Greetings and welcome to our NDIA St. Louis Chapter:

The St. Louis Chapter of NDIA focuses our efforts as an exchange of information between Industry and Government on National Security issues.  We advocate for strengthening the Defense Industrial Base and the development of cutting-edge technology and superior weapons equipment training and support for the War-Fighter and First-Responder.

Our Board actively espouses these concepts and represents a diverse expertise in DoD businesses from academia, contracts, manufacturing, engineering, and business management of same.

NDIA annually focuses on the ”Top Issues” affecting national defense from an industry and academia perspective.  Our chapter’s companies and institutions make a substantial contribution in this defense industry sector of the economy.  Our chapter needs to focus attention on how these issues play in the Midwest.

As a member of NDIA, St. Louis, our principal function is to develop NDIA’s top defense policy issues, based on views provided by association chapters and divisions.  These issues are the centerpiece of our legislative and regulatory activities during the year and are highlighted in association testimony, National Defense Magazine articles and in communications with government decision-makers.  NDIA’s Top Issues are distributed to all members of Congress, appropriate Congressional committee staff, and senior administration officials.  As we look back over the last several years, we can take pride in our legislative and policy accomplishments, which have had the top policy issues as their foundation.

Each year, NDIA requests that you and other members of our chapter provide us with ideas for inclusion in next year’s Top Issues publication.  As has been the case in the past, the Top Issues should consist of subjects that are broad defense industrial policy concerns. 

Using the Top Issues of 2010 as a baseline, please provide us with any additions, changes, and/or improvements to the following:

ISSUE 1:  Maintain a Responsive and Capable Defense Industrial Base has specific ramifications in our geographic footprint with identifying and shaping public policy of the industry sector, highlighting the role and modernization of the Lakewood Ammunition Plant and the NGA facilities around St. Louis.

ISSUE 2:  Improving the Workforce Advantage To Ensure US National Security translates to action in our states with K12 STEM outreach efforts and supporting the Defense Security Service who operate out of St. Louis to provide clearances to industry.

ISSUE 3:  Ensure the Integrity and Responsiveness of the Acquisition Process means supporting our military base at Fort Leonard Wood, Whiteman, NGA St. Louis, Lakewood, Scott, Rosencrans, and even Fort Leavenworth working the ethical rules for acquisition reform.

ISSUE 4:  Increase Government Contract Usage of All Small Businesses is a rallying cry to continue the outreach championed by Congressman Ike Skelton’s procurement conferences, the SBTDC and PTAC programs and the State’s support to entrepreneurs via attention to SBIR/STTR programs.

ISSUE 5:  Sustaining Military readiness While Providing for the Future can be our rallying cry to support the great efforts of the Missouri Military Preparedness and Readiness Commission, engage the debate on the land needs of our military bases, and military sales and international ‘ports of trade’ policies pursued at Kansas City and St. Louis.

ISSUE 6: Support Efficient and Transparent International Access for the U.S. Defense Industrial Base touches our chapter strongly with the foreign military sales and international ‘ports of trade’ policies pursued at Kansas City and St Louis.

If, in your view, an issue needs to be addressed which is not included in the 2010 edition, please provide us with a narrative description of the new issue.  Our Board and Officers will develop the draft language for all ideas received and return each to the Association’s Government Policy Advisory Division (GPAD).  When all inputs and suggestions have been accommodated, we will forward the draft 2011 Top Issues to the Chair of the Education and Lobbying Committee of the Board of Directors for a final draft approval. Once finalized, this document will be presented to the Board of Directors for approval at their meeting in November 2010.

Please email your recommendations to me at kbguller@essexind.com by no later than July 1^st.

I encourage you and the members of our chapter to participate in the process of defining our association’s Top Issues for 2011, and I thank you for your time and attention.

The St. Louis Chapter has an important national voice in the discussions covering these issues.  We should not be just ‘along for the ride’.

In addition, please review our website and feel free to contact any of us to answer questions regarding NDIA, its membership, and how we can be of assistant to you.

Thank you.

Keith Guller

Chapter President, NDIA St. Louis

www.ndia.org