AF Secretary Frank Kendall on Acquisition Best Practices, Space Capabilities

Frank Kendall, secretary of the Air Force and a three-time Wash100 Award winner, said he is reinstituting certain best practices for acquisition he had introduced under the Better Buying 2.0.

Kendall told Government Matters in an interview published Sunday that one of the best practices is to “ensure that the programs are structured to deliver meaningful capability as soon as possible.”

“A lot of programs were structured in the last few years to provide early-stage prototypes within a certain period of time but not actually to deliver real capability so where I am looking at a number of these programs, Andrew Hunter who is coming in as my acquisition executive will be looking at those programs to make sure they’re really structured to get capability in the hands of operators,” he added.

Kendall said the service considers space as a high priority and that the joint force relies on capabilities in space to support operations.

He noted that China is a pacing challenge and is a major driver of the budget request for fiscal year 2022. Kendall also shared his insights on hypersonic weapons and the Next Generation Air Dominance program.

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