Black Generals Discuss Homeland Security

People and Events
Black Generals Discuss Homeland Security
By Transcripts
Dec 4, 2004, 20:43

Aired on C-Span2 November 5, 2004
Aired on WEAA-FM Radio November 6, 2004

Mr. Armstrong: I want to thank all of you for coming this evening to this evening to this historic event. Before I get started, let me first introduce myself, Mario Armstrong. Many of you may have heard of me on public radio for WEAA and also for my sister station, WYPR. I’m happy to be here this evening at Morgan State University, the Engineering Building to talk about this very much needed dialogue and discussion of our role as it relates to the national War on Terror.

Before I begin an introduction and we have some of our welcome addresses and we actually start with today’s dialogue, I wanted just to set a few ground rules real quickly. First, we will be filming this, so we would like you to smile, look animated; you don't have to doctor it up, but you can certainly show some expression and be okay. But, more importantly, just be yourself and be natural.

Secondly, there will be questions that we will take from the audience. There should have been index cards that you have received. If not, those will be momentarily handed out to you. If you have a question that you would like to have presented, there will be a gentleman walking up and down with a microphone. You just signal that you have an index card, pass it down the aisle to him and we’ll be sure to get that. There is our gentleman, Garland, right there. And we’ll be sure to make sure that we get that question asked and get you an answer.

Third, for radio show purposes, it may seem a little bit awkward in that we may actually take a break at some point in this discussion, probably about a half an hour into this, because it is being taped for air for public radio as well. So don’t be thrown off by that. If we go to a break and we’re all still here, that doesn’t mean you necessarily get to leave. We will take breaks so that you can get refreshed. We will take some breaks for refreshments. But, just so you know, we are taping that as well.

So, with all that said and done, I first want to thank you and welcome you to this town hall meeting, the first four of [tape skip] on National Security and African-American Participation in the Global War on Terror. Today you will be educated in fourths about the opportunities that today’s society presents to us, the future of the military, where the careers and opportunities are as it relates entrepreneurs and businesses in our Post 9/11 environment.

But, before I get started, we have some special welcome speakers that would like to come up to the podium and address this audience. First, let’s turn it over to Tyrone Taborn, the CEO and brainchild of this formal panel and the CEO of Career Communications Group. Please welcome Tyrone Taborn. [Applause]

Mr. Taborn: This is indeed an historic moment, a very important moment and you will hear a little bit more about that in a moment. But, the people in this room who have shown up speak to that. And I think when we look at the business community we have the presidents of two of the major associations here in Baltimore City who impact our entire region. I’d like to bring up Don Frye, the President of the Greater Baltimore Committee and Garland Williamson, the President of the President’s Roundtable. [Applause]

Mr. Frye: Thank you, Tyrone. First of all, on behalf of the Greater Baltimore Committee, I’d certainly like to welcome you and our panelists to Baltimore and congratulate Career Communications Group and Morgan State University for sponsoring and hosting this very exciting program and certainly too, assembling a very impressive panel of speakers for this evening. We certainly can just look at the presence of the prominence of the speakers that we hear and [indiscernible] understand the significance that this issue has on the business community and also, of course, on our national affairs today.

The Greater Baltimore region is already an area that has a significant presence in national defense with institutions such as NSA, Northrop Grumman, and also Aberdeen Proving Ground just to name a few. So it will be interesting to hear some of the other opportunities that will present themselves in the years to come as we focus on this area. Unfortunately, those have changed significantly since 9/11.

Again, to the panelists, we thank you very much for being here and appreciate your comments this evening.

Mr. Williamson: Well, good evening everyone. I’d just like to welcome you all to Baltimore, those of you who are not from Baltimore and those of you who are, I’d like to welcome you to Morgan State. I’d particularly like to welcome our distinguished panel here in the great city of Baltimore. We’re very happy to have you here.

This is the conversation around National Security as it relates to African-Americans that has been long overdue. From my perspective, we have, in a very large part, been left out of the equation in the general sense. Not in a prosecution sense, because we had these gentlemen here who you will find out were very much involved in this whole National Security area. So I’m looking forward to a very, very vigorous conversation, very vigorous town hall meeting here this evening and I know that you have lots of questions. If one commercial, I am very pleased that the panel I’m tabling is in fact, a member of the President’s Roundtable, a very prominent and valued member of the President’s Roundtable. And it was his initiative that has brought this town hall meeting about. So, Tyrone, I just want to congratulate you, because I know this is certainly going to be a success and I look forward to hearing what everyone has to say. Thank you very much. [Applause]

Mr. Taborn: Thank you. When this idea first came up, everyone at this table immediately raised their hands and said, “We’re onboard.” But there are two people here that also raised their hands and opened up the facilities. One is Dr. Eugene DeLoatch, the Dean of Engineering at Morgan State. Dr. DeLoatch, can you raise your hand? [Applause] And, of course, Mr. Richardson, the President of Morgan State. Dr. DeLoatch had planned to stand in for you, but you’ve decided to come and stand in for Dr. DeLoatch. Dr. Earl Richardson. [Applause]

Dr. Richardson: Very good. I’m always glad to stand in for Dean DeLoatch. But, good evening and let me welcome you to Morgan State University also for this very, very historic occasion. I might say to you that we’ve always had a very extraordinary relationship with Career Communications. As you know, the Black Engineer of the Year Award is something that we participate in very vigorously through the school of engineering and we think that this is just a follow on to that very, very important program. But, I also want to say that it is a very, very important evening, because we have a group of persons here that represent what I believe an untapped talent in this nation. These are persons who have served right on the front line and know the business of national security as well as anyone. And we’re just so pleased that as a historically Black college that Tyrone has chosen Morgan State University to be front and center in this activity.

I happen to know the General very, very well and I will not upstage the rest of the program by calling their names or trying to say anything about them individually. I simply say to my students, these are some of the models that you can emulate. And I say to my faculty and to my staff, what you will hear this evening, are issues and subjects, which you can use for the remainder of the year, because this is what is front and center in our national discussion now. And this forum, we hope, will give voice to the faces that you see on TV so often.

And so thank you very much to the distinguished panel and thank you so very much to Career Communications for hosting this forum here at Morgan State. Thank you. [Applause]

Mr. Armstrong: Ladies and gentlemen, this is a historic moment and it’s one that you will cherish. Before we get started with this evening’s discussion, what I would like to do is allow all of the Generals here and Lieutenant Generals here to state their name so you know who’s who and also I’d like for you, because one of the things that was very, very critical in today’s discussion is how do we ensure your message is heard. What is the one driving point that’s in your mind that needs to be shared? And while you think about that for a moment, I’m going to have Tyrone Taborn give us a little bit of a landscape of this 30,000 foot view of this historic event.

Mr. Taborn: The issue of National Security really does impact all of us. But, as I go around the country and I meet with many different groups, African-American groups, I get a sense of isolation. There’s a disconnect between the grassroots community and this discussion of National Security. And I’m not surprised by that, because for the most part, we don’t see the faces of these men on CNN when we talk about these issues. We don’t see the faces of people of color who are in the Armed Forces as much. So we walk away with that disconnect.

The overall mission of this town hall is to show America, to show the African-American community that we are one, that we are all stakeholders in this issue of National Security. And by discussing the role and showcasing our leaders in the military, we give a positive image to our young people and something that they can achieve.

Finally and probably more importantly, when we look at this issue of homeland security, simply because of the demographics, the community of African-Americans will be affected in the way that is very unique and substantial. And these are very important discussions that we need to be part of, because we will be impacted, we need to look at the array of issues involved here. And we also need to be very much involved and in a position to contribute to the solution. This is one America. Thank you. [Applause]

Mr. Armstrong: Now, you have to understand something, folks. When you have this distinguished panel, it’s very hard to summarize their background, their awards, their activities, their education, and their military achievement. So, I’m going to do the best that I can to try summarize this panel. And mind you, this is not in any specific order, so please don’t be offended.

Let’s first start with Tyrone Taborn to my right. He’s the Chairman and CEO of Career Communications Group, Inc. and is the Publisher and Editor in Chief of Hispanic Engineer and Information Technology, the nation’s oldest general interest technology magazine and he’s also, in addition to Hispanic Engineer and Information Technology, CCG is a multimillion dollar company, publishes the U.S. Black Engineer and Information Technology magazine, as well as the Science Spectrum magazine and the Women of Color magazine. You’ve heard a lot about Tyrone’s ability to come forward with this vision and this initiative, so it’s no surprise that he was also named as one of the 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology by the editors of BlackMoney.com. It’s also no surprise that Tyrone Taborn is the founder and creator of what is known as Black Family Technology Week here in Baltimore each and every year. So, let’s give a warm welcome to the CEO of Career Communications Group and the brainchild of this initiative here today, Tyrone Taborn. [Applause]

To his right we have Lieutenant General Joe Ballard, U.S. Army, retired. He was Chief of Engineers and Commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, overseeing a budget of more than $10 billion; leading a civilian and military workforce of 39,000 in engineering, housing, construction, real property, natural resources and environmental programs throughout the world. Let’s give a warm welcome to General Ballard. [Applause]

General Johnnie Wilson, U.S. Army, held a wide variety of important command and staff positions, culminating in his last assignment as Commander General of the U.S. Army Materiel Command. Among his other key assignments were Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Department of the Army; Pentagon Chief of Staff; U.S. Army Materiel Command, Command in General; Ordinance Center and School, Aberdeen Proving Ground; Deputy Commanding General 21st Theater Army Command; U.S. Army Europe and 7th Army Commander; 13th Support Command, Ft. Hood, Texas; and Commander, Division Support Command, 1st Armored Division, U.S. Army, Europe. General Johnnie Wilson. [Applause]

General Lester Lyles, U.S. Air Force was Vice Chief of Staff for the Headquarters U.S. Air Force in Washington, D.C. As the Vice Chief, he had subject to the authority, direction, and control of the Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Air Force. He presided over the Air staff and served as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Requirements Oversight Council. Let’s all give a warm welcome to General Lester Lyles. [Applause]

Lieutenant General Albert Edmonds, U.S. Air Force. He was the Director of the Defense Information Systems Agency and manager of the National Communications System. He was responsible for providing command, control, communications, computer, and intelligence support to the nation’s war fighters. Let’s give a warm welcome to Lieutenant General Albert Edmonds. [Applause]

Now, hopefully, folks, that gave you enough time for you to think about your brief introduction. I know that there are many thoughts that you may have in your mind as we begin this historic forum, so I’m going to go ahead and start with you, General Ballard, what, if there is any one message before we start with tonight’s town hall and become very interactive, what’s the one message that you would like to see driven home this evening?

General Ballard: Thank you very much, Mario. Obviously with my background in engineering and infrastructure, the War on Terror really focuses on related protection of the nation’s infrastructure. And as such, I think a point has been lost in the Black community, really, what does that mean to them? And when you think of where the critical aspects are in this country, I’m talking about the ports, the roads, the airfields, the railroads; it’s really in the Black community. And the impact of protecting that really goes to the heart of the change of the way of life, not only for this country, but in particularly the Black community. So just focus on that point and I’ll be coming back to that a little bit later on.

Mr. Armstrong: Thank you, General Ballard. General Wilson?

General Wilson: Thank you, Mario. First of all, let me say on behalf of this panel, we certainly appreciate the fact that Career Communications was able to coordinate this event. And we want to thank Dr. Richardson and his staff here at Morgan State for hosting this event. And I think it’s important that Morgan State be the host, because throughout the years, Morgan State University has been one of the leaders in terms of providing senior military people in our nation. Not just from the HBCU community, but throughout the nation and all of your ROTC programs. And as we sit here this evening as a matter of fact, in Europe today the number two General happens to be General Kipwar [phonetic], who is the number two person overseeing about 70,000 military people, not counting the many family members. In addition, the top logistician for the U.S. Army in Europe happens to be from Morgan State as well, Major General Benny Williams. So, to Morgan I commend you all for what you all have produced, a tremendous University here.

