small business concerns who qualify. Small business set-asides of either a single acquisition or class of acquisitions may be a total or a partial set-aside.

For acquisitions exceeding $100,000, we conduct market research to determine if a small business capability exists. If there’s no reasonable expectation that at least two or more small business concerns will offer the products or services at a fair market price, our contracting officers use a full and open competition. Full and open competition does not mean small businesses cannot compete, or win, the contract; it just ensures the Department of Defense gets the best product while ensuring a wise use of funds.

Keys to making sure an acquisition is set-aside for a small business are timely and quality responses to our “sources sought” notices when we issue them. Waiting for the request for proposal before responding to let us know your small business is capable and intends to respond to the solicitation is too late for the Office of Small Business Programs to begin advocating for a set-aside of the proposed solicitation.

Q: Are there any closing thoughts you would like to share with the audience?

A: Yes, we want to thank our primary customers, the men and women of the Armed Forces, for everything they do to keep our nation safe. We and our partners are dedicated to exploiting every opportunity to collaborate with others throughout the world to bring the best technology and expertise to provide capabilities to meet the needs of the armed forces and the nation.

Also, given the proliferation of the threat, the develop As an organization we are very much aware of the responsibilities we bear, and we intend that our every action continues to be completely transparent to our customers and partners. ♦

Back to Top