ADAM GENEST: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another LMI LinkedIn Live. Today we are joined by Josh Wilson, Executive Vice President for Service Lines and Technology here at LMI. And we're honored to have Logan Jones. He's General Manager, President, and Board Director at Spark Cognition. Welcome to both of you. Today's conversation is going to be around contested logistics, how to move military materiel in a wartime environment, and some of the considerations that the department needs to think about as we move forward in that domain. Before we get started, Logan, since you're new with us, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what Spark Cognition does. LOGAN JONES: Happy to, Adam, and to you and Josh both, thanks for having me. So, I lead a company called Spark Cognition Government Systems. We're actually a spin out. It's pretty unique concept. We started as a, as an entity a couple of years ago after we spun out of Spark Cognition, a commercial business. They have deep roots in oil and gas, and financial, and aerospace, all around, leveraging A.I. solutions to help improve outcomes, to improve asset intelligence, to be that force multiplier, and to optimize decision making. When we spun out, we wanted to build a deeper relationship with DoD and the national security community. We are completely focused on solving the problems of national defense, and we do that by leveraging commercial technology that's being delivered every day at scale across the globe. ADAM GENEST: Great. Thank you for that introduction. And for those of you who've joined us before, you know, Josh. Josh has been with us before. But Josh, go ahead and introduce yourself and tell folks who maybe haven't seen you before, haven't participated before what LMI does. JOSH WILSON: Yeah. So thanks, Adam. Appreciate it. Logan, always a pleasure. Yeah. So, my name's Josh Wilson. For those of you who haven't heard from me before at LMI, which we've been around 60 years, and most of you are aware of who we are and sort of what we do. But my role within this organization is focused on what we call service lines and technology. And so, here at LMI we're organized in a matrix which is typical of a lot of GovCon, I would say, consulting companies or consulting companies in general. And on my side of the matrix, what I, what I lay awake thinking about at night is how do we create differentiated points of views around some of our clients' toughest challenges as it relates to logistics, as it relates to public health, as it relates to human, HR, and financial management, and etc. And we do that by having three service lines: logistics, management advisory services, and digital analytics solutions. And then that's coupled with our CTO organization, which literally runs all our R&D programs, academic partnerships, and etc. So, the idea is align the capability, investment efforts, and development efforts with how we align our talent management and delivery efforts into one kind of symbiotic relationships for our customers. ADAM GENEST: Great. Thanks for that. So, let's jump right in. You know, about a year ago, DoD rolled out a new joint warfighting concept with, with four functional concepts within it, one of them being contested logistics. We'll start with you, Josh. What changes do you think need to be made to joint operations to position the United States and our allies and partners to, to win the next conflict, especially when logistics are contested? JOSH WILSON: Yeah. Thanks, Adam. So, look, for those of you not familiar with this concept, just to lay the foundation on it, contested, contested logistics embraces the thought that there is no sanctuary. Right. It doesn't mean, all the way back to the United States to that combat zone, the adversaries that we think about a lot these days, if they decide they're going to disrupt or destroy with munitions, some part of that ecosystem or supply chain, they're going to hit that target. Right. So, the days of, you know, how we operated in Afghanistan and Iraq, you know, those days are over of these long supply chains and the convoys with supplies backed up for five and ten miles. I remember driving through those five to ten mile convoys coming in and out of Kuwait to support the different efforts over there. Those days are over. You can't do that. And I think that's no more obvious than the operations we've seen play out recently in Ukraine and how vulnerable those can be and how disruptive that can be to your operations. So, it's not that our military, I think, hasn't realized that. For a long time, they've analyzed this whole concept, contested logistics, how would you do that? Right. It's just that it candidly has not been at the forefront and center of gravity when we think about wargaming and simulations and how we're going to achieve outcomes and objectives. But the reality of where we are today is, is we have the technologies through investments in space, and AI, computer vision, data operations. You know, companies like Logan's and Spark Cognition and others have given us the capacity to identify limitless numbers of targets in a given area that we want to go after and, and, and destroy for whatever reason or take on. The reality is, though, we don't, in a contested environment, we can't deliver the supply chain to support those operations, to execute those targets. And in this world where the future is going to be about the, you know, these kill chains, these concepts of your ability to execute against the kill chain faster than your adversary, what's going to make or break that is yes, no question, AI, and software, and etc. But it's going to be your ability to deliver