Now, as the logistician for the Army over the years, I would say for Morgan State one of the major concerns I have when you look at the global War on Terrorism, one of the requirements needed for our young men and women who are serving marvelously throughout the world is in the area of technology. Because of the weapons systems, the radio systems and the ammunition systems, the engineering and technology that’s provided, as a matter of fact, by Morgan is required by our young people. So I would ask that you keep that in mind and later on we can come back and speak more about that area.

Mr. Armstrong: General Wilson, thank you. General Lyles?

General Lyles: Thank you, Mario. And let me also thank everybody here for being part of this forum. I’d like to thank Tyrone Taborn and Career Communications for being the creators of this particular forum. I think this is a wonderful opportunity. Dr. Richardson and Dr. DeLoatch, thank you for giving us this venue. I’m particularly proud and honored to have a chance to be joined at a historical Black college. I’m a graduate of a historical Black college, not Morgan, but Howard University just down the street. But I think we’re all in the same family so that doesn’t matter. And I’m particularly pleased to see these young men and women who are part of the curriculum here at Morgan State as part of the audience.

It’s hard to single it down to a single word or thought that comes to mind when I think about this particular forum. Let me just mention a couple of them and I’ll do it very quickly and then I look forward to the discussion later on. One, an obvious one for me is the word “mentoring”. The opportunity to mentor young people, mentor senior people, mentor communities, mentor businesses, mentor universities to help them to do a better job of connecting with the tremendous opportunities there are available in the federal government particularly to help fight the global War on Terrorism and to help be part of our National Security forum. The word mentoring is important to me, because I happen to be sitting between two individuals who’ve mentored me during my Air Force career. One, Al Edmonds, before I became a 1-Star General, he was the guy I looked up to as an Air Force General who helped mentor me and allowed me to achieve some of the things I’ve achieved in the United States Air Force. And two, even though he was part of another service, before I became a 4-Star, I looked towards Johnnie Wilson as a leader in the United States Army and what leadership really means. And so I feel very prominent and very proud about the mentoring that I received from these individuals and I think that’s an important word when we’re talking about this particular topic.

The other key thing that comes to mind to me is the word I’ve used already, “opportunities”. There are lots of challenges out there in today’s global War on Terrorism, but believe me, there are many, many more opportunities. Opportunities for minority; opportunities for small businesses; opportunities for innovation, for the private sector, I can’t wait until we get into our discussion just to talk about some of those as examples. But, believe me, this is a target-rich environment, to use an Air Force terminology. A target-rich environment and all you have to do is point yourself in the right direction and the opportunity is there for you to be part of these great things that are available.

Mr. Armstrong: General Lyles, thank you. Lieutenant General Al Edmonds?

Lt. General Edmonds: Let me thank Morgan State for hosting this event, because this is absolutely fantastic. Tyrone Taborn and Dean DeLoatch and I go back a few years to the Black Engineer of the Year Award program. Tyrone and I have something in common as a matter of fact. He believes in freedom of speech, so he gets free speeches from me all the time. He makes the money; I make the speeches, but that’s okay. I want to bring a perspective to you tonight very similar to my colleagues here. But I have three things that I want to talk to you about and answer some questions later on.

First of all, like my colleagues, I’ve spent 33 years in the Air Force, which I had an Air Force career. I’ve retired from that. I’ve just retired from a six and a half year career in a Fortune 100 company where I saw the other side of the business from the government and then industry. And now I also sit on the President’s Commission on the National Infrastructure Advisory Council where we look at the entire nation’s infrastructure and how to protect it in this type of terrorism.

So I have three perspectives that I’m talking about, but I want to echo something you’ve already heard. The thing that’s most important to me tonight for you to understand, especially students, first of all, unlike the mechanical era or the industrial era, when the Ford brothers owned the automobile industry and they shut everybody else out until they allowed people to come in, this technology today is not owned by anyone. And you don’t have to be Black, White, Brown, woman, man; you apply yourself, you work hard, you can do all and be all that you want to be. For 40 years I have worked with this technology. I did computer programming in 1964 with punch cards. I [indiscernible] at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi 40 years ago. So all these things you hear now in terms of this is too technical, too technical, when you turn a computer on, you push three buttons: stop, start, and run. And it took the cards. What happened to them? But stuff came out the other end. So for all you students here, let me just tell you, the world’s open to you. Learn technology. I don’t care if you do it in health care, finance, medicine, business, manufacturing, technology’s here to stay. English teachers: technology. You have the research; you have a good term paper, online: technology. You can travel anyplace in the world on the internet. You don’t have to go on an airplane: technology. Technology and I’m going to tell all the students here, you want to do internships. I did recruiting for EDS the first six months I was at EDS. And I gave every student who had internships $5,000 more money than the ones who had not when they graduated, because they proved they knew how to do something. A transcript with grades won’t get you the top dollars. Take the chance to do something with technology before you graduate. I look forward to hearing your questions.

Mr. Armstrong: Thank you, Lieutenant General Al Edmonds. We appreciate that. And as you can see, these distinguished gentlemen have obviously clear messages that they would like to pose for today’s discussion and I’d like to just go ahead and open and let’s just jump right into this discussion and get it started. First off, I’d like to just throw out to the panel to whoever wants to be a risk taker here and take a leap at this first, where do we stand currently today as relates to the War on Terror and African-American participation? I believe many of us to date, because we have not had the opportunity to hear from African-Americans in the major news media, maybe we have certain myths or a certain assumptions that we need clarified. So the first question that I’d like to throw out there right now is what are we doing as relates to leadership roles and what active role are we playing in today’s military?

General Wilson: Let me, if I can lead it off by speaking about two major areas in this global War on Terrorism that being one, Afghanistan. Now, we went into Afghanistan with an extremely diverse force and took down the Taliban in short order. And today, we have probably about 18,000 troops in Afghanistan. And because of the resolve of the young men and women for the first time, maybe in the history of the nation of Afghanistan there was in fact a free election that took place. Now people can question whether everyone was able to vote or not, that’s another issue.

Going into Afghanistan was exactly the right thing to do, because we had really pinpointed the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden in terms of being behind the aircraft that flew into the Trade Center and the Pentagon. We did what we had to do. Now it is not over, because there is a tremendous amount of work to be done in terms of the infrastructure as General Ballard had spoke about and the security and putting in place all of the other programs that are required. Now, my view, Johnnie Wilson’s view is that we’ll be there for the time to come.

Now, the second front is Iraq. Now, Iraq’s a different story, because I think the nation is divided on whether or not we should be in Iraq. But we’re there. And since we’re there, we really have to support the young men and women who are there. Thus far, we’ve lost over 1,100 people; probably 6,000 to 10,000 have impaired some kind of injury. And what I would tell you is to a person, every one that I visited in Walter Reed Army Medical Center, not one soldier has complained. If you can imagine a soldier who had lost two or three limbs with the opportunity to complain to a General, they said to me, “You know, General, I wish I was back in Iraq because I’m concerned about Martinez and Jones and Wilson, my teammates.” That’s the kind of people that come from our communities.

Now having said that, one is extremely complex and I’m not sure how long it’s going to take us to stabilize that environment, but from diversity standpoint and I want to specifically give you the demographics on the United States Army. About 26 percent of your army is represented by the African-American community; about 9 percent from the Hispanic community. Now throughout the formations you didn’t see on the TV the African-American Colonels and Generals leading those forces. But the lead battalion that went into Baghdad was led by a young Lieutenant Colonel named Howard Twitty, winner of a Silver Star. The number two General in that organization, who’s now a Major General, we promoted him just recently, Lloyd Olsen. So all of those individuals led the young men and women into battle, performing marvelously. The African-Americans are serving a variety of functions from providing the logistics, commanding the units, communications, operating the technology and you see a lot of technology on the television. So what I would say to all of you, in Iraq we still have a ways to go and it’s my view we’re going to be there from time to come.

Mr. Armstrong: Is it fair to say that the rest of the panel agrees with the General’s comments?

General Lyles: Let me just add -- and I appreciate Johnnie sort of personifying the response by mentioning names, because I think that’s very important. It is a situation where terrorism knows no color and national security knows no color. And African-Americans are playing a major role throughout every aspect of the War on Terrorism. Johnnie mentioned some of the leaders within the United States Army, within the United States Air Force, because they’re usually flying airplanes and are doing other things, you don’t usually get to see faces or hear names. But we have similar sorts of situations in the United States Air Force. The Air War over Iraq was laid on the ground there in the area from the air bases in Iraq by Brigadier General Ed Rice, African-American. The number two person in our logistics infrastructure, Defense Logistic Agency is an African-American female, Major General Mary Saunders. And throughout the entire leadership structure of the Air Force and other aspects of the Air War, we have African-Americans who have major roles. Unfortunately, that never gets through to the media. You never really see that. You never hear that, so it’s very easy to assume that African-Americans are not playing a prominent role. So I’m very pleased and very proud to hear the names that Johnnie mentioned. I’m very proud of the ones that I know and served with in the United States Air Force. I know the Navy and the Marine Corps could say exactly the same. We can be very proud of the contribution of African-Americans in this global War on Terrorism.

Mr. Armstrong: Thank you, General. Yes, General Ballard?

General Ballard: I might add and I think it’s very important for all of us to recognize that the military today is not the military that your father and your grandfather served in. This is an organization that’s probably the most highly trained, technically sophisticated force that we’ve ever known. The counterpart to that is that most, if not all, of the Blacks that are serving as part of this volunteer army, have been given an opportunity to grow and train and be all that they can be. Now we were talking about names. Most folks don’t realize if you recall, when we first went into Iraq, the focus was on putting out the oil wells. Well, the individual that put out the oil wells, former Black engineer was young Brigadier General by the name of Robert Creer [phonetic]. Today, he’s in charge of the largest engineering division in the Corps of Engineers. You never saw him on TV, but he was the man that was instrumental in putting out the oil wells, the fires in Iraq and we’re quite proud of him.

Mr. Armstrong: Thank you, General. Lieutenant General?

General Edmonds: Yes, so we don’t feel too badly about these things, let me just put a little something in perspective for you. In this society called America, I’m proud to tell you that the Department of Defense and its branches of the military, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and to so degree, the Coast Guard, believe it or not, provided opportunities for these panel members here and many in the audience long before the American Society did. Long before someone said you’re going to be judged by the content of your character rather than the color of your skin. It took a little time to get started, but when I came to the Air Force in 1964, there were no longer headings on my performance report that said “Colored” or “Black” and just “Lieutenant”. Now don’t take that as everything’s rosy, because there was a fight every step of the way. But at least the law was and the rule was that you judge people by their performance, not by the color of their skin. In a society like that called the military, if you performed that way in all parts of our society, think about how wonderful things would be in the world. So, while we have this panel discussion tonight to talk about what we have accomplished in this War on Terror, I want you to also understand, especially the folks who have choices, who still have career choices to make that this institution gave a lot of us the opportunity to do things we could not have done in Corporate America. I could not have gotten the job at EDS in 1964 that I had in the Air Force in 1964. But, my Air Force training and my Air Force development allowed me to come to the EDS at a very high level, which I’m very happy to say. So, things don’t always happen like you want them to happen, but they happen in ways they won’t happen.

Mr. Armstrong: We appreciate the points on that. Now, keep in mind, folks, if you do have questions from the audience, you can fill out your index cards. Just raise your hand and they’ll pass [tape skip] walking around with the mic and they will take your questions and we’ll be sure to start to get those into the mix of things.

Real quickly, I’d like to jump over to a different area for a quick second. One of the things that seems to be repetitive, I heard terrorism equals no color; technology equals no color; and then I believe I heard General Ballard even say we are more technically sophisticated than we’ve ever been. So the word “technology” is only fitting to be in this engineering location for this particular town hall meeting.

