Episode Summary
Utah State University and Weber State University are working together to explore a Space and Defense Research Institute. This institute will combine USU’s faculty expertise in research and the Space Dynamics Lab with WSU’s strong working relationships with Hill Air Force Base and its applied science and workforce training with industry leaders like the Miller Advanced Research and Solutions Center. Together, we are equipped to propel research and workforce development in the space and defense fields to the next level. In this episode of Future Casting with Utah State, USU President Elizabeth Cantwell and WSU President Brad Mortensen explore the possibilities that could come of this important collaboration.
Guest Biography
Brad L. Mortensen is the 13th president of Weber State University. He started his tenure in January 2019 after serving in several leadership positions at the university since 2004. Since then, President Mortensen has celebrated numerous accomplishments with campus partners, including establishing a new strategic plan, expanding community partnerships and economic engagement initiatives, and helping WSU maintain and achieve top rankings in multiple areas, including student affordability and return on investment. A first-generation college graduate, Brad is an Aggie who holds several degrees, including a bachelor’s degree from USU and a doctoral degree in educational leadership and policy from the University of Utah.
Episode full transcript
Elizabeth Cantwell 00:00
Hello and welcome to Future Casting with Utah State University. I'm Elizabeth Cantwell, president of USU, and I am host of this podcast today. I'm talking with Brad Mortensen, who's the president of Weber State University, about a collaborative effort that we're posing to do together to bolster both research and workforce in the areas of space and defense. Brad's been the president of Weber State since January of 2019. He's the 13th president of Weber State. He's been there since 2004 and he's an amazing colleague and friend for me. So I think this will be fun. And Brad, I think we have lots of opportunities to talk about the ways that we collaborate with one another, but this one is kind of near and dear to my heart, and I know it's near and dear to yours, because I come out of the defense sector, and you guys have been working really closely with the Air Force Base for a long time. I thought maybe we would start with how you work with Hill and and sort of the, not just the partnership, but the sort of the way that relationship serves northern Utah.
Brad Mortensen 01:11
Thanks, President Cantwell, Betsy, it's a pleasure to be on your future casting podcast and look forward to the conversation today. And you know, the conversations we have with each other frequently, and I appreciate you being a great colleague as well and inviting me on. You know, I have to really simplify things, because I have not come out of the defense industry like you have, but we were, state has had a long partnership hill here with Hill field going back to the days in the 40s and 50s when it was healed, before it became heal our base, doing all types of training, leadership training programs, and, more importantly, kind of providing some of the technical workforce for the base. But that has really amped up the last 10 years or so, as we've seen Hill grow and become more important cog in the whole national defense network. There was a big effort, you know, folks were afraid that BRAC might, yeah, and it. Folks fought really hard to keep Hill Air Force Base here. And we're so fortunate that they did, because it's, it's truly a tremendous part of our community, economically, and here at Weber State, it provides a lot of opportunities and training and programs for our students. But then it's just so important in the whole national defense.
Elizabeth Cantwell 02:36
It is an incredibly important part of our national defense efforts. There's remarkable work that goes on there, yeah,
Brad Mortensen 02:42
So we've, it's just been a really, kind of natural growth for Weber State to work closely at Hill, particularly on the workforce side. They have insatiable demands for engineers and computer scientists. Yeah, and then a little bit on the applied research side, but honestly, that's what excites me about this partnership, is being able to leverage the expertise and and potential and understanding that Utah State has with our efforts, I think will only improve the whole landscape for everyone.
Elizabeth Cantwell 03:20
So I thought we might talk a little bit about at least one of the joint efforts that we already have going on, which is associated with a really critical need for Hill Air Force Base in materials science and and materials engineering and manufacturing engineering. And we have a program, and you've been part of this for longer than I have, but my understanding is we have this really kind of cool partnership where your engineering efforts at the one to four year level to fill their workforce needs become a platform for students who want to go on and get a master's degree or get sort of more deeply involved in the technology side and the and the science side of what is going on, and with the with the materials needs, because not all the problems are solved. It's not like we just go build a factory and everything's cool. There's a lot of work to be done in the in the use case scenarios of things like hypersonic missiles and hypersonic vehicles, as well as all of the unusual environments that we ask our military to operate things in, including Deep Space, which is where USU has a has a real, a real set of efforts through space dynamics club. But I wonder if you could sort of talk about how we how we decided to do that together, and how we kind of crafted that, because I think that'll help us talk about us talk about this, our proposed space and defense Institute, which is kind of a bigger play for how do we really bring a lot of heat and light and money around space and defense to northern Utah?
