We are excited to announce that BGI will be attending Space Foundation’s 36th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado on 23-26 August 2021. Space Symposium brings together government and industry to examine space issues, encourage dialogue, and focus on critical space needs. BGI will look for insight on near-term and long-term opportunities, to include question and answer sessions and panel discussions. BGI is thrilled to be able to meet and connect with our many government and industry partners in person in a collaborative setting. See you in Colorado Springs!
Author: Mike Reese
BGI presenting Aviation Data Science capabilities at the Sea-Air-Space Conference and Exposition
BGI is pleased to announce our attendance at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Conference and Exposition at the National Harbor 1-4 August, 2021. The Sea-Air-Space Exposition was “founded in 1965 as a means to bring the U.S. defense industrial base, private-sector U.S. companies and key military decision-makers from the sea services together for an annual innovative, educational, professional event located in the heart of Washington, D.C” (www.seaairspace.org).
In addition to attending the Exposition, BGI will present an overview of our Aircrew Performance Assessment SBIR Phase II technology as part of the Navy Forum for SBIR/STTR Focused Technology (Navy FST) Event at 1300 on Monday in Maryland Hall #3024. See a preview on YouTube.
On Tuesday, stop by the Navy FST Booth at the Main Exhibition Hall #537 to learn more about BGI and our Aviation Data Science capabilities!
BGI is Attending NTSA’s Training & Simulation Industry Symposium
We are excited to announce that BGI will be attending (in person!) NTSA’s Training & Simulation Industry Symposium (TSIS) in Orlando, Florida on 16/17 June 2021. TSIS provides industry an opportunity to network and interact directly with procurement officials for training and simulation products from the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Army. BGI will look for insight on near-term and long-term opportunities, to include question and answer sessions and panel discussions. Acquisition strategies, timing, and funding details are also provided during these briefs. BGI is thrilled to be able to meet and connect with our many industry partners in person, after so many months apart due to the COVID pandemic.
BGI Hosts Panel: “Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO): Who You Gonna Call? The Carrier Air Wing”
BGI recently had the distinct honor of hosting The Patuxent Partnership / Association of Naval Aviation Panel entitled “Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO): Who You Gonna Call? The Carrier Air Wing”. OPNAV N7, VADM Jeffrey Hughes, was the keynote speaker. Referencing the December 2020 “Tri-Service Maritime Strategy”, VADM Hughes provided an update of the global environment in which our Navy operates and how that environment drives the Navy’s strategy for Distributed Maritime Operations. Joining VADM Hughes on the panel were RADM John Meier, Commander, Naval Air Forces; RDML Shane Gahagan, Program Executive Officer (PEO) Tactical Aircraft; RDML Carl Chebi, Deputy PEO F-35 Lightning II; and RDML Eric Ruttenberg, Vice Chief Engineer, Naval Information Warfare Systems Command. Each panel member conveyed how their individual portfolio of products and services contributes to DMO.
The panel was a great opportunity to raise awareness on the strategic thinking of our navy leadership as it pertains to the emerging challenges associated with our Navy’s role in ensuring our national security and economic prosperity in the ever changing global environment; witnessed by the change in tone of our evolving Naval Strategies. The referenced “Tri-Service Maritime Strategy” shares many of the themes from the Navy’s January 2016/updated in December 2018 “A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority”. One standout difference though is the new strategy is much more demonstrative about China and Russia quest to be the eminent global power and are this nation’s greatest threat. It also instills a greater sense of urgency in preparing the United States Navy, the United States Marine Corp, and the United States Coast Guard to defend against those threats. The panel emphasized that key to that readiness and effectiveness is a total force alignment and focus on DMO.
With the understanding that for any strategy to be effective, it must be properly resourced, the panel briefly discussed the impact that the “Tri-Service Maritime Strategy” would have on the budget. It was stated that though there’s firm alignment between The White House, Congress and The Pentagon on who the threat is, what continues to be debated is the scale and intentions of the threat. Furthermore, budgets will always be challenging. As such, all the services will need to continue to balance current readiness vs capacity vs technology/force development.