Let’s talk a little bit about how important and not just how important, we know it’s playing a role, but what are some of the opportunities that technology may be affording us and how can we be part and parcel to the process of what technologies are being used and how that can go about protecting our communities.

General Edmonds: Let me take a stab at some of that. Let me tell you, I spent my last 40 years in technology and I grew up with telephone systems, computers and when I first started with computers, they were all used like adding machines. And we finally found a way to make them talk to each other. Then we found a way to make them produce papers for us and reports. And I guess at the time, in the military, the worse guys we wanted to see were the technical guys. You call them pointers today, they were real smart. You liked the guys who wanted to use their riffles and do the shooting and [indiscernible], but the fact of it is, as the Generals have said and General Ballard first said it, almost all the weapons systems used today are computers. An airplane today is a flying computer with wings. And frankly, except the fact that it’s really great to be Top Gun, you can really fly them without doing much but just sitting up there. And as a matter of fact, a 747, once you take off, you can set your course just where you want to go. It will take you there, it will land, it will stop and it will taxi to the gate. So technology is really in every part of our lives. So you don’t let technology leave you behind. But whether we play in this role, I will tell you right now, if you do anything at all in radio frequencies, like Wallace Communications, a big marketplace. Two weeks ago, I said seven years ago that right now if you’re a diabetic, it’s a matter of days and months that a doctor will insert a little chip in your arm to let you know when you have to take the insulin. And oh, by the way, they can put it in your arm to release the exact amount based on the chemistry in your body. Health care, technology based.

Dr. Ben Carson, Johns Hopkins University is a good friend of mine. About ten years ago, I said, “Ben, you know before you do your neurosurgery, why don’t you do a modeling of the brain where the tumor is and operate on that tumor 15 to 20 times before you ever cut the patient?” They do it every day now. You model the surgery before you do it. So everything you do, everything we do -- now, one thing I would also do with this, after I learned my technology, I would learn languages, because one of the biggest problems we have today on the War on Terrorism is that the terrorists speak languages we don’t speak. So have you ever been in a department store and somebody’s talking over here in a language you don’t understand? They might be calling you a dirty name and you wouldn’t even know the difference. You must learn languages, whatever they are and you have to get the technology.

Mr. Armstrong: And that brings up a valuable point, because we do want to find out outside of technology, what other skill sets are important in how we can use those for position. Real quickly, I’ll let General Lester Lyles comment and then we’ll go to the audience for some questions.

General Lyles: Let me add to what Al just mentioned and bring up something that I think is a very serious issue for our United States, for our country. All of the panel members that I know, know this and many in the audience also recognize that we’re in a technology crisis in the United States. Our country lags most of the free world countries. Many of our allies and certainly some of our enemies, potential enemies, in science, math and technology emphasis in our school systems and in our young people. We are no longer the technological leaders in the world. And that is a major national security issue that may not be affecting us today, but it certainly will affect us in the future. We have a crisis situation that has to be dealt with. It has to start in the secondary schools, progress through the high schools, progress and continue to colleges and universities. You need the emphasis like here at Morgan State on science and math and technology and engineering. This is the crisis that needs to be dealt with.

I had the good fortune earlier this year from January to July of serving on a Presidential Commission, the President’s Commission on Space. The subject was dealing with the policy for the new space vision of going back to the moon, to Mars and beyond. And it was not the matter of going to Mars that was the emphasis of that particular initiative. The emphasis was re-stimulating the interest in math and science and technology in the United States, very much like we had in the Apollo era when we were going to the moon for the first time. We have lost that bubble in the United States. It’s a crisis that’s going to come back to haunt us. It’s going to haunt the entire country relative to our national security, our economic freedom, our economic vitality and I would hate to see the Black community be a part of that crisis when there’s an opportunity to lead in the Black community the rest of the country in this area that we’re so desperately looking for help in.

Mr. Armstrong: Thank you, General Lyles. Let’s go to the audience. Garland Williamson, I believe, from Career Communications Group, I believe you have a few questions.

Mr. Thompson: I’m Garland Thompson, thank you. Garland Williamson is the distinguished gentleman who appeared a little earlier.

Mr. Armstrong: I’m sorry.

Mr. Thompson: General, the generals are talking about technology. Let me put it a little bit clearer. They are 5 percent of 137 million workers in America who are scientists and engineers. Those 5 percent are responsibility for more than 50 percent of the growth in this economy. We train 1 in 20 Americans in engineering; in India, it’s 1 in 5; in Japan, it’s 1 in 5; in Western Europe, 1 in 5; in China, 2 in 5. When the generals say we have lost the leadership, that’s what it means. We can correct that.

We have a question here about security clearances. How can small minority owned firms and community based organizations better position themselves for opportunities in the defense and intelligence communities? A very good question.

General Wilson: Let me, if I can Garland, since the company that I represent, we spend a lot of time hiring people who have security clearances. And this security requirement has intensified since 9/11. Now, one of the challenges we have in African-American communities is the fact that a number of our youth will get in trouble earlier on. So when it’s time for us to run the background checks and get the clearances and we can’t get them through the pipelines so that we can hire them for credible and executive positions. So, one, I think the young people who are with us this evening, I would say as you move through this journey of life, you know the rules of engagement and the parameters in terms of being a great American, you probably need to heed that.

But then for the young African-American community, you really have to put ads out, you have to have job fairs, you have to work it hard, because if you don’t have the cleared workforce to support the National Security Agency, the FBI, the CIA, then once again, the minority firms will be locked out. So, it’s not an easy process. Even the large firms have the same kinds of challenges and the requirements just continue to expand at the same time. The institutions that conduct the security clearance background checks are backlogged to no end. That then impacts those of us who are in the corporate world, especially the minority firms.

So I would say you have to ban together. There are various venues that we use with job fairs, with advertising; with networking to make sure we can fill our requirements.

Male Voice: [tape skip]…on the way at very, very senior levels of the government to try to clear up the backlogs, to try to streamline the process, that is another crisis situation as Johnnie just alluded to. But, it’s one that has to come to a head.

A little bit of a statistic that’s related to the earlier comment that Garland made. I was the Air Force’s Chief Technologist before I retired and I had all the engineers and scientists, all the research lab under my command at the Air Force Materiel Command. And the biggest concern I had was the lost of manpower, not just those in uniform, but those of civil servants and even some of the contractors who worked for me. Roughly 75 percent of those people were eligible for retirement within the next five years. And that was a year ago, so now it’s down to four years. And we have to do something. We’re going to lose the expertise, lose the experience and if we can’t figure out -- “we” being the collective system -- can’t figure out how to streamline that process to help not only you, but help the current activities out there, we’re going to be dire straights. So something has to give in that situation.

General Edmonds: Let me add one quick thing. One of the reasons why I advocate very strongly internships, because if you were to go a reputable company while you’re in college as a sophomore or junior, before you graduate, you could also start the process of getting yourself cleared, at least to the secret level. So when you graduate from school, you’ll have a job based on your clearance. And if you have a job with the top clearances, you’re going to make more money. There are some jobs that pay as much to $10,000 to $15,000 or more because you have a clearance than the ones without a clearance. So if you start with internships as a way of life, go and get yourself a job during the school year, or if you’re in summer school, get a job in the summertime and get the internship, get your clearance and you’ll be a lot more marketable.

Mr. Armstrong: Thank you, Generals. We have a question from the audience. We’re going to go ahead and go with Garland Williamson, President of the President’s Roundtable. Your question, please?

Mr. Williamson: Thank you. I just want to say I’m a Navy man and I’m not going to hold it against you guys. Nobody’s up there from the Navy. But, as the President of the President’s Roundtable, I would be remised if I didn’t ask this question. I’d like to acknowledge the fact that the military in fact has been progressive in terms of promoting African-Americans in particular and other minorities. And given the statistics that each of you have stated about how active African-Americans are in the War on Terrorism, I think it’s something we should be proud of. But, as President of the President’s Roundtable, my question is how do we get African-American businesses that are ready and able, today, to participate in the economics of the War on Terrorism? We hear about the Halliburton’s and we hear about other companies and we hear about how rules are changed and how regulations are set aside to get these companies into the process. So what do I say to my members and other qualified minority businesses in this country as to how they can get involved in this process today?

Male Voice: I would offer for an example, Al Edmonds just stepped down from being the President of EDS Federal. And one of the things that happens when you have people who are promoted to the level that he was promoted to, especially people of color, for whatever reason, they don’t reach out and bring people in. Al Edmonds did just that at EDS. He changed the culture of the organization and had a huge hiring program not only to bring in African-American interns, a number of them serving at executive levels, but also the Black companies. So these small minority companies are now on the cutting edge of being able to support the Homeland Security Department and other Departments. And most of the requirements for this global War on Terrorism, from my view, because I’m involved in technology as well, is in the technology area. When you go into many cities today, police chiefs have operation centers with all these cameras. If you go into D.C., Chief Ramsey can sit there will these cameras and watch Jones and Johnnie and other people driving down the street.

The War on Terrorism, you can sit in the basement of the Pentagon using this satellite and look at Baghdad and assist our soldiers who are patrolling in various locations. So there are tremendous opportunities across the spectrum for companies. The key is how do our minority firms gain access and in America there are about 22 million small business entities. I can’t tell you the number of them that are African-Americans, but we have to work at it. We have to be diligent. We have to put people in positions similar to where Al Edmonds has served.

Mr. Armstrong: And it should be noted that in Panel II, we will talk specifically about some of these entrepreneurial opportunities that will be coming up after this panel. So it’s noted that some of these questions may even have other answer to them as well in the second panel. Yes, General Lyles?

General Lyles: Yes. Garland, two words come to mind to me when I think of your question. One is cultural. You mentioned the word culture and so did Johnnie. The other is communication itself. Let me give you a specific example. The President’s Space Commission I just served on, we worked very closely with NASA. The number one recommendation we gave back to the President for NASA was that they need to change their culture so they have an outreach sort of environment to reach out to the private sector, particular for minority and small businesses. Since that time, I’ve seen Sean O’Keefe, the Administrator of NASA, and the new leadership there pulling into the headquarters, doing everything they can to try to establish an environment to look out for the kinds of small businesses, minority businesses, innovative entrepreneurial businesses that are out there that can help them to accomplish their mission. They are reaching out to them greater than they are to the big companies.

They’re changing the culture, but they still haven’t got the communication part right and they’re working on that. I think other companies, other agencies are doing likewise. They don’t have the right sort of mechanism so that a minority business, a small business can look to NASA’s website and find out that the culture has changed and that all they have to do is go knock on the door and the door is going to be opened for them. There’s that communications gap that’s missing while the culture is changing. And somehow that needs to be address.

Mr. Armstrong: Well, this forum will help to assist some of that, hopefully. Let’s go back to Garland in the audience. I see you have some other questions.

Mr. Williamson: One question is since a large amount of national infrastructure is in the Black community, why have the states or federal governments provided little real direction for protection if a terrorist act takes place in the Black community?

Mr. Armstrong: General Ballard, I’d turn to you for that.

General Ballard: Yes. Unfortunately, there’s been no real guidance that’s been given on the protection of critical infrastructure. Let me give you a good example. Immediately after 9/11 the Coast Guard was given the mission to do an assessment of all of the ports and the inland waterways in this country. $70 million later, they were about 30 percent done. That’s just to do the assessment. You have to do the front end piece of that before you can give out the guidance. Now, you can say that’s not a slap at the Coast Guard. What we’re dealing with here is really a change in the way we live and operate.

Baltimore is a port city. So when you talk about how do you protect this critical infrastructure, this port of Baltimore, there are significant costs and resources to do that. Who will bear the cost of that? That cost has passed through to the community. That means more expensive goods and services. As containers come in, how do you protect the containers? How do you take the inner model transportations that feed into these ports? That’s not an excuse. I’m just telling you that it’s going to be a long, long haul as we work towards this. Eventually it is going to happen. But it’s not going to happen tomorrow.

