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Army Chooses Austin as Site for Futures Command Headquarters

-- Mature entrepreneurial incubator hubs for access to talent, ideas and collaboration;

-- Space and access to top-tier university science and engineering departments for collaboration on experiments, prototype concepts and systems;

-- Expandability of work space for other services and companies to join the effort;

-- Cost of doing business to enable both new startups and to draw established firms.

The undersecretary said the type of urban ecosystem defined by the selection criteria is where innovation, networking and collaboration are happening daily. 

"That ecosystem cannot be duplicated from behind the walls of traditional posts and forts," he said, adding that recognition of that concept is a radical change for the Army's culture.

The selection criteria evaluation process included use of an outside firm, validated with the Army's internal studies and analysis, as well as a federally-funded research and development center, he said.

A six-member team is en route to Austin to begin establishing initial operating capability at Army Futures Command, McCarthy said. Within a year, full operating capability will be achieved, he said, with a headquarters staff of about 500.

McCarthy said that doesn't mean all 500 will be working out of a downtown office. He said that as full operating capability is achieved over the coming year, he envisions teams of soldiers and Army civilians working out of technology "incubator hubs" alongside entrepreneurs, scientists and researchers.

A four-star general to head the command has been identified, but the officer’s name has not yet made public, he said.

McCarthy said Army Futures Command will shepherd development of the service's six modernization priorities of improved long-range precision fires, a next-generation combat vehicle, future vertical lift platforms, a mobile and expeditionary Army network, air and missile defense capabilities and soldier lethality.

He added that the eight cross-functional teams responsible now for moving those priorities forward will fall under the command.

Army Col. Patrick Seiber, communications director for Army Futures Command, said over the next year, a number of existing Army organizations are scheduled to transition from other commands to AFC. The Army Research, Development and Engineering Command is one example of an organization that eventually will realign under AFC, he said.

Army Research Laboratories, part of Army Materiel Command, also will realign to AFC, as will the Army Capabilities Integration Center, which now is part of Army Training and Doctrine Command. A number of acquisition and contracting elements that will fall under AFC, but those decisions are still being reviewed, he said.

While some existing Army organizations will be realigned under AFC, Seiber emphasized that those organizations, their employees and their facilities are expected to physically remain where they are now. The changes, he said, are "a delayering or rewiring, so to speak, to streamline functions under one command, to get solutions faster and products out to the soldier faster," he said.

When AFC is stood up within a year, Seiber said, the headquarters will contain up to 100 uniformed soldiers and 400 Army civilians, pending plans moving forward.

(Follow David Vergun on Twitter: @VergunARNEWS)

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