DURHAM, N.C. -- Chief Master Sgt. Jeremy S. Mullins, the command chief for the 145th Airlift Wing, and Chief Master Sgt. Tony Hall, the senior enlisted leader for the 118th Air Support Operations Squadron, guided their teams for the Duke Design Defense Studio pitch day at Duke University, July 17.
The Duke Design Defense Studio is a collaborative 10-week master’s level course between Air Reserve Component Work Project (ARCWERX) and Duke University, Pratt School of Engineering, where members from the Department of Defense are selected through an application process to learn the process and science behind innovation, and to problem-solve real-world issues for the DoD.
“Throughout the course,” said Mullins. “They (the students) actually get graded on all their assignments, and at the end of it, they're (the students) awarded three credit hours towards a master's level degree with the option of going into a degree program, here, at Duke.”
Upon conclusion of the course, teams pitch their ideas to possible investors with the hopes of bringing their solutions to life; these solutions have the potential to directly impact the resolution of DoD issues.
“The coaches are rockstars in innovation and current DoD (Department of Defense) members,” said Robb Olson, adjunct associate professor at Duke University and founding member of the Duke Defense Design Studio. “Their experience in navigating the torturous path to get useful new things into the hands of the war fighter, they’ve already done that. It is their role to help the teams get past that complexity and the fear of doing something new.”
Robb and Kate Olsen, co-founders for the Duke Design Defense studio, worked hand in hand with ARCWERX Director of Education, and the Air National Guard Chief Innovation Officer, U.S. Air Force Captain Daniel Smith, to develop the Duke Design Defense Studio.
“The whole goal of our programs is to get foundational skill sets and knowledge to our field level innovators, to take that back to the unit level and create innovation capability,” clarifies Smith. “In that process, we also want to be able to establish solutions to real world problems. And so as we're going through these different courses, it's really to help gauge change the culture as it is now and then providing solutions to change that culture into a force that's more agile, more capable of taking their framework and their knowledge, and changing solutions and the way we provide solutions to the modern day problems.”
An initial catalyst of the Duke Defense Design Studio course stemmed from the AIM HI (Academia+Industry+Military = Hybrid Innovations) program which connects top research universities, entrepreneurial companies, the United States Air and Space Forces, and the National Guard. The AIM HI goal is to develop creativity and innovation skills, facilitating across entrenched boundaries, and accelerating decision cycles.
Two North Carolina Air National Guardsmen completed the AIM HI program, returned to coach within the program, and became coaches/mentors for the Duke Defense Design Studio courses.
“I was a student of the aim high program,” says Mullins.“Three years ago, they asked me to come back as a coach, and I helped coach that for a little while, had a little bit of a break, but just recently, finished cohort seven that they held and finished up the spring. And out of that came the invite to come here and be a part of the Duke design defense studio for this summer. This is one of the second summer or second classes that they've held here at Duke.”
With his vast experience coaching in the AIM HI program and his expanding duties as the NCANG command chief, Mullins integrated into the Duke Defense Design Studio course as a mentor and and lead coach for the onboarded coaches of the course. Mullins mentored them through any obstacles they may face in the fast pace and limited availability environment given that the coaches will only have three out of ten weeks together with their students in person. Mullins also frequently communicated with co-founders Robb and Kate to make sure the course was progressing as expected with the coaches and that all required needs were met.
The evolution of professional development in the military has expanded quickly across many platforms and access or awareness of these programs and courses may not all find limelight due to their inundation.
“If you're interested in joining something like this,” suggests Mullins, “I would say start following ARCWERX on their LinkedIn pages and things of that nature, because they're all the time having a highly named cohort of their teaching, or follow design defense. Because this is a summertime course for Duke Defense Design, they post it and they let you know when the applications are due and when that process starts… I would say it's the easiest way to plug in, because these types of things aren't widely known throughout the force, and so it really takes you being intentional in following the right folks to find out when the application process starts.”
As new as the Duke Defense Design Studio course is, it appears to be gaining followers and producing desired outcomes.
“Right now, between our online attendees and our in person attendees were at 100,” states Mullins, “ So this thing has gotten a lot of traction in a short period of time, and that speaks volumes to what they (ARCWERX and the Olsens) bring to the Department of Defense and how much buy in they can get, not only from the Department of Defense, but from our industry partners.”
Chief Master Sgt. Hall also navigated from the AIM HI program as a student to coach then followed Mullins to the Duke Defense Design Studio course as a coach.
“I went through as a student in cohort four in AIM HI and then coached twice in AIM HI, then was asked to come back and coach for this one iteration of DDS (Duke Defense Studio),” explains Hall. “It's more of a bachelor level (AIM HI), and it's not tied to a degree like this one (DDDS course) is, but it's similar vetting processes for students to apply to go, and then the coaches have to apply to go as well. So to be a coach, you have to go through as a student, and then you get invited back based on recommendations like how well you do in a program, how well you do with a team, to try to be a coach for that.Finally, you go through some development on the coaches side as well.”
All the foundational knowledge gained as a student and coach with the AIM HI program and the DDDS course, provide great resources when brought back to the units for Mullins and Hall.
“So we have taken that back,” says Hall. “I took it back to the squadron level first…we started changing our mission sets. I took the knowledge from this, went back to the squadron and basically developed a Change plan to increase the mission requirements. And then the reference knowledge for the gear and equipment, stuff like that. Then Chief Mullins and I decided to put together a spark cell at the wing. So we're still trying to work through the wickets of getting people the time and availability to be in a spark cell, so we can start addressing some of the common problems that we have at the wing and I say the wing, I'm talking about groups and squadrons across the wing.”
Spark cells are innovation teams in a wing that produce solutions and ideas for any focal points of interest across the wing.
“For any of the DSGs that have any kind of passion or motivation to want to get into something that has had significant higher DoD level impacts,” suggests Hall, “bring that expertise that they already have in their civilian life and their civilian jobs to this spark cell so that we can find those problems that exist in the wing and fix them, like fix them now, and not just kick them down the road and have the same problems next year.”
Hall reflects on what these programs bring to Airmen across the force and encourages anyone feeling the pull to make an impact to apply for programs like AIM HI and courses like DDDS.
“If a person has any kind of passion or inclination at all to get into the innovation ecosystem, which is huge, and go into it with the knowledge and skills that are required to be successful in that endeavor, they need to come to either AIM HI or defense design studios to get that referential knowledge,” incites Hall, “And it's not just a professional development opportunity or learning something new, right, you get to illuminate a legitimate problem that is faced DoD (Department of Defense) wide and be a plank holder in coming up with critical combat solutions to make us better.”