The thing that I think is very important that we recognize here is that we will be impacted. We need to vigilant. We need to realize that we are sitting in the midst of many of these critical infrastructures and we need to have a voice. Speak to your local [indiscernible]. Find out what is going on and it’s important to do that. But it’s not going to happen tomorrow.

Mr. Armstrong: And I’d just like to add comments that Baltimore is in fact a port city and just for those who aren’t aware, more than 6 million containers, more than 6 million containers arrive at U.S. ports each year. Now think about that for a second. How do you track those? What technology is being used to inventory those? How do you deal with the humans that touch them from spots to location? So, one of the things that you should be aware of is that government spending, about $58 million -- it’s a good point, General Ballard -- an operation initiative called Operation Safe Commerce is, from what I understand, re-tolling this whole global shipping industry, how we’re utilizing technology to track the shipments. And significantly, I believe the pilot program is doing it in 18 ports and across the country, correct me if I’m mistaken, I believe there are 3 load centers of the ports of which Longbeach receive 65 percent of the containers that come through into the country. Is that correct?

Male Voice: That’s correct.

Mr. Armstrong: So, if there were biochemicals, if there was something that could react, how would we, what should we be thinking about in terms of preparation? I’m not thinking from the individual side, I’m thinking from the infrastructure side.

General Edmonds: Let me take this in a different angle here. And this is not an excuse for what departments we have or have not made, but the fact of it is, in a free society like ours, we have rules. And one of the rules we have is one of procurement that means it’s going to compete a lot of them. When 9/11 first happened, I could tell you for a fact that every crazy came out of the woodwork with a gadget that was going to solve all our problems.

I sat down with a lot of government officials and tried to help them sort out which ones were worth looking at. Some guy in a real estate office out in California called because he sells homes, for Homeland Security. And so surely, he had something to offer. So, I watched a lot of this. These very gadgets we set at the airport that we think are so cumbersome and so slow because they can’t get the bags through. The fact is those gadgets were things we were doing logs with out in Washington State to make sure they didn’t have dynamite in them we tried to go through the logs and make sure they didn’t blow up going down the rivers. But we took them really fast and put them in the airport to look at bags. The technology just wasn’t there to meet the situation.

We went to GE and asked GE about getting us some of the MRIs and CAT scan equipment to x-ray things. And they threw those things in there with the civil liberties where people are saying, “I don’t want you to check me.” I’ve taken my shoes and cloths off more than I ever had in my life at the airport and I had 33 years of military time and that didn’t mean anything. So, it was a lot of that. And I’ll also tell you the fact that a large number of minorities live in the inner cities and a lot of those things are there. And that really isn’t the issue, per se. The issue is a lot of times it’s not just what’s obvious to you. That’s the state and local governments who couldn’t do themselves. But, to get to what General Ballard said, who’s going to pay the bill?

I’ve talked to a couple of mayors that say, “Oh, we can do that, but [indiscernible]”. When we started doing the airline stuff at first, the first thing the airlines wanted to do was pass the cost to the federal government. Well, if you take every cost that people are sending you, we’ll break the budget. So there are a lot of other things involved in this process. But having said that, having said that, go back to what I said earlier. Technology exists today to make things better and safer. We want to be part of that process so we want to get jobs in those things. We want to help solve our own problems together of security for everybody.

Homeland Security is everybody’s job; yours and mine. We all have risks. And if you lose one American because of it, that’s too many. So we all have to be vigilant or look for ways to get back on the jobs and give the small businesses the same. There’s nothing you can do to substitute for someone who has the guts to say, “I’m going to do what’s right.” And doing what’s right means that I am stronger and better when everybody participates. When everybody uses their heads and their brains and gives us the best ideas and we implement those. And you can’t leave out any segment of your society in order to do that. So you have to go to all of your colleges, all of your universities, all of your communities and get the best ideas and give everybody a chance to solve them. There will be some people who fail and that’s okay too because our society allows you to fail and to get back up and do it again and get it right.

So, this really is a work in progress here and the message is you want to be part of the process going forward and not sit on the balcony and watch the dance floor while everybody else is dancing.

General Ballard: Let me comment on this about how do you find access, get access to the government. General Wilson and I both served about the same time when he had AMC and I had the Army Corps of Engineers and together we controlled about 85 percent of the discretionary dollars that was spent in the military. And we both made a concerted effort to open up our programs to allow more access to small businesses, not just minorities, small businesses, because we fully realized that the growth is in small business as the growth of a particular business. One of the things we found, many of the small businesses soon became discouraged because they didn’t understand the system, they didn’t stick with it.

We’re trying to change this culture that General Lyles talked about where we have a more open procurement system, but it is slow to change. It’s like turning a battleship. It takes about two miles and whatever, but you have to stick around to do it and learn the craft. Don’t give up. There is also this thing we call teaming and partnering. Many of the small business folks that I talk to are very macho. I can do it alone. Well, you can’t. You really can’t. If you partner with each and team together, you’ll do a lot better.

There is a group called Remore [phonetic] that is very good at bringing small businesses together, doing some teaming and doing some partnering and pushing for access. So I just wanted to make that point.

Mr. Armstrong: Thank you for that point. And we are hosting this at the historically Black college Morgan State University’s Engineering location. And so it’s only fitting that Lieutenant General, you brought up technology and I’m going to grab some questions from the audience, but while we do that, I would like for all of you to think about what are the technology technological opportunities? We mentioned wireless, but what specifically, RFID specifically? What other technology, specifically, should we be thinking about? It’s only fitting that we do that in this arena. So let’s go back to the audience and grab Garland from some questions that we’ve had this evening.

Male Voice: Okay. We have a question that’s changing our field somewhat. Do you think that the Patriot Act is a new form of racial profiling against Arabs and Blacks? And connected to that is, are young people going to be drafted any time soon?

Mr. Armstrong: I’m actually shocked that it took this long for a question of that sort, unless you’ve been screening very well to reach this panel. I thought instantly right off the bat we were going to have some questions as it relates, especially in this time that we’re in for the election.

Male Voice: Let me, Garland, just give you my view on the draft issue. I may as well open it up. That is a tough one. Politically explosive, so much so that two weeks ago the Congress, sort of out of session, brought forward a draft bill that had been placed in consideration by Congressman Rengal from New York. And I think the House voted overwhelmingly to not pass that bill.

Now, let me tell you why the good Congressman put that bill on the floor. His view is that when you look at the number of casualties taking place throughout the world, U.S. military folks that there is a disproportionate number of minorities bearing the burden. Now the statistics today don’t prove that out because I watch that closely. And what I said to the good Congressman, there’s another way to do it, another way is to speak about the fact that here in America, we all ought to pay some kind of burden and maybe we need a system so that all of us can be exposed to a draft, if there’s going to be a draft. But, having said that, this volunteer army of ours, works. And when you look at the volunteer army as I’ve mentioned earlier with 26 percent being African-Americans and they have joined this military because is the noble occupation not perfect at all. We need more senior people at various levels and we continue to work it. We need more Ballards and Edmonds and all the folks sitting up here.

But it has been good for us at the age of 17 having joined the Army, the second of 12 children from the public projects. And we shared shoes and didn’t have Nikes, we had these Keds. The youngsters don’t understand that, but we had each other. So I joined this army only to save money to go to college, as did many other people, Hispanics, females and African-Americans. So I hope the draft doesn’t come back, but I will tell you, I’m extremely worried the way we have stretched the force today and we have to find a way to get them some relief. And you’ve seen in the paper all the discussions about the backdoor draft. And there’s probably some truth to how we’ve executed that in terms of calling people back.

So I just wanted to go ahead and put it out. [Indiscernible] [Applause]

Mr. Armstrong: We certainly didn’t want anyone to get into trouble.

[Cross talk]

Male Voice: General Wilson, I grew up in the era of the draft and was evaluated therein and voluntarily went into the Navy where I learned my first technology skills. So I can attest to the fact of that opportunity and that very broad technology education I received that was [indiscernible]. And in that spirit I want to bring up the next question for Mr. Taborn. With technology and engineering, math and science so critically important, what can be done to inspire our youth to become more interested in those subjects?

Mr. Taborn: You’re looking at it right now. Showing our young people, people who look like them, men and women who have achieved has a tremendous impact. We did a survey not very long ago with the Information Technology Association of American joint survey. And we found the number one reason professionals, particularly minority professionals, decided to enter the technology area was because they were introduced to technology early and they saw people who looked like them. [Applause]

So let me tell you why that role modeling is so important. If you look at the community and we have so few people like these at the table, our kids don’t see it. Therefore, they don’t have the dream. So these kinds of forums are so absolutely critical and I do want to point out Major General Leo Williams is here, for example. Rear Admiral Tony Watson is here as well, the Dean from Howard University. There’s a real commitment of everyone to make sure these role models are there.

Mr. Armstrong: Let’s talk quickly about the technologies. One of the things that obviously is posing a threat is cyber security. And I don’t think a lot of people really understand or fathom how quickly that can pose a threat. But what can we do in terms of business owners or in terms of students that want to enter this field? What technologies, what areas should we be honing our skill sets on? What is in demand at this particular time?

General Lyles: Well, let me answer this perhaps a little differently from perhaps some of the other panel members, because I’m a mechanical engineer and a mechanical and nuclear engineering graduate student. And being in the Air Force and seen technologies and looking at all the technologies we have in the Air Force today and the things we’re looking at for the future, it is a broad, broad spectrum. You name the engineering area, you name the technology area and there’s a tremendous interest in it. The obvious answer is information technology. And EEs [double E’s] are certainly very important as they have been throughout the United States for the last 20 years. But I will tell you that mechanical engineering, structural engineering, biological engineering, biomedics, nano technology, materials technology of every form you can think of, each one of those area are tremendous growth opportunities in my mind. There are things that we need for national security, things we need for our economy that fits each one of those different areas. So it’s the broad spectrum.

You could almost, like I said earlier, it’s a target-rich environment. You name the engineering discipline you have an interest in and there’s a tremendous need both from the national security standpoint and a commercial standpoint in our United States.

Mr. Armstrong: Lieutenant General, you mentioned earlier RFID. Can you explain for those that may not understand the ramifications of that technology and how that may be playing a role and how businesses could be playing a part?

General Edmonds: Sure. RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification. And the reason why it’s so significant right now and the government drives a lot of the things we do. One of the things that happened I guess the year before last, I went to see the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, the guy responsible for buying everything for the Department of Defense. And I had an eight slide [indiscernible] to talk to him about program management of life cycle of systems. He went through my briefing slides and folded one. And he said, “Let me just tell you something, Al. If I were you, I would go back and look at this technology call RFID.” I said, “Why is that?” He said because every spare part -- and General Eison [phonetic] went through all the spare parts and acquisitions for the Air Force and voluminous. Every spare part, every tank, every gun, every airplane, every chair, every stool, everything in the Department of Defense is going to have its own identification tag on it. You know those little bar codes you see on the stuff in the stores? Everything is going to have one of those and it’s going to be transmitted back to the warehouse. When I use one of those, the computer back in the warehouse is going to say can use one, take inventory down by one. When you use all of them up, the computer’s going to order the new ones automatically. There’s going to be an order, it’s going to be shipped and charged and paid for and invoiced automatically. And there going to do this without wires. It’s going to be wireless. It’s going to be wireless. It’s going to have a little scanner, a transmitter. Read it, transmit it, do it and oh by the way, the same technology also exists in airplanes and tanks. There’s a time a pilot has to navigate where he has to go. You put the codes in there and have [indiscernible] on his helmet and he can look around and direct the bomb to the target.

