National IGE Report: July-August 2025

Building the Bond at JETC

The 2025 JETC delivered on the mission of strengthening industry-government relationships and creating an atmosphere for innovative solutions to emerge. The collaborative environment at the conference (May 13–15) took a variety of forms, including Mega Sessions, workshops and exercises, leadership panels, and senior-level meetings.

Mega Sessions. These high-level offerings featured deep dives into warfighting, energy security, enlisted servicemember engagement, construction, and architecture, exemplified by Rear Adm. Jeff Kilian, USN, Commander, NAVFAC Pacific, who presented on “Poseidon’s Corollary”—a three-pronged approach for NAVFAC to meet infrastructure challenges in the Pacific.

Workshops & Exercises. JETC attendees took part in collaborative roundtables and hands-on cyber exercises, all built around a collective urgency to emphasize readiness. For example, the Warfighter Seminar Table-Top Exercise had participants discuss the tactical challenges in planning, sustaining, and then transitioning humanitarian assistance/disaster response operations through a mock scenario of a natural disaster in American Samoa and Samoa.

Senior Leadership Engagement. Across the conference, senior engineering leaders engaged with attendees on where industry help is needed. Perhaps the most visible example of this engagement came from Rear Adm. Amy Grable, USCG, Assistant Commandant for Engineering & Logistics, U.S. Coast Guard, who, during the Executive Leaders Panel at the General Session on May 14, publicly underscored the critical importance of JETC to the enterprise and why learning from and listening to industry will be irreplaceable in meeting the secretarial-driven requirements of Force Design 2028.

On Day Three, the biannual meeting of the Executive Advisory Group addressed several interrelated challenges and initiatives. The agenda included presentations from a few of the National IGE Projects along with outbriefs from the industry-government engagement roundtables held at JETC, with potential follow-on actions brought up for consideration.

Current Industry-Government Engagement Projects

Issue/TopicImpact TypeLead POC
Project Partnering (Pre-Award) EducationSal Nodjomian
Alternative Project DeliveryEducationSal Nodjomian
Small Business Size Standards: Challenges Facing Transitioning Federal Small Businesses: A Proposed Framework & SolutionAdvocacyMike Ramos
Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System Education & ReformAdvocacy Michael Blount
Avoiding PFAS Information Overload: Targeted Training for Operational Entities Advocacy / EducationLisa Kammer
Cybersecurity: Raising Awareness of Current and Emerging Cyber Threats to Smart Operational Technologies and Development of Effective Policy and Standards Enhancing Cybersecurity Resiliency for Federal Facilities/Infrastructure Advocacy / Education Lucian Niemeyer, Brian May
Planning for Future Federal Installation, Campus, and Facility Innovation Advocacy Paula Loomis
AI: Knowledge Sharing, Security Concerns, Implementation Guidelines, and Best Practices Advocacy / Education Victoria Mechtly

Article published in The Military Engineer, July-August 2025

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Bringing Industry and Government Together

As the cornerstone of the Society’s founding in 1920, industry-government engagement remains mission-essential for the organization a century later. By leveraging our unique, inclusive platform that brings together members from across the entire infrastructure lifecycle, public and private, SAME is driving solutions for some of the toughest engineering challenges facing the A/E/C industry and our national security. Learn more about SAME’s IGE efforts.