Adding context to BGI’s Aviation Data Science efforts, was the emphasis by all panel members of the importance of Data Analytics. Also highlighted in the ‘Tri-Service Maritime Strategy’, the consistent message was naval leadership’s understanding that there is a lot more to learn through data and the Navy needs to be poised for that learning.
Hosting this esteemed panel was a significant opportunity for BGI. It reinforced the importance and added context to BGI’s mission while allowing our BGI family a better understanding of our role in providing the right products and services to one of our most valued customer.
BGI Awarded Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) Contract in Support of Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD)
BGI, along with 3 other contractors, have each been awarded a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract for an estimated aggregate ceiling of $90,000,000, with the companies having an opportunity to compete for individual orders in support of the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division.
These contracts provide for pilot and aircrew curriculum revision and maintenance support, including revision, update and maintenance of curriculum to ensure currency and accuracy of content in support of flight training, education and training services for the Navy, Marine Corps, and Foreign Military Sales customers.
Additionally, these contracts provide for the development of new lessons for curriculum that results from major Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization and Operational Flight Program upgrades to naval aircraft type/model/series in support of fleet replacement squadrons, fleet readiness centers, fleet replacement detachments, and aircraft weapons and tactics schools.
Work will be performed at the contractor’s locations and Navy and Marine Corps installations within the continental U.S., and is expected to be completed in April 2026. No funds are being obligated at time of award; funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. These contracts were competitively procured via a small business set aside, eight offers from eight vendors were received. The Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division, Orlando, Florida, is the contracting activity.
Other awardees include A. Harold and Associates LLC, Carley Corp. and Crew Training International Inc.
Happy Labor Day from BGI!
Happy Labor Day from BGI. BGI supports our customers in a myriad of ways with our work across the country. We do this in excellence. I am honored to hear about the “labor” we accomplish and as such, hope you can join our employee group and take the warranted rest this Labor Day weekend and recharge for the season ahead. BGI operates under one mission with diverse roles across the country. I am sharing an interesting activity of one of our employee groups.
The March AFB MQ-9 BGI employee group directly supports the domestic operations in fighting fires throughout California (CA). The MQ-9s from the 163rd Attack Wing fly around the fires and track the fires’ actual progress. Near real-time map data is then sent to the CalFire command center so they can allocate their resources to best effect. (This used to be done with ground observers and grease pencils.) CalFire leadership can also look at the video directly if there is a particularly critical situation. Another use of the data is to overlay snapshots of our video or Synthetic Aperture Radar images over Google Earth imagery to show confirmed destruction of property that can then be used to streamline federal emergency relief funds to those affected. Our BGI employees launch a significant portion of the aircraft for this mission and have again volunteered to do all aspects the mission as we have in the past. This latest time CA HQ wanted the bulk of the mission, besides Launch and Recovery, to be done by the ANG. We have 6 BGI employees on State Active Duty supporting this effort.
We are both grateful and proud of our March AFB MQ-9 BGI team for their continued support of training and am excited to highlight this interesting work they do in support of the state of CA. Well done! Your fellow employees at BGI honor you this Labor Day weekend!
https://www.airforcemag.com/guard-aircraft-watching-california-fires-as-blazes-continue-to-spread/
Attend Central Florida Navy League’s “ALL Hands” Virtual Social Co-Sponsored By BGI!
The BGI team is co-sponsoring the Central Florida Navy League’s “ALL Hands” virtual social today, Tuesday, September 8, 2020 at 5 pm (EDT). We began sponsoring CFNL in 2009 and have been along with them since. BGI‘s long history of supporting the Navy League of the United States gives us the arena to live out our GIVING BACK theme. This is a very entertaining and enjoyable event, with an impressive list of guest speakers, including BGI’s Jeff “Zoil” Penfield. We are excited to sponsor today’s forum and hope that you can join us for the engaging and worthwhile discussions.