So that kind of technology -- Wal-Marts, the reason why Wal-Mart can charge a little cheaper money than others -- this isn’t a commercial for Wal-Mart, but the reason why they can is they do just in time logistics. They don’t have warehouses full of stuff to go bad. They order just enough for this week. If they run out on Friday, they get more on Saturday. And they don’t have a big warehouse out there, so it keeps the prices down. Any company that has a big warehouse full of stuff, they’re losing money because you pay for the warehouse, the people who run the warehouse, and the trucks that haul the stuff, so it’s just not good. So RFID. [Indiscernible] why this is important. There was a time Wallace met a cell phone. You can do everything without a wire now. In your house, if you have a computer in your house, you can put a second computer in your house without ever running another cable. There’s a little card that you put in the back of your computer and you don’t have to have a common line between them. You can talk between the computers. And you can go on the internet without having a common line. Wireless. You don’t have to plug a hole in the wall; you don’t have to do this stuff. It’s wireless.

Now let me tell you about that, because it’s important. One of the reasons why wireless is so attractive to everybody, right now in the ground in this country we have about 70 percent of the fiber optic we were so hot about, about 10 years ago that is not being used.

Male Voice: Dark.

General Edmonds: Dark fiber. Everybody who thought they had a right away, whether it was a gas company, a cable company, telephone company, railroad, they put fiber in the ground. And now you have Verizon and Cox Cable all going the same path [indiscernible]. So you have a lot of that stuff, but the new stuff that doctors use is wireless. The doctors sit down at the computer and say I just operated on Les Lyles and he needs some medicine. He sends that to pharmacy. You can send your wife down there to get it, your brother down there to get it, you pick it up and you don’t have to go down there to pick it up anymore. It’s that kind of technology.

The critical part that [indiscernible] and most important is not just one thing. I can’t [indiscernible] kind of like a backbone. All kinds of engineering, all kinds of technology, you just want to be part of it. If I were in banking today, I would want to make the transfers online. Trillions of dollars every day are transferred through the internet online. Securities [indiscernible] protected environment, a trusted environment. If I were going to go in business tomorrow and start from scratch, I’d build something with security on it. Protect my internet, my computer; protect my identity. Any thing like that today that you can come up with, it will sell. It will sell, because everybody’s paranoid about losing their identity, paranoid about losing their money in the bank.

Medicine is critical. In five years from now you have very few opportunities to go to the doctor if you need surgery. You’re going to hook yourself up to your computer at home; they’re going to do the diagnostic, they’re going to send it down to the doctor’s, he’s going to look at it and say you have strep throat, he’s going to send your prescription to the drug store and you’re going to pick it up.

Mr. Armstrong: And that’s happened. That’s real. General Ballard?

General Ballard: You know for every upside and I [tape skip] saying it is absolutely true is the reordering of the way we’re going to live. But there is a downside to that. As great as technology is, this is the reason why I’m talking to the students now, why you need to be where you are, because the life of a warehouse man, truck driver, a stockroom keeper is gone. It’s gone. So if you want to be on the front end of trying to find a decent career, you need to think about it again, because the warehouses are going to disappear, fewer trucks on the road. The whole thing is this new drive in technology is really the reordering of the way we live and the way we think about what we used to do with your father and grandfather.

Mr. Armstrong: Thank you, General. We’ll go to the audience for questions. Garland?

Mr. Williamson: Yes. Related to that, there is a major crisis in financing and managing quality education for our young people today. All four of you have come out of military careers and gone into corporate careers. What would you say is the corporate response to this crisis?

Male Voice: That is a tough one and you can ask many of the people with us this evening. Morgan State does a wonderful job with the resources it has to provide tuition assistance. But, as I travel throughout the nation, it’s all of our schools who appear to be experiencing problems. We were speaking earlier, if you want to go to George Mason right there in Northern Virginia, I think it’s about $19,000 a year. Our youngest son went to the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, which was about $43,000 a year. So it’s amazing the cost of education. And I’m happy that at least particular election year, everyone is speaking about it, but we have to do more than speak about it. We have to find a way to fund programs for the young people here who want to remain in school.

Tax is a bad word. But, if in fact, collectively we all agree that the number one priority for us is to educate our youth, then we ought to be willing to be taxed. Now, you’re going to get taxed anyway because we’re putting more money in prisons and jails than you are school houses. So you’re going to pay for it one way or the other. And personally, I would rather make sure that the youngsters here have the computers they need, they have the labs and the quality education that the folks here at Morgan’s campus is providing to them.

So we’re in that situation. We absolutely, with the deficit we have today, we have to find a way to get ourselves out of it and I think again America will stand up and in fact, fund education. We have the No Child Left Behind, but there are a lot of unfunded mandates that again the states are wrestling with so it has to be a priority for us.

Male Voice: So you would say that the thing that Corporate America could do best would be to push forward on policy, since corporate leadership has access at the very top?

Male Voice: Absolutely. And I also believe though, see, we just signed a huge billion dollar corporate tax law here this past week. You see, it seems to me and I probably won’t be able to go back to Washington tonight, but it seems to me that some of that should be channeled toward the education system.

General Edmonds: Let me add a thought.

Male Voice: Hold on a minute, Al. Because if we don’t, what happens is the jobs will continue to go overseas. And it’s amazing when we travel -- as a matter of fact, if you pick up the phone tonight and call to check on the status of your bank account, the person answering the telephone is from India, Taiwan or someplace. So it’s seems to me and I get back to the fact that the number one priority for us should be the youth of America.

General Edmonds: I have two different points I want to make on this point. One is I sat on the EDS foundation for about five years and one reason I wanted the foundation and we changed our priority from Symphony Orchestra and it’s not that I’m against Symphony Orchestra, I love them, but to education. And we had a difficult time, frankly, getting enough people to apply for the money we had in those foundations to give away. And we had to start tasking my own people who worked for me to go to the communities where they were and get the institutions who needed money for scholarships and things to write up the requirement and get the money from us, and there’s a lot of foundations who have that same problem.

I also set up this special fund for the United Negro College Fund that manages the money Bill Gates gave to the college fund for other things. And believe it or not, we do have times where we don’t have enough people applying for the money. So one of the things we need to make sure we do is go after the money that exists. If you are a female, a woman in this country today and you can run the 100 yard dash in about 25, 30 minutes, you can get a Nike scholarship. But, we don’t go look for it.

So, that’s a very important thing. But I also realistic in my education in this sense, I think you have a fundamental wrong approach to education in this country when it comes to secondary education. In my mind, with the technology required to do today’s jobs in this society, as General Ballard said, reordering our priorities, a fundamental four year education ought to be a thing that we expect everybody to get. And we ought to change our approach to education to tell every child that comes out of school, “You’re going to go to college, whether it’s two or four years.” Our three daughters graduated from high school and I didn’t care what they majored in, they were going to go to college and get a four year degree because I wasn’t going to take care of their insurance for the rest of their lives. So I think that is a major policy issue, but most countries, industrial countries of the world, people are expected to go to college and they don’t expect to spend the family’s life long savings to do so. So we have to change our approach to education in order to do the jobs at hand or they will be going overseas, because we don’t have people doing them. It’s just absolutely out of whack with today’s society. You need to have education.

Mr. Armstrong: Let me ask a pointed question, because in the essence of time, which is always going to be a problem when you have this distinguished type of panel here. But I’d like to try to hone in on your one or two priorities as it relates to Homeland Defense, global War on Terror, National Security, what do you see in your eyes as the most important or critical things that we should be addressing? Just your priorities, I don’t want to get anyone fired. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. I don’t want to get anyone that can’t go back to Washington tonight. I don’t want to make it difficult. But, if you had the opportunity to have that one or two items be heard, what would those priorities be?

General Edmonds: Well, let me say one thing to start this discussion off and so that everybody understands this. There are absolutely no silver bullets in this world that is going to make any country, especially a free society, foolproof from terrorist attacks of some kind. And I want to change that. To give that up, give your freedom won’t change that. Having said that, I think that we need to make sure that every person around in this country understands that they are an army of one, that they are responsible as well as everybody else for our security. And it’s not just the senior leadership of this country that’s responsible for our national security. We’re all responsible for it. So if you live next door to someone and their activities don’t appear to be above board, you’re honor bound to tell somebody about it. So we have to become more vigilant, number one.

Number two, I think that to keep this country safe, our immigration, our security doesn’t start in New York City or Los Angeles; it starts at the consulate overseas. And you must screen and renew people coming into this country correctly and properly and vet them before you just let anybody and everybody just come ashore. We have this idea of we’re the home of the free and the brave and everybody come in. That was wonderful before 9/11. But I think we have to be more vigilant and let’s actually suspect everybody and trust nobody until you’re proven you can.

Mr. Armstrong: General Lyles?

General Lyles: I’m still thinking about what Al just said. Well, my priority is really three words. And it seems very simple, if you will. It’s communicate, communicate, communicate. Whether you’re talking about national security in the form of Department of Homeland Security and that particular venue; whether you’re talking about economic national security represented by jobs in the future; whether you’re talking about aviation security, represented by the FAA, as an example, I believe there are tremendous opportunities out there. There’s a tremendous need for every sector, particular private sector, and particularly minorities in today’s environment to be a major part of that activity. What’s missing is communication and it’s a two way street. It’s incumbent upon all of us to look for those kinds of opportunities in those organizations and agencies and it’s even more important for those agencies to figure out a better way to get the message out that they want you, they need you. It’s more than just want you; they need you in order to accomplish their mission.

So, my priority and everything that I’m doing on corporate boards sitting, consulting, deals around that simple word of communication and make the communication better between the various entities that are part of the mission.

Male Voice: I will just add to what has already been said and I’ll probably use the words of training and education. And the reason why I say that is we sit here this evening and speak about education and technology. Guess what? The enemy is a step ahead of us. They are watching CNN to see how we execute the global War on Terrorism. They have more patience than we do. They planned 9/11 four or five years ago. You see, Americans, as a family, we’re impatient and we’re sort of arrogant. Now, having said that, we really have to change the culture; we can’t afford to just bring everyone home inside the continental United States. We have to have people who understand the different languages, who understand the culture, who can go abroad and in fact identify something that’s going to happen before it happens inside of America. And that’s why I say those are two key issues. We can’t afford to be passive, because I just have to tell you, some of the places I’ve been and some of the reports I’ve read, the enemy will never sleep. He or she will always want to best America and there’s a reason for it.

Male Voice: I’ll sum it up based on what my three colleagues just said here. I think my one word would be involvement. We, as a Black community and I’ll focus explicitly on that, has sat on the sidelines of many of these discussions and not really participated. We say well, we can’t do much about it, so we don’t vote. We can’t do much about it, so we don’t raise hell about it. And we sort of just passively let it happen. I say you can no longer do that. You have to focus on quality education. You have to get out and vote, regardless of what your party is. One vote will count. You have to be involved. The world has changed. Since 9/11 the community is not the small community that we knew it before. The threat is there. We talked about the infrastructure. It is real. So you have to be involved. You have to educate yourself and you have to really believe that you, as an individual, can truly make a difference.

Mr. Armstrong: Well, you know a session like this is always hard to close. You just want to keep going. And when we have an audience like this, it really makes it difficult to wrap this up, but we do have a second panel and that’s part and parcel why we decided to build this forum this way. When Tyrone decided to build the forum, we’d talk about the global War on Terror and we’d get your insight and we’d understand the role models and the opportunities that we now have in the military. And then we wanted to talk to the business side aspect. So coming up in just a few moments, we’ll be hearing from Major General Leo Williams; also Dan Sturdivant, who is the Assistant to Director of Outreach Programs at the Department of Homeland Security and also Robert Chiaradio, Director of Deloitte Consulting and John A. Clendenin, CEO of IC Logistics.

