CTOing in the Defense Department with Schuyler Moore and Justin Fanelli

War on the Rocks

News, Politics

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2024

⏱️ 41 minutes

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Summary

It's become more and more common for organizations in the Defense Department, from the military services to geographic combatant commands and beyond, to have chief technology officers. What do they do? What challenges do they tackle? Why are they becoming increasingly important as the U.S. military tries to maintain its technological edge over China and other shrewd and savvy rivals using tech to create asymmetries? To help grapple with these questions, I sat down with Schuyler Moore, the CTO of U.S. Central Command, and Justin Fanelli, the CTO of the U.S. Department of the Navy.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs.
0:14.3	My name's Ryan Evans, I'm the founder of War on the Rocks, and in this episode I sat down with
0:18.4	Skyler Moore and Justin Finelli.
0:21.0	Both are chief technology officers in the Defense Department.
0:23.8	Skylers at Central Command, you might remember her from an earlier episode of the
0:27.4	Pod, and Justin is at the Department of the Navy. I spoke to them about what it's
0:31.7	like to be a CTO and DOD.
0:35.0	So I'm sitting in a room talking to two CTOs at the Defense Department,
0:40.0	and not too long ago there wouldn't have been chief technology officers in the Defense Department.
0:45.0	Skyler, you've been on the show before.
0:48.0	For those that didn't listen to your episode, how did you end up in this place?
0:52.0	What were you before you were CTO at
0:54.0	Centcom? So before I got to Centcom I was still at Centcom only at the Navy
0:58.9	component. So I was with Task Force 59 an organization that was focused on unmanned in AI systems and I was their chief strategy
1:05.9	officer. I had the good fortune of meeting General Karela through that role. He then opened
1:10.9	up a chief technology officer role and I was very fortunate to be picked for that.
1:15.0	And how long were you at Task Force 59?
1:17.0	Very briefly. I was there for eight months.
1:19.0	It was a mobilization actually through the reserves.
1:21.0	I haven't been in the Navy reserve for very long but they
1:23.9	pulled me forward just because the overlap with my civilian background and what they
1:26.9	were looking for for that position. How long you been CTO now?
	...

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