the needed resources at the point and place in time that they're required, because you're not going to be able to pre-position it months ahead of time. That's not going to work in the future. And so, you know, back to your question around, you know, what needs to change or, this now has to be kind of a center of gravity from a programmatic standpoint, which you see the department going toward in regards to how they're trying to focus exercises as we look to next summer as it relates to JADC2 and convergence, you're going to see a huge focus there and it has to be because that, that is now no question the limiting factor. And, and we've been given the luxury of watching operations play out in Ukraine and that blunt force trauma that we've seen happening to Russia, we don't want to happen to us. And so, I think that's why you see the programmatic dollars filtering the way they are and you're going to see the focus in various convergence exercise as we move on and the JADC2-related exercise as we move on across the department. LOGAN JONES: I would actually, I would, I would add, I agree with what you said. I think it's reframing the debate in a way. It's not this isolated stovepiped area to go and do research and maybe experiment. Contested logistics is actually a battlefield in and of itself, right. If you're a commander in operations, your ability to provide desired effect depends wholeheartedly on the logistics and supply tail, the status of the assets that you have in a given region. And what we what we like to think about internally, a couple of concepts we've, we in the department have spent a lot of cycles thinking about effectiveness on the day of the fight, sensor to shooter integration. But we like to think of it, expanding it to the many, many months of planning that go all the way back to get ready for the day of the fight. It cuts across all domains. In fact, a lot of the battlefield of today is asymmetric. So, it's the supplier, the mom and pop shop in the middle of nowhere, Idaho, who is machining a part, a critical component for an asset, an attack in the cyber domain all the way back there would disrupt our ability to provide effect. So, it's, it's cross domain. It's also bridging between supply base to operating base, which adds a degree of complexity. So, how we think about it, an AI company, we tend to think of it as an opportunity to synchronize a distributed force across multiple domains, multiple theaters, to provide desired effect, just like you said at the moment of need and that analytics, the data that flows is a critical component to understanding how we can really outcompete the adversary with logistics. ADAM GENEST: Well, thanks to you both. And, you know, Logan, that that made me think of something, actually, both of you mentioned something that, you know, I'm curious how you would respond to the notion that the cyber domain is a, is a domain through which we deliver materiel, data. And it is constantly contested. How would you respond to that, that sort of statement? LOGAN JONES: It is. It's really the ongoing battlefield of today, for sure. You've seen a lot of investment and cycles in the supply base, getting the supply base ready in a position to be able to protect the assets that we have, things like IP that we know is under attack every day. You know, there's, there's also a dynamic of, the cyber domain is unique in that it forces interoperability and interoperability is one of the hotly contested or invested in areas across, whether it be contested logistics, battle management, providing effect on, on the day of the fight, and it really comes home to roost because networks are so interoperable, they're so connected, they're so distributed, which makes it an easy target in of itself. So, what, some of the things that we focus on is really outdated systems, old systems, OT systems that might be 30 years old. How do you protect all the way back into the supply chain using lightweight algorithms that can detect zero day attacks and take appropriate action on it? We have a partnership with Siemens that allows us to deploy that technology on OT systems today. Why do we do it? It's because the cyber domain connects all the way back to the supply base that is so integral to how we provide force in the day of the battle. But Josh, I mean, you guys at LMI think about this all day. Well, what would you add to that? JOSH WILSON: You know, where our heads move, it, there are major players, huge amounts of R&D, huge amounts of thought leadership, and candidly on the commercial side, Microsoft, AWS, etc., you know, have really spent a lot of time, and companies like yourself, thinking about what we, what I would call the traditional cyber defense, you know, on detecting things that are happening in my network that I don't want to happen. Mostly in relation to what I would refer to as enter, enterprise infrastructure. Right. But when we think about contested logistics and operating in a JADC2 environment, there's going to be a huge amount of edge device, edge compute, information being shared amongst devices in the field that are going to feed valuable algorithms like, like Logan has talked about in regards to do I need more ammunition, do I need more fuel? When will I need that? Right. And where we're spending a lot of our time and energy now is thinking through how do you protect those devices? How do you detect when they're trying to be hacked at the edge where they don't have reach back at that time to what I would call like typical, you know, enterprise infrastructure network and monitoring capabilities. How do you do all the things we're going to do, want these devices to do at the