So, I’d ask you first and foremost; let’s give a great round of applause for the famous Generals to take time out of their schedules. [Applause]

[Part 1 ends; Part 2 begins]

Mr. Armstrong: In order to have these four men together at one sitting, Tyrone, why don’t you talk real quickly about the significance of the road that was traveled in order to get to this particular date? And as we do that, we will transition from our first panel to our second panel.

Mr. Taborn: Thank you. I have to, as the next panel comes up, which please don’t leave, because we’re really going to get into some real nuts and bolts, some real issues about career opportunities and entrepreneurial opportunities. But let me tell you about these gentlemen. I was at home one night watching CNN and I said where are the Generals of color? And I looked at I just didn’t see anyone there, so I sent an email out to four of these men. And within 24 hours, through the magic of the internet, all four of them immediately responded and said we will be there. Tony Watson, Rear Admiral, former Chief of Navy Recruiting, drawing in and together we were able to pull the second panel together, which is equally as distinguished. So, Mario, let me turn this back over to you. There’s a lot you’re going to get out of this next panel.

Mr. Armstrong: First off, because I want to be sensitive to the time and I want to make sure that your points are addressed with the second side of this discussion, focusing mostly on opportunities as it relates to students and careers, opportunities as it relates to small and minority owned businesses. Let’s go down from my right all the way down the panel. Let’s get an understanding of who’s here and from what background. I could go through the bios; they’re too lengthy, so in the essence of time, I’d like to try to shortcut some of this and just have you state your name and your title and then we’ll move into the discussion this evening. So first we’ll go with you, Major General Leo Williams.

General Williams: Good evening. I’m Major General Leo V. Williams. I’ve recently retired from Ford Motor Company after 25 years and as a Major General in the United States Marine Corps Reserve after about 33 years. I’m now the Executive Vice President of a small manufacturing company in Owings Mills by the name of Medifast [phonetic].

Mr. Clendenin: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is John Clendenin. I’ve had several careers. The germane aspects are I spent 25 years in the United States Marine Corps. I’m a retired Colonel. I’ve also spent 15 years at Xerox Corporation and logistics and telecommunications management. I then joined the senior faculty at Harvard Business School teaching the business of sports and the building information age businesses. And currently I’m the Chief Executive Officer of my own startup firm with intellectual property in Homeland Security called Inner Circle Logistics.

Mr. Chiaradio: Good evening. My name is Bob Chiaradio and I’m the Director of Homeland Security at Deloitte and I’m very happy to be here tonight and honored to be part of the panel. I spent prior to consulting, and left in July of 2002, spent a little more than 20 years in law enforcement and I left as one of the four deputies for Bob Muller at the FBI and I had IT personnel hiring, recruiting finance and records for the FBI during that time. And I’m here to share with you some experiences and opportunities that you’ll see both and I’ll wear my hat as an old government executive when we tried to recruit there as well as what’s available out in supporting Homeland Security in the private sector, especially in engineering.

Mr. Armstrong: Excellent. Thank you.

Mr. Sturdivant: Good evening. My name is Dan Sturdivant with the Department of Homeland Security and I’m in the Office of Small and Disadvantage Business Utilization. I’ve had 25 years in the federal government, all in small business and all in procurement. I do want to talk to you a little bit about opportunities with doing business with Homeland Security. There is a process. There is a way you can get involved. It does work. I have made it work in three different federal agencies, Coast Guard, Treasury and now Homeland Security. I’m a former Marine, but unfortunately, I’m probably the only NCO sitting in this room. But, somebody had to be a grunt. Somebody had to do the background work. But, I’m thankful to be here. I appreciate the panel, appreciate the school having me here and unfortunately, I think we have one of the generals who went to Howard University, so did I. So, Morgan’s a great school, but we love Howard.

Mr. Armstrong: I’m glad you stated for the record.

Mr. Sturdivant: For the record.

Mr. Armstrong: Okay. Let’s just jump right into the discussion. The first thing that I would like to focus on in what I see as a two part discussion is let’s look at the business angle first. Let’s talk about entrepreneurism. Dan, you said that you’ve been there, done that and there is access to programs. Why don’t we talk specifically about what a small business or entrepreneur could realistically go after today, currently now? What types of areas or what types of grant opportunities should they focus on?

Mr. Sturdivant: Thank you, Mario. First of all, let me do this for those who are truly interested, even if you’re thinking about it somewhere down the road and you’re still in college, but you’re thinking about entrepreneurship, let’s not get a job, let’s create jobs. So let’s go to the DHS website and if you have a paper and pencil, write this down, it’s www.dhs.gov/openforbusiness. That’s our website, open for business. I’m going to tell you, two of those distinguished gentlemen, Lieutenant General Joe Ballard and Lieutenant General Al Edmonds used the system that the government has in place to do business with the federal government. They both are small businesses who are doing business with the federal government. Two things I don’t want anybody to leave the room today without knowing: there are processes and relationships. Everything that we do in business, as well in our personal lives, revolves around those two things. And those gentlemen have discovered the process. Also I have Mr. Ted Nell who’s a friend of mine and Mr. Perry Carter who was here earlier. They are all small business owners doing business with the federal government, because they have discovered the processes and the relationships.

Mr. Armstrong: Talk to me about real quickly and then we’ll go down the panel here.

Mr. Sturdivant: Sure.

Mr. Armstrong: Talk to me about the one program though that makes sense. You gave out the web address, but what one program seems to be very critical that has a dire need to do business with minority businesses?

Mr. Sturdivant: First of all, Mario, under the Public Law 95-507, it is mandated that the federal government have a program that’s responsible for allowing small minority and women owned businesses to do business with the federal government.

Mr. Armstrong: And I don’t want it to seem as it’s coming off wrong. In all due respect, we see that from the state level, from the local levels, and the federal levels as well. But, how real is that? I hear so many minority businesses that have challenges and have the skill set. They are brilliant engineers, have even done work as a subcontractor to someone’s else contract for Lockheed and others out there, so when you say that number, it sounds like it’s the rosy glasses. But really what should a business be doing if that is in fact the case and if that is the number?

Mr. Sturdivant: If they are truly interested in doing business with the federal government and I believe one of the Generals said earlier, it does take patience. It does take persistence. Once you ascertain and understand the process that each agency is using, then you have to work that system whether it’s Homeland Security or whether it’s Department of Defense, it doesn’t matter. Once you understand the process that they’re using, the individuals that you need to speak with, because they have a point of contact. Once you know who that is, find out what types of programs they’re using to get the word out.

My responsibility is to teach a seminar on how to do business with Homeland Security and I teach it all over the country. So just like I was asked to come here, I go all over the country teaching a seminar on how to do business with Homeland Security. It’s just the matter of finding the point of contact and allowing that point of contact to be utilized to help you move your business forward.

Mr. Armstrong: Now, John, you talked about your own business and also one of the things that you brought up that rung a cord with me in your introductory statement was intellectual property. Talk to me a little bit how you have formulated this path for your company to be involved in the process.

Mr. Clendenin: Well, I think in general there’s about what I would call five steps for success in you, as in business and you as a student or you as a person that’s going to participate in Homeland Security from a business standpoint. The first in those five steps are I, We, Win, Edge, and Goals. The first step would be “I”. It would be the investment you make in yourself. No one can do your pushups for you. You have to be the one that becomes technically and tactically proficient. You have to be the one that learns about these new technologies.

The “we” part is that understanding that no one makes it alone and that you have to surround yourself with your posse or your peers, other people that will mentor you and figure out what is that process whether you go and you get people who are going to help you get the contracts in the federal government. Teaming and partnerships with other companies like we have done that have the, what we would call vehicles, in order to get access to the federal government and it’s an arduous task.

The third step would be some notion of winning. What is it going to take and what’s your personal view of success? Are you going to be satisfied with participating because you have a job in a large military industrial kind of company or do you want to be your own entrepreneur? Winning then becomes this task of access to capital. Can you raise money in the venture capital environment or with angel investors? Can you keep your company as an African-American owned company, which is then one of the arduous tasks that I’ve had as I’ve boot stepped the company for the last five years.

Then the next aspect, the “edge” is to understanding your own competitive advantage. You can take the advantage you have and if you know technology and you know math and you’re at the engineering school at this great University, use that as an advantage. Stay out of trouble. Get your security clearance. Understand how to be a model citizen so that you can participate as a member of your family and your race and your culture in making a difference.

And the last part, I think, is that as you go forward and you have the opportunity to make a difference that you have balance in your life and you balance your family goals, your financial goals, your personal goals, professional goals, along with your spiritual goals.

So it’s a broad base of activity, but the way you do it on the ground is that I think that there’s a game in the stands and a game in the field. You can make a lot of money at a football game selling peanuts and popcorn, but the real game in American Homeland Security is to have a product, have an idea, have some intellectual property. So then when you go to somebody and you get that access and you have some that if you dropped it on their foot it would hurt. You have to have some sort of tangible competitive advantage and you go through that process. So we own intellectual property. We have surrounded ourselves with excellence and gone slowly so that we have the kinds of contracts that we can now go forward and secure.

General Williams: Let me add just a bit here, because you’ve heard the terms teaming and partnering. For those of you who are not quite clear on what those terms mean, and for those of you who think you might want to be entrepreneurs, many government contracts involve a large array of skills. It’s very unlikely that you, as an individual or that you as a small company, will be able to have all of the skills that are necessary to get a given contract. But, if you are able to team and partner with several other small companies that have a variety of skills, then what you find is, you can put a package together that then becomes very competitive. Now that’s what teaming and partnering is.

Also, I want to give you a slightly different perspective about the way that the supply chain is set up. And going to a large organization such as the Department of Defense or, I’ll take in my own personal example, a Ford Motor Company for a small company trying to get in as a supplier for an organization that large is almost impossible. But, as an entrepreneur, as an inventor, as a would-be supplier, what you will find is the opportunities are in the details. If you take, for instance, a gas tank that’s being made for an automobile, you individually may not be able to put together a company that can make a million gas tanks for a Ford Motor Company. But, that gas tank is attached to the underbody of that car or that SUV or that truck by a metal strap. Somebody has to make that metal strap and it’s usually not the company that’s making the gas tank. They sub-supply, they subcontract. And you’d be surprise at how much opportunity, how much profit potential there is in just making that metal strap. So you have to dig down through the supply chain and find out where the opportunities are. And they’re out there. They’re about.

Mr. Armstrong: Robert, I’d like to hear from you a little bit as the Director at Deloitte’s Consulting, in your director for the public sector specifically.

Mr. Chiaradio: Sure.

Mr. Armstrong: What are you seeing in terms of the public sector spending with Deloitte and what types of projects are kind of the most top priority that you’re seeing coming out of the public sector for you?

Mr. Chiaradio: If I could just back up for one more second and go right into that answer, I want to add on to the colleagues’ responses here on how you can partner and team. It should not be a secret that many of the larger consulting companies and system integrators who are the big names out there have to rely on teaming agreements with small disadvantaged, veteran, and women owned businesses. It’s part of some of the government requirements in the contract. You have to have a government approved plan in effect as part of your teaming agreement to even compete and win on some of those agreements. So there are obvious reasons for the large company to team and not just to be in compliance. It’s good for the companies to bring in teaming agreements, to bring in teaming partnerships and to bring in small business. Because there are skills out there, there’s talent out there that doesn’t always want to reside in a big company. There are very, very smart, talented people who opt to stay in their own small businesses in every discipline you can imagine, technology and otherwise. And large companies need those resources, cleared and otherwise. And with a good program and a requirement to even compete, it just makes obvious sense, it should make obvious sense to you that there’s a demand for teaming agreements out there and companies like Deloitte are always looking for the right teaming on the projects.

