Work worth doing and dedicated, skilled staff inspire directorate director

  • Published
  • By Michael P. Kleiman
  • 377th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
Kirtland AIr Force Base, NM --  When he became head of the Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate on Oct. 23, 2010, Dr. David A. Hardy thought he had left behind 35 years of space science experience to guide an organization focused on cutting-edge laser, optical, and microwave technologies, but the opportunity has proved to be a perfect fit.

A member of the Senior Executive Service, Dr. Hardy leads a unit comprised of more than 800 military, civilian, and contract scientists and engineers serving at several state-of-the-art research and development facilities at Kirtland Air Force Base, the U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and the Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing Site, Hawaii.

"I have done a lot of major space experiments and have some skill set in laying out well-formulated experiments/demonstrations and making sure they are executed according to time schedule and performance. The Directed Energy Directorate has a number of those on their plate right now and that is actually a pretty good match against my skill set," said Dr. Hardy.

"We have the Electric Laser on a Large Aircraft program, which is a major airborne, next generation, electric laser experiment, we have our Counter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile experiment, which is a major trial demonstrating microwaves for counter electronics, and we have the whole modernization and upgrade of the Maui site and Starfire Optical Range (on Kirtland Air Force Base) that are major projects. So my leading large scientific programs carefully and keeping them on schedule and cost are some of the skill sets that AFRL Commander Maj. Gen. Pawlikowski thought would be well matched against the directorate."

His knowledge of the cosmos has benefitted the directorate's efforts with space control, one of five focus capability areas the AFRL component has strategically planned for technology development, demonstration, and transition. It encompasses monitoring near and deep-space objects for seamless situational awareness and freedom of movement.

"The primary facilities we have at both the Starfire Optical Range and at Maui are the large telescopes. We have a 3.5 and a 3.6 meter telescope, both of which are test beds for the next generation of adaptive optics. They are also test beds for the next generation of techniques for ground-based observations to support space situational awareness," Dr. Hardy said.

"The collision of the Cosmos and Iridium communication satellites in February 2009 demonstrates the problem we currently have with SSA. We did not have sufficient information to predict what was going to happen. Any architecture that has been looked at for how we need to do SSA has to have a significant ground element, which tends to have two parts -- an electro-optical and a radar component. Our facilities are basically a lead element in developing science and technology for the next generation of systems and techniques you would use on the ground to accomplish SSA."

Since assuming leadership of the directorate almost three months ago, Dr. Hardy has established short- and mid-term goals for the organization to achieve and they involve the ground-breaking CHAMP and ELLA projects.

"In the short term, we have a major demonstration of the next generation of microwave capabilities coming up in the summer of 2012 with our CHAMP program. In the mid-term, we are in the process of trying to determine what is the optimum demonstration of the next generation of electric lasers on aircraft," said Dr. Hardy.

"We have a major program called ELLA where we are looking at trying to prove out much of the technology for an electric laser on an airframe by doing this major demo on a B-1. If you divide up the directorate's portfolio, it really has three parts. We do important work in lasers, in microwaves and in SSA."

After accomplishing 35 years of federal government service, he remains committed to his call by following his father's philosophical advice of being fortunate in life if you are able to do work worth doing and to deal with good people. Both, he emphasized, have been met by the directorate. Nevertheless, a couple of years ago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates raised concerns about a "brain drain" at military laboratories, and thus, maintaining a dedicated and skilled workforce within the directorate has been one of Dr. Hardy's priorities.

"There's been an initiative across AFRL to engage with the very best schools in the country in order to try and attract the best talent to come here. Scientists generally like to go where great research is being done. If you are doing some of the coolest stuff around, you'll get some of the brightest minds in the next generation to come work with you," Dr. Hardy said. "The work we're doing in the directorate is certainly worth doing. It's critical to maintaining America's military edge in the world. We have to get this right, we have to get it done, and there are just outstanding people here who are dedicated to getting it done."

Like an old U.S. Navy recruiting advertisement, leading AFRL's Directed Energy Directorate has been, so far, not just a job for Dr. Hardy, but an adventure filled with his enthusiasm, energy, and excitement.

"The directorate is an exciting place to be working. They are doing some incredibly cool stuff. When I was over on the space side, somebody asked me what my job was and I said it was to fly cool stuff in space. My job over here is to fly cool directed energy systems anyplace and anytime where they make sense," said Dr. Hardy. "There are great people in the directorate dedicated to doing great research and it's fun to be here trying to help them figure how we can do that in the best possible way to support the warfighter. That's our job."