edge while also defending themselves and knowing when they've been corrupted so that they don't corrupt an entire ecosystem that's relying on accurate data to deliver things to the point and time of need. And so, that's where we think there's still a ton of space in research and innovation that's required because, you know, as you know, and you all use it, you all produce and deliver a lot of IoT devices for all types of things, from predictive maintenance to managing various oil and gas networks and etc. You know, once those start giving you bad data, your models start saying crazy things, for lack of a better word. So, how do you defend those, protect those is a big focus for us. LOGAN JONES: I think there's, to build on it, Josh, when you look at the potential value of AI/ML, the whole category, but then you overlay it against what the threat dynamic is and you look at, one of the assumptions I think you have to make in the future fight is really around comms degraded, comms denied. So on one side, we have this huge opportunity that we have massive amounts of data coming in from everywhere. How do you, how do you leverage that asset of today, train models up that can be deployed at the edge, that can operate and provide insights in an environment where comms may not be perfect, as we've had in the past. You've pointed to things like Afghanistan and Iraq. AI, you know, at the edge is I think the way you do it. Now, validation and verification. How do you ensure that the models are what they say they are? They're doing what they say they do. I'm, I'm, might be a bit of a stretch, but since we're focused on both the cyber aspect of contested logistics, but in your opening, Josh, you talked a lot about the physical movement of goods. So, in, in, in the future fight, what might occur is 3D printing at the edge. How do, if you have a, if you have a 3D design, you have a grouping of materials, how do you ensure that somebody hasn't hacked into it and tweaked the recipe, tweaked the design, in a way that creates a vulnerability. And what it reminds me of is there's a whole category of applications in machine learning that uses algorithms in digital engineering and design. So, how do you push this to the edge and have validation, verification, and digital design and engineering at the edge, enabled by analytics? That's one of the potential opportunities in this whole world of moving physical items all around the globe. ADAM GENEST: Well, I'm curious, Logan, you know, and this dovetails to a follow up question that I'd like to ask you. How do you from a cultural perspective, who do you think is going to be most responsible for implementing this? You know, is this a traditional sort of, you know, cyber command or, you know, your cyber operators within units? Are these logisticians, are these commanders? Is this everybody? I know that, you know, the Space Force in one of their efforts to stand up a unique digital first service is trying to, as best they can, send as many of the folks who are in Space Force to to coding school essentially as they can, I think in part to get after this problem. What needs to happen culturally for some of these legacy services with hundreds of years of history and, and strong stovepipes in terms of, of their MOS, if you will, to think about not just, you know, you know, edge computing or edge manufacturing, but, but how to implement AI and how to essentially deliver the effect the warfighter needs in this integrated fashion. LOGAN JONES: That, great question. Culture drives everything. Where, what I would point to, you mentioned it, I think they're on, on, on the right footing and where they're starting. So, training, if you create a digital core that can operate and see positive outcomes, that drives culture and that drives culture over time. You know, this is not just an overnight thing. And so the investments that they're making in training and upskilling around digital tools, you know, is, I think, on the right track. There's also, there's kind of a core belief that, that I have, that we have, is you talked about where will it be operationalized? I think the easy answer is at all levels, but I think there's a big opportunity in the fact that the future is decentralized and the source of power and creativity of the United States and its allies is through distributed decision making. It's, it's going to be pushed out. So, if you can take digital tools and analytics and drive it into the hands of the tactical force, the soldier, the sailor, the airman, that's hugely powerful. That matches our strength as a force. And I think they'll lean on these digital tools to really continue that momentum and outpace the enemy. JOSH WILSON: He was, he was much better at that question than he was fly fishing in Montana. I'm just going to say that was an amazing answer, Logan. LOGAN JONES: That's good. Being with you, Josh, everybody gets scared away, including the fish. JOSH WILSON: Yeah, exactly. All right, Adam. What's, what's next, man? ADAM GENEST: Sure. Well, that's hard to segueway, going from fly fishing to chips. But, you know, everyone's talking about, especially today, you know, literally today, you know, the, the infrastructure and logistics requirements around some of our critical materials, chips, semiconductors, rare metals. You know, we're bringing some of that back in part to secure that supply chain and make sure we can deliver for our national security needs. But, you know, I'm curious what you think about some of the intangible items that, that are equally as important, like data, you know, frequency, something that a lot of folks don't really think about. But we have a very crowded electromagnetic spectrum, you know, fiber optic capabilities, especially when you're when you're talking about undersea cables, you know, what are, how are some of these unique elements that are beyond chips and bullets and tanks influencing the department's thinking on the concept of contested logistics? JOSH WILSON: Yeah, you know, thanks, Adam. So, look, there are a ton of incredible companies out there that have gotten really good at illuminating, as they referred to it candidly, an overwhelming amount of risk. I mean, our world is so entangled at this point that there, there is some material for probably every weapon system, it may be a raw material, coming from some other country in our, on this good planet, right. So, when you think about delivering capabilities like we've been talking about on this call, you know, you're not, you're not going to be able to in-source and put in a closed network every single aspect of the ability to deliver that technology. Especially, when you start talking about technologies like we've been talking about in the past. The problem is and what we're seeing here at LMI is because we're so intertwined and because we're so reliant on these very diverse networks of supply, it's about where do you, which risk do you, are you really going to take on? Which risk do you really want to focus on? So, there's plenty of companies that can tell you, here's the 10,000 risks in the supply chain associated with make up weapons system X, Y, or Z. But which ones do, you know, I can't act on all those. That's too hard. It's too overwhelming. It's too expensive. So, where we focus here at LMI is which ones you should act on, when you think about the options at hand, right. Do I in-source this, to Logan's point earlier, do I buy the IP to those parts from a digital engineering standpoint, so I can manufacture that part as much as I'd like and in-source it internally? But to make these tradeoffs on which risk you want to take on. And for that tier three supplier for weapons system X, as I said earlier, then you got to understand, what is that actually going to cost to take on? If that risk did occur, how much availability would it, would it actually impact? How much readiness would it actually impact for that weapon system? And then what, what operational plans that, that our combatant commanders have in place, is that going to impact by not having that weapon system available at that level? That is where we see the big value. That's where we see us here at LMI being able to help because to organize around all the risks is impossible. And you take my example, what is that going to cost? That, there's no AI algorithm that's going to tell you what it's going to cost it to go find another manufacturer for a part, right. That's, that's something that has to be navigated, right. But we need AI algorithms decision support tools to automate the identification of those risks, right, to have integration with suppliers so we have more real time input on where the risks are, right. And then after that, LMI is working really hard to kind of quantify that into what we generally refer to as the "so what?". So that our government leaders can then decide where they want to, which ones they're going to attack first or last. LOGAN JONES: You mentioned decision support, Josh. I mean, there's nobody in the business better than LMI at logistics, for sure. And wouldn't you want to use tools to help with decision support so that your analysts can focus on the right problem set and not the complexity of data that, that hits? I mean, you mentioned a stat to me the other day. I might get it wrong, but what is it, 920 pounds of rare earth metals or materials in the F-35, I mean, that is a massive risk. So, what do you do about it? And part of that kind of risk benefit analysis that you're talking about, you know, Adam talked about fiber optic cables. How do I connect the two? Well, I think you, you view risk as where risk is growing, where risk is pooling in a supply chain and a logistics tail, and you work on diversifying away from those risks, right. Right. You're never going to extinguish risk. That's impossible. It might be okay that 920 pounds of rare earth metals is on the F-35 from a competitor in, competitor in Asia. But how do you diversify away from that? And that's what analytics really starts to amplify and highlight is where risk is building in a supply chain and then be a decision optimizer so that an analyst can make a better decision, a more informed decision, just like you guys do at LMI and in support of DoD every day. JOSH WILSON: So, I want to say Adam, I, we did not pay him for that. All right. He was giving an answer. No, I think so. I'll just close, Adam, before you take over is, you know, there's, there's, there's several companies out there that LMI works with that have this great combination of, you know, the power of having a big commercial footprint, you know, to to drive the dollars and the constant innovation that you get from, from having that commercial footprint as a technology provider, but then have also created the focus to really generate impact in the national security community. And I commend you guys on what you're doing there, Logan. It's, it's really awesome to kind of have that both focus on this community and the important missions they serve as well as, you know, the benefits of all that, that commercial footprint and exposure gives you. So congrats on the, on the progress. So, Adam, over to you. ADAM GENEST: Yeah. Well, you know, we're, we're about out of time. In the few minutes we have remaining, I just kind of wanted to throw sort of a, a softball oracle question, if you will. You know, so, for each of you, we'll start with Logan, you know, what are the, the, what is the top one to three near-term priorities that the department needs to think about when tackling this concept of contested logistics? And how do you see, you know, the fight of the future, if you will, in a contested logistics environment? What are going to be some of the hallmarks, the changes from the way things are done today to say the way things are done ten plus years from now? LOGAN JONES: Yeah, good question. So, number one is, I think opening it up to a broader ecosystem of partners to enable real change. So, one, one of the big opportunities is there's tons and tons of data, but that data is either locked up, it's messy, or it's held by a select few. So, open up the ecosystem. Number two is fund the ecosystem, fund it in a different way. I think that is a big needle mover. We think of experimentation usually around kinetic effect, but experiment around contested logistics to find real world answers that can help us as a country. And then, you know, number three is use this, use the power of data that flows out of these systems to truly think of this as a multi-domain, multi-service, multi-end type of problem and break down operational silos in the services. Because we're so intertwined as a force, if we look at logistics, these vertical stovepipes, we're going to lose the opportunity to create more threat. So those would be my three. JOSH WILSON: Yeah, I would say I just want to also commend the department on, on, you know, since, you know, as we've watched Ukraine play out, I think they've, they're making adjustments in the year of execution and how they want to prioritize dollars and they're setting up dedicated funds to really focus on contested logistics. They're, they've laid it out as a priority in the upcoming exercises where they've, they've been, the various services are going to be going through the various JADC2 related experiments and etc., that they use to kind of flush out their doctrine on how they want to operate given the new technologies and what investments are required. So, the first thing I would say is I just want to commend the department folks like Mr. Lovett and others that are, that are driving this under Miss Shyu. And then there's great folks, you know, that we've also had conversations with within the 18th Airborne Corps and Jared Summers and others that this is a huge priority on and they're super focused on it. And, which I will tell you, that's, that wasn't the same, I would say, in previous years. So, just, you know, we're, from the LMI perspective, we're super excited about, you know, what will be learned and etc. You know, I'm going to be very specific, you know, today when you think about, you know, I was that guy, that engineer officer at one point in the Army and it was, you know, I remember in the captains career course, it was time to plan that, you know, in 72 hours you're going to go fight against this type of enemy in this space. Ready, go. We had the calculators and Excel spreadsheet templates that we would fill out that would tell us how long it was going to take, how many trucks, and how long it was going to take to move from here to there. And it would take this long to dig this many foxholes and etc. Right. I would candidly, you know, a lot of that still goes on today. Right. There's a lot of Excel based tools for these, what I would call planners. But to operate in, as dynamically as we're going to need to to be successful in the environments we want to operate in. Humans are going to have to be in the loop, but these are going to have to be automated data feeds, tools where I could literally drop a, a window on a map and the metadata would be available to say, to walk me through a wizard, what is the adversary, what are the threats, what assets are on hand? And boom, I could talk about the outcomes I'm trying to achieve where and using all that, it should then immediately present, you know, what kind of materials I would need available to support that operation and dynamically optimize what routes they should use based off line of sight of the enemy and etc. and also lay out when these things would show up based off intended rates of fire and etc. like that is the future, right? And that's going to account for things like climate data. Has it, has it rained in the last 72 hours, right. These are all things that I think we, and tools, automated tools and decision support tools and planning tools, that, that have to become real for our planners. And I think that's what you'll see in the next 18 to 24 months, is that they will be. ADAM GENEST: Really appreciate those two answers. And you know, whenever someone comments, I like to bring it over, just, we can wrap up on this idea. You know, Luis mentions viable leverage of commercial capabilities. I know we're seeing that more in the space-based ISR domain in particular, and we saw that to great effect in the conflict in Ukraine. I think Luis makes a great point that contested logistics are going to have to include the integration of, you know, commercial off-the-shelf and commercial services writ large. So, thank you for that comment, Luis. Thank you both for an awesome discussion. Josh and Logan, I hope you catch a lot of fish on your next fly fishing adventure, but I really appreciate it. And with that... JOSH WILSON: One of us will, Adam, of one of us will. ADAM GENEST: All right. Well, we will save that. Maybe we'll do a LinkedIn live from Montana, but until then we'll close out here. Thank you both, and I thank you for everyone who joined. LOGAN JONES: Thanks for having us. JOSH WILSON: Thank you.