And there’s plenty of work to go around, which leads me into responding to your question, which is what are the opportunities, as the General said before us, are just limitless. We have a new thing here in our country for the last four years especially, the investments will not stop. As General Edmonds said, security is here to stay. Technology is here to stay. The engineers of this world and there aren’t enough of them, as we’ve heard, are going to be the answers for this country from biometrics to the technologies that we need just to share information, to bring up systems that were built 30 years ago not even designed to do what we need them to do today. The opportunities are incredible out there. The RFID and some of the things that were mentioned, those are what we know today. We haven’t even thought of what’s really needed yet. We’re grappling today in engagements that we’re working on in support of Homeland Security and for cargo security and other areas of the government and we’re sitting around with a room full of smart people trying to come up with what the answers are.

So there’s imagination out there that needs to be tapped into and people in this room and around the country here are the ones who are going to do it. It isn’t going to be me and isn’t going to be the generation that I grew up with. But you kids, I couldn’t even get into the course that you’re taking today. And I mean that. And I need, as a person that’s going to hopefully grow old, I need you back there to figure it out and the answers have to be thought of yet.

Mr. Armstrong: Thank you, Robert. Dan, I’d like to ask you quickly, because Robert touch a point about how we do need to petition businesses to be able, that there is not only compliance, but that it does make for a better solution when you have more diversity inside of the process. But, the difference between being a prime contractor and a subcontractor, I mean at some point you want to move on from being just the subcontract and qualified to become a prime contractor. Is there something that you can tell us what the difference between the two are rather quickly? Is there a concise way that you can say here’s what the requirements are that you have to have in order to be a prime as opposed to in order to be a sub?

Mr. Sturdivant: Well, Mario, first of all, you don’t have to go after a large contract to be a prime contractor. You can be a small business and in the federal government we have simplified acquisitions up to $100,000, which automatically for small business is set aside. You can be a prime on a simplified acquisition with a small company. So you don’t even have to have a large company. You don’t have to have 10 or 15 people. And that’s how you get your foot in the door with most federal agencies anyway.

Mr. Armstrong: So right off the bat, forget the $5 million contract for a second.

Mr. Sturdivant: First of all, we call that the goldfish principal. If anybody’s ever had goldfish and you over feed them, they’ll belly up in the morning, the same thing happens to small businesses. Small businesses, we like for them to start with those $100,000, $200,000 requirements and once they get their foot in the door, once the relationship has been created, we understand them, they understand us, we find their niche, they understand what we need, then we can move forward.

And I want to say real quickly with what General Williams said, talking about teaming arrangements and joint ventures, there are several government agencies that have mentor protégé programs. We have a new mentor protégé program that we just stood up and you know that Homeland Security is less than two years old. We started our mentor protégé program in December of ’03. We currently have 25 relationships with small businesses as well as prime contractors. In Homeland Security, if you want to be a prime contractor and we’re looking at two or three prime contractors and all things are equal, they have good people, they have the same prices, we go down to the second tier of evaluating them. How many of you who are in our mentor protégé program are working or how is your past performance. So not only is it smart business, it’s good business and it’s mandatory in a lot of ways in Homeland Security.

Mr. Clendenin: I’d like to…

Mr. Armstrong: John, go ahead. Sure.

Mr. Clendenin: …say something that might be a bit controversial. But pretend that you were me for just a second five years ago. I left the Senior Faculty at Harvard Business School. I have a Masters Degree in Communications Engineering. I have a Masters Degree in Psychology. I have an MBA from Harvard Business School. I have 15 years experience at Xerox Corporation, saved them some $700 million in inventory and supply chain management and spent 25 years in the Marine Corps. I had no access to capital, although I had advised venture capital firms on funding small businesses, could not raise any money. I tried for five years to get into the federal government to team with companies like EDS with the Navy and Marine Corps in that initiative, to team with a Boeing Corporation or a Lockheed-Martin Corporation or an EDS. I had no success. I tried to go though the arduous process of 8-A registration and Veteran owned business registration without success.

So the issue is how then do you survive the battle? And I’ll tell you that I survived because of the posse, the athletes that I worked with, the Marines that I served with and the other people, entrepreneurs that I teamed with so that I traded technology for partnering, traded for people and I worked with individuals and graduates from schools that did internships with me for equity trade. So my message to you is if you’re technically competent to go latch on to a small business that has intellectual property, get equity, do it while you’re young and build this part of the America dream, because it is possible, but there are many, many obstacles that you have to overcome and if you don’t get busy and work and have that technical proficiency, you have no chance at all.

Mr. Armstrong: And just for a moment while we get ready to take questions and what we will do on this second panel is we will allow you to come down to the microphone here at the bottom of the steps if you would like to ask a question.

Let’s transition for a second towards the students that are here today and let’s talk about our future entrepreneurs and our future employees. I was recently taking a look at Business 2.0 Magazine. And it has a section in here that talks specifically about who’s hiring now. And they found over 100,000 jobs. And the top five companies and I’ll give you the numbers of what they plan to hire through 2005. Wells Fargo, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Ernest & Young, Deloitte, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Microsoft, SAIC and IMB. The majority of those companies have what in common?

Male Voice: Defense is the common thread for most of those companies, support of the Department of Defense.

Mr. Armstrong: What does that relate to in terms of curriculum for students? If this is the case, if Defense and hiring in these companies is the common denominator, what is the skill set, what are the courses, what should our students be thinking about in terms of positioning them to be picked up for hire in these companies?

Mr. Clendenin: Well, I would say that the commonality, if we talked earlier about engineering, is that you have to be technically competent. And then you have to have the competitive advantages I talked about before. So I will tell you it’s not enough to have an EE, not enough to have a mechanical engineering degree. You have to have a niche. I will tell you as I said before, there was an old movie as I was coming of age that said plastics were the…

Mr. Armstrong: The term from The Graduate.

Mr. Clendenin: And I will tell you that it is the semantic web that Sir Bemus Lee is talking about currently and network centricity. The analogy I use, and if you’ll forgive my example, General, if you think of a Humvee for a moment going down the streets of Baltimore with a hot radio listening to hip-hop, that to me is the people’s use of the web, because right now we are using the internet as just some small sample of the capability of that Humvee vehicle going down the streets of Baltimore. That vehicle in the Marine Corps environment is capable of wonderful things. The World Wide Web is capable of wonderful things. We are not using the World Wide Web as it was designed, as it started off in DARPA and the academic use of the web. We’re using some small segment to download pictures and to browse the web for unknown information.

So you have the opportunity as youngsters growing up with the web to make a difference and invent things that we haven’t thought about. When I went to school as a physics major, we didn’t know about black holes. We didn’t have digital watches. They hadn’t invented CDs yet, much less cassette decks, 8-track tapes were the latest invention. So when I did my degree, the things that I learned about and did as far as technology are gone. When I did my masters work in communication engineering in 1978. It’s virtually useless today. The things that I’m competing on today are things that either I invented or people in my posse invented so that we can make a difference. That’s the dream that you should have.

Your basic degree from here or somewhere else, you compete with no one. You can get engineers a dime a dozen from around the world that are competing to get the job that you want. You’re going to have a competitive advantage. You have to have a dream. You have to think of the role models and people that you see and say how can you make a difference.

Mr. Sturdivant: Mario, may I…

Mr. Armstrong: Sure, Dan, go ahead.

Mr. Sturdivant: Some of the other things. I don’t want any of the young people, even the entrepreneurs in the room to go away thinking that while technology is a valuable tool, it’s something that we use heavily at Homeland Security. We are looking for training. We look for management and consulting. We look for law enforcement. We look for security. All of those types of things go into Homeland Security as well. And they’re very valuable to what we do to protect this country. So those are the types of things that go on as well. Technology is right. We definitely need that and we need that within the confines of security and management, consulting and training as well. But, we need those types of businesses as well and we’re looking for them on a continuous basis.

Male Voice: Let me add a slight twist to that, if I may. And those of you who are here tonight have sat here for an hour and a half or an hour and 45 minutes or so and what you have done is listen. That is key. Concentrate on listening, because that’s how you learn. Now, secondly, no matter how much technology you are able to absorb and no matter how well you understand it, you have to be able to write. So become the very best writer you can become, because in order to manage in practically any business with which you will be associated, you have to be able to write. And write well. So put those two thoughts in your mind right away.

Mr. Armstrong: One of the other things that was brought up earlier in terms of other skill sets that were important were language skills, being able to understand how technology and business correlates together not just being a technologist, but having the vision to be able to connect the business need with the technology. I’d like to ask you, Robert, real quickly, in a global economy, in a global business that you’re involved in, how important is it for you to have staff that can speak multiple languages? And on other quick question, how often do you find those that have the other skills that you’re looking for with or without the languages?

Mr. Chiaradio: That’s a good question. Actually, I’ll give you an answer from my two lives. I’ll give you an answer from the FBI’s perspective. The FBI will only ever be successful as Director Muller has said repeatedly and Director Freed before him, if we represent the community in which we live, we have to have the language skills, the cultural awareness, the cultural backgrounds in all the people that make up the world that we live in, both in our own country domestically and overseas. And to the extent we don’t have that is the extent we’ll fail.

With respect to business it’s the same concept. I was over in Brussels Sunday and came back Wednesday speaking to the Belgium government on Homeland Security. And they accommodated me and spoke English. But I can tell you that when it came time to discussing what we might provide for them, we’re going to need to have people on the ground that are going to be able to integrate within their community and their culture and speak their language. But we have that staff. We have an international resource. But to the extent you can be multidimensional and to the General’s point, you’re writing skills, your personal skills, your interpersonal skills, your ability to communicate, if you’re going to be in small business, you’re never going to be in a small business unless you can carry the day. You’re going to have to make the sale, close the sale and deliver on the sale in a small business. An organization, a large organization if you want to get your internships and I couldn’t echo General Edmonds advice to you any more for the students here, get a good internship. Take the time out of your curriculum, get some credit for it if you can, but get in there. Get some experience; because you’re going to compete with your brothers and sisters in your graduating class, you’re going to be a head and shoulder above them if you’ve shown you’ve done something. To the extent you have those skills and if you want to stay in professional services, in other words, in consulting or in the integration companies, you’re going to only succeed by your ability to carry yourself, to present yourself, to present your ideas and to develop client relationships and get yourself a portfolio, you’ll be the president of that firm someday.

Mr. Armstrong: I’d like for the students that are here, we only have a few more minutes before we’re going to have to wrap this up, so I’d like for you to take -- someone needs to step out there. I know there’s probably a question in your mind. This is the opportunity to ask it. The microphone is right down here on the floor. So please, line up and get prepared to ask the question. Oh, good. State your name and where you’re from and your question.

Mr. McPherson: My name’s Tim McPherson, I’m a student here at Morgan State, born and raised in Baltimore City. My question is for a lot of you men. Very important parts of the businesses that you’re involved in and you just mentioned how important it is to get an internship before exiting college. So what internship opportunities does each of your businesses have specifically for students yet to exit college?

Mr. Sturdivant: Most government agencies have intern programs. Most government agencies do. And when I was in Treasury -- we haven’t had one in Homeland Security, but again, we’re only two years old. But we had an intern program where we had students come in and work with our small business office, especially those who were interested in entrepreneurship. What I’d like to see is some of the small businesses be able to have internship programs directly, some of the small businesses in Baltimore and the Washington metropolitan area to work with students or students in a business background who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs. That way they can see first hand how to write, how to speak, how those interpersonal skills work from a General Williams’ perspective or from anybody else’s perspective that has their own business. They can see that maybe during the summer months or when they have an opportunity. So intern programs should not just be a federal program, it should be a small business program as well, in my opinion.

Mr. Chiaradio: At the risk of me not being allowed to return to Washington as well for my own company, let me plug Deloitte first. Deloitte has an intern program. We actively pursue and I’ve helped interview interns as late as last week. Deloitte.com. And if you can’t get what you want there, somehow through the program get my name and send me an email and I’ll make the connection for you.