National Insider Threat Awareness Month (NITAM) 2020
September 2020 is the second annual National Insider Threat Awareness Month (NITAM)! BGI recognizes the seriousness of the insider threat and is promoting heightened awareness and encouragement to its employees to report anomalous activities. Early intervention leads to positive outcomes for individuals and organizations.
The theme for NITAM this year is “Resilience,” the intangible quality that allows us to face adversity and come back at least as strong as before. Insider Threat programs promote personal resilience to mitigate risks associated with insider threats. Personal and organizational resilience is more important than ever, as we contend with significant challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
BGI Competes in AFWERX Challenge – Accelerating Pilots to Combat-Ready Aviators
BGI proposed an innovative solution to streamline the development of newly-winged pilots into Combat-Ready Aviators. Teamed with Two Blue Aces LLC, BGI submitted a unique Pilot Coaching plan centered on connecting elite combat-veteran coaches with individual FTU pilots to develop the human capital required in future combat aviation using modern, standardized and integrated tools. Our coaches enhance the individual’s critical combat training skills as well as the development of their warrior ethos. The result of this process, which is scalable across the CAF, develops more capable wingmen and a stronger foundation for future Air Force leadership.
The BGI/TBA team delivers a powerful mix of personalized coaches including tactically relevant F-16 SMEs and former senior Air Force leaders to a class of pilots in the fighter pipeline. Hand-selected coaches pair with students at the beginning of an F-16 basic course class and follow them through the CMR check-ride. These coaches provide tools/skills for students to develop critical thinking abilities and airborne leadership skills while instilling a strong sense of USAF aviation heritage and culture. The coaches cultivate growth of individual pilot’s strengths and improve weaknesses identified in the process.
During each syllabus phase, coaches schedule mentoring blocks within each training module. These coaching sessions provide extensive depth and perspective to the F-16’s mission and the wingman’s role in complex combat missions. Active coaching complements traditional training by providing a unique and innovative additive to pilot development.
All information exchanges are collected and available to be data-mined for future use and process improvement. The program will be validated using objective syllabus completion data and subjective exit interviews. Student pilots and combat unit leadership will complete surveys related to pilot critical thinking skills, maturity and overall combat mission readiness.
As additional value to the Air Force, these relationships will endure throughout the pilots’ Air Force career, allowing the seeds of change to thrive from within. Combat squadrons require unique cohesion as well as a common operating picture. In previous generations, this was done organically and occurred naturally with a much larger fighting force and breadth of experience. Today’s combat squadrons are increasingly less experienced due to increased operations tempo, reduced manning, accelerated syllabi and overall less “touchpoints” for culture enrichment and coaching opportunities.
This holistic approach to combat aviator development, readiness and leadership will accelerate proficiency, reduce the re-fly rate and result in definitive cost/time savings. This model is applicable across the combat aviator training spectrum. It can be an integrated effort across Air Combat, Global Strike, Training, Mobility and Special Operations commands.
BGI Security Week 2020
COVID-19 makes this the most unique Security Week in our history. Your Security team lead by Dave Carrell has pulled us all together all year long with informative updates and practices to make us operate in a safe and strong way. Now we can devote our time to a week of focus. Our focus, as individuals, will continue and must be a healthy balance between our personal responsibilities in dealing with the crisis blended with our commitments to work. Work as we knew it has taken on some new facets of execution. Though the near term is a bit unpredictable, we will eventually get to a routine that will carry us through the next couple of months.
This excerpt is directly from our Facility Security Officer Dave Carrell:
“Within our work responsibilities is a commitment to good security practices. This is now becoming even more critical with the emphasis on protecting sensitive information that is unclassified. Being careful of what we share in public and how we handle material on the job will become more involved as the new DOD CUI policy (recently released) trickles down to the industrial base. As professionals in this business, we are all aware of daily security hygiene, whether it involves documents, computer systems, operations security, or facilities, such as SCIFs. Regardless, a review of the highlights enables us to remain sharp, and to reinforce our responsibility to protect the information that is vital to our country’s security.”