Brad Mortensen 04:56
Yes, so I think it was in the 2021 legislative session where we Utah State and Weber State jointly proposed to start this stacked, if you will, manufacturing engineering program with emphasis on advanced manufacturing to help meet the needs that Hill Air Force Base has. And the legislature, as they have done many times in the past, was very eager to support efforts that help the workforce and the technical needs of the Air Force. And so we were able to get some funding that year to start the program up. And we got a little bit more funding, not as much as we had hoped two years ago, but still, it does create a great partnership where we were, state focuses, where our strengths are, on the workforce preparation side, really tailoring programs to meet industry needs, and then USU can come in at the graduate level and help folks tool up even even more when it comes to to finding solutions To those creative problems and and the whole area around advanced manufacturing. I you know, it's software and it's advanced manufacturing. I think those are the two biggest hills, no pun, slightly intended, to climb for the folks at Hill Air Force Base, because the the area around hypersonics and being able to update those technologies to what we as a country originally adopted in the 50s and 60s to more modern, cost effective, flexible applications that our adversaries are using. Is, is just critic is, is critical path in the whole defense scheme of things.
Elizabeth Cantwell 06:38
Yeah, and I, I know certainly when I looked at Utah as I was thinking about coming here to USU, the ecosystem of defense companies almost uniformly have a need around advanced materials and the manufacturing and manipulation of advanced materials, materials that may not be sort of easily obtained in the in The private sector at the moment, one of the things that this materials, workforce development effort, joint effort, that I saw was it allowed us to build some unique facilities. And it's one of the things that when there, that I've observed over my career in defense is when there is investment, and particularly joint investment between state entities and universities, where there's, you know, clear need on the part of the defense sector, unique facilities make the difference between us getting really large federal grants and some other state getting them. Let's use Arizona, where I used to be, and I see a willingness on the part of both our commercial sectors in Defense and Space, and our federal partners and our state to help us with what's the infrastructure that's needed to really set us apart from the rest of the country? So you guys were able to build some really unique new capacity in in materials processing or in materials manufacturing. Is that correct?
Brad Mortensen 08:08
Yes. And it goes back. I want to give credit where credit's due. The it really started back a number of years when through this enhanced use lease program, yeah, yes. That started Falcon Hill. What we know now is Falcon Hill on the west side of Hill Air Force Base, where the legislature set up a program that private investment could come in and help build new facilities for the Air Force and create create more capacity for their workforce and their research needs, and the program that the state had USTAR built a facility there, and that was having a hard time functioning. I don't think they quite had the model right, but we were fortunate that the legislature transferred that to Weber State a number of years ago, and we've now branded it as the Miller advanced research and Solutions Center. It's just right outside the west gate at Hill Air Force Base off of Exit 335 I'd like to say, to make sure get off of the right place on I 15 to get there. That's given us access to to really work closely with the Air Force Research Lab and a lot of the the large and small partners. There was a group that was known as you AMI, which has now become part of 4070, year. And that is really an industry association around advanced manufacturing that that has a bit of a hub there. And so we've been able to bring a lot of the thought leaders and increase the technical capacity there we have with different types of equipment and things to to be able to work side by side with folks from Hill Air Force Base and Air Force Research to lab on some of their biggest problems.
Elizabeth Cantwell 09:47
So what you are talking about is what I think about in the following way, and I know that you star, and I just know this from hearing about it doesn't necessarily leave a good taste in the mouths of. Of many Utahns. But the truth is that an investment like that takes time to build out what you just described, which is really an innovation ecosystem, a whole ecosystem that begins to really feed on itself somewhere in the seven to 10 year time frame, after an investment like that, and we are, I think, really beginning to see that, certainly between Weber and Hill and between USU and our you, arc, affiliate, affiliate, the Space Dynamics Lab, which just probably closed on, I mean, they're at in the in the realm of $2 billion in IDIQ, meaning that won't all come to Utah, but an enormous amount of that will flow through that entity and USTAR made investments, joint investments, quite a while ago, that that we utilized to build again infrastructure capacity and start the process. So I have incredibly high hopes that with the if the state is willing to invest again, we can sort of 10x 100x the economic value of really ramping up this innovation ecosystem, which is in part what 40 7g is focused on as well in and you know, my near and dear to me, and I think you as northern Utah, is that that now we become a genuine national scale hub for not just space and defense research, but space and defense manufacturing, space and defense, you know, sort of innovation, new ideas turning into companies and products really quickly that can get tested here and moved forward here. So I thought I might move back, because, again, you work more closely with Hill than I do at the moment. And just ask you, Brad, to talk about even in the context of 40 7g and both of us are, I think I am enormously grateful, really welcome to participate not only