As far as where I might not be able to return to Deloitte, the government, for my money, is as good a place as any to get your internship, especially if it’s at the FBI or DHS, because you’ll get your clearance too. And if you can get your secret interim and your internship, I’ll say this and I don’t mean it to be derogatory, but a clearance is almost a skill set anymore in the market we’re in today and the paucity of clearances that are out there.

Male Voice: And let me echo what Robert said. Every DHS employee has at least a secret clearance. Every one. You can’t work at Homeland Security without a secret clearance.

Mr. Armstrong: I’m so glad you brought that up, Robert, because that brings up the point that we’ve heard clearance over and over and over again. And I was going to ask is an internship one of the most viable ways for a student to go about going down that track now, early in the process, whether working as an intern for a company that already has a contract -- because you still have an arduous process, you still have a long process in terms of getting the clearance done, but it seems like that is a viable option and a very doable option for students to take advantage of internships and then by doing so they will get their clearance.

Mr. Clendenin: Well, one of the benefits of being the CEO is that you get to make decisions. So tonight, I’d like to offer to the Dean of Morgan State, the Aaron Ex Butler, which Aaron, by the way, is my man. He went to Morgan State and served in the Marine Corps with me for over 25 years, two internships to begin November 1st or whenever the Dean wants to. One in RFID because we have a partnership with the largest passive RFID manufacturer in the world, we can satisfied today the 2,007 RFID requirements for DOD and Wal-Mart and I’d like to have a student from Morgan State work on that project. And the second one is one the semantic web that I mentioned before. So I have two internships. They can start as early as November 1st and I need the recommendation from the Dean and that’s it. [Applause]

Male Voice: Absolutely. Now, you see, it can’t get any better than that. It really can’t get any better than that and you students should be proud of yourselves for sitting through. Garland, do we have a question that you have from the audience?

Mr. Williamson: I didn’t have a question; I had a point to offer to the students. This is a $200 billion opportunity. That is $200,000 million. One of the people we featured in our magazine, U.S. Black Engineer is Rodney Hunt [phonetic] who started with a company with a $5,000 loan and got his first contract for $15,000. Nine years later that company was worth $100 million. And today, it’s almost a $300 million firm, by being an entrepreneur. Every federal agency has a Homeland Security component, because every one of our federal agencies has to provide now. And that means that the agencies have to spend money on contracts to secure the vices, services, training and all kinds of things to support Homeland Security. So, it’s not at all a life matter than these four gentlemen here are talking to you about entrepreneurship, because entrepreneurship is the way that we will make our community richer and stronger, as well as support the nation’s initiatives in Homeland Security. And we can’t emphasize that strongly enough. Thank you.

Mr. Armstrong: Thanks for the comment. One of the other points that I wanted to make real quickly here and I wanted to get your feedback and comment on this is that according to Michigan State University’s annual recruiting trend survey, they say that 37 of the top 100 employers -- 37 of the top 100 employers are government agencies.

I can remember a time not too long ago when you really wouldn’t think of the government as employment, a serious employment vehicle, for you for long term; that has tremendously changed.

Mr. Sturdivant: Can I give a statistic?

Mr. Armstrong: Absolutely.

Mr. Sturdivant: Homeland Security, which was not in existence two years ago, is the second largest government employer behind the Department of Defense. We have 190,000 employees and we’re still hiring. In terms of budget, they have the fourth largest budget of the federal government. I know DOD is number one. They always will be, but somewhere behind EPA and GSA, in that top five is Homeland Security, so we’re number four of the top five agencies. So yes, the government is a valuable place to work.

Mr. Armstrong: One of the things that I’ve noticed, Dan, from your presentation was the model small business firms. What is the model small business firm? Give me the things that I need to check off, that I say, okay I meet that criteria.

Mr. Sturdivant: There are several things and I’m sure my panel members would agree with me, but a number of things that are needed with that small business, including the personal skills. You’ve already talked about that. You have to understand the government’s niche, what the government is looking for. You have to have the people. You have to be web savvy. You have to have some technology background. You have to have tools, what we like to call tools in your tool belt. Sometimes that might be the 8-A program, which is a government program for small and minority businesses. Sometimes that might be having that government wide acquisition contracts or the tools that will make your business more valuable when you’re trying to do business with the federal government. If someone came to your house and wanted to build a deck and you looked around and said sure you can do that and all they have in their tool belt is a hammer, no nails, no saw, no level or no wood, but they’re going to build you a deck. It doesn’t work like that. The more tools you have in your tool belt, the better off you are to go after federal government contracts.

Mr. Armstrong: All right. I thought there was going to be more than that. That’s all to it? I was ready for a long laundry list.

Mr. Sturdivant: The list is long. The list is long, but I didn’t know how much time I had, but the list of things that small businesses can do and I do have that PowerPoint presentation on my website and I’d be more than happy to walk any of you through it to look at the website and give me a call.

Mr. Armstrong: Well, let me rephrase it real quickly. What’s the number one mistake small businesses make that want to become a part of the process? Maybe that’s easier to answer.

Mr. Sturdivant: Okay. One of the mistakes that they make is not making the proper contacts. I think that’s the number one mistake that most small businesses make. I met a gentleman who had been in business for 20 years. He said I’ve been trying to get in contact with Homeland Security for the last six months. I said, “Who’d you call?” He said, “Nobody.” So I guess I was supposed to go to his house and knock on his door and give him a contract. So most small businesses don’t understand the process. Once the process becomes clear, then it at least gives you a path that you can go down that will help you to get where you need to get.

General Williams said it succinctly. If you don’t build the tanks, then build the straps or the bolts that hold the tank in place for the straps. Find your niche. Find out what it is that you do that’s valuable to the federal government or any entity you’re trying to do business with.

Mr. Armstrong: General Williams, I’d like to pick up off of that for a second as you talked about that uniqueness. We’ve heard that clearance is almost as good as a skill these days. We’ve heard that intellectual property and positioning your business is important and viable. Talk to the students for a second about how to prepare their uniqueness. How do they get it? What are some idea that you could share with them on how they can better define what that uniqueness is so they know what to capitalize and what strength they can capitalize on?

General Williams: This may sound almost too simple, but I would first concentrate on what I like to do.

Mr. Armstrong: What you love; got it.

General Williams: Because, that’s where my passion is, absolutely. Whatever my passion is, that’s what I’m going to be good at, because that’s where I’m going to spend my time, that’s what I want to learn about, that’s what I want to pass on to my friends and my family and to whomever I work for. So follow your passion.

Now, while you matriculate here at Morgan State, your teachers will give you some insight into things that you may not be passionate about, but that you are still pretty good at. Learn those things well, because that builds on your skill set. The more tools you have in the bag, as was said, the better off you are.

Mr. Armstrong: We’ll go to you, Dan and then we’ll go to Robert.

Mr. Sturdivant: If there are any students in the audience that like dogs or care for dogs? No? Nobody?

Mr. Armstrong: No, there were some.

Mr. Sturdivant: I was going to say, the federal law enforcement training center, which comes under the office of Homeland Security loves dog trainers. Those individuals don’t have technology skills, but they train the dogs that those bomb sniffing, drug sniffing dogs that Coast Guard and Customs use are trained there and we look for trainers to do that all the time.

I think what you’ve heard all through the night is that this whole area of security is miles wide. Practically every skill you can imagine will be put to use and to good use. So there is a very, very good opportunity that whatever it is that you are good at, you will be able to find an opportunity in this Homeland Security environment, if that’s where you chose to go, you’ll be able to find a way to use it.

Mr. Armstrong: Robert, you had a comment?

Mr. Chiaradio: Just a quick comment and then I wanted to add on to something John said. I don’t know how this works, but I’m glad you do. I use it all the time.

Mr. Armstrong: Hold that up for the audience.

[Cross talk]

Mr. Chiaradio: I’m glad it works. And the reason the passion is so important is that my life is law enforcement and I love it. And what I’m doing today in Homeland Security for Deloitte is just more of the same. And we always say I’d do the job for nothing if someone would pay my bills. That’s how much I enjoy working on freight assessment and homeland security. It’s what my passion and I love it.

And to comment on what John said, he made a point and it wasn’t really emphasize really, but he mentioned it and I want to put a punctuation point on it. He said he doesn’t know what his technology was 20 years ago if it’s any value today. And because he’s where he is today is because he reinvented himself. He always looked for the next thing and found himself being versatile. You have to always be looking and don’t get stuck on something that you might like and think that it’s going to sell tomorrow, because it won’t. Be able to reinvent, be able to think of how you can change yourself and how you can become relevant in the marketplace. Because the same old stuff, nobody’s buying.

Mr. Armstrong: Well, your comments have definitely been helpful and they definitely have helped shape the audience and I know that we could go on for an hour longer with you all. But, I’ll give you the opportunity though, if there was anything that you wanted to mentioned, whether it’s for business or whether it’s for the students that are here today that you haven’t already touched upon, I’d like to give you the opportunity to do so. I’ll start with you, General Williams and go down the table.

General Williams: Okay. This is for the students and for those who are no longer students, if you can use these tools then I certainly invite you. The first tool is never ever compromise your integrity. We talk about national security, we talk about clearances, and integrity certainly has a dominant role in your being able to get a security clearance. But, beyond that when people trust you because they know that you are a person of high integrity then they will put their confidence in you. And they will choose to mentor you. And they will bring you along with them. Never, ever compromise your integrity.

Secondly, behold the turtle. He or she never makes any progress until he sticks his neck out. You have to be bold. You can’t just sit back and expect that good things are going to happen just because you are who you are. Good things happen because you make them happen. You have to go out there and be bold about making them happen.

The third thing is, as you move up the ladder, reach back and help others to come along with you. Be a mentor. Be a role model. Reach back and help others come along.

Mr. Armstrong: Thank you, General. John?

Mr. Clendenin: For me the message is simple. Perseverance. What you do is important. What you do makes a difference. I say technology. Invent something that never was and become good at it. I am not here at Morgan State at the School of Engineering to try to convince you to be a dog trainer or to sell carpet to the United States government. I want you, we need you, we need the cream of the crop of the African-American youth to go into technology, math, science, and physics, learn the internet, learn these terms, just do it.

Mr. Chiaradio: At the risk of being a broken record from the General and from John, it’s perseverance and a brief background for me is that I’m the first of my family to attend college; first of 60 cousins. I graduated from the state college in New Jersey and I worked my way through the FBI and came to the second level position there behind the director and now I’m the director in a large 130,000 person organization and I’m proud of it. And I think you all have that capability, I know you do.

And for the small businesses, I encourage you to pursue and persevere and there are ways to team with big companies and there are ways to strike out on your own and it’s up to you.

Mr. Sturdivant: Mario, three quick points.

Mr. Armstrong: Sure.

Mr. Sturdivant: For the entrepreneurs, people do business with people they know and you need to understand that. When was the last time anybody in the room did a nice piece of business with somebody you hated? When was the last time?

Finally, everything’s done through process and relationships. Discover the process, create the relationship.

Mr. Armstrong: Well, I would like to take this moment to have us give a round of applause for our distinguished panel. [Applause] I don’t know how many of you expected that there would be internships flying all around the room when you came out this evening, but I’m sure Dean DeLoatch is very satisfied about it.

I would like to thank our viewing audience and also our listening audience for watching and listening to this program. We would also like to extend our thanks to Morgan State University, especially Dr. Dean DeLoatch in the Engineering and Dr. Earl Richardson. Let’s give them a round of applause. [Applause]

And we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Career Communications Group, Tyrone Taborn. Let’s give him a round of applause for his [indiscernible]. [Applause] And it’s noted to say that Tyrone has a very hard working team and they know how to bring the glue together.

Well, that’s going to conclude this town hall meeting on National Security, African-American participation in the Global War on Terror. We certainly hope that you enjoyed and were inspired and educated with this evening’s discussion. Now it’s up to you. Good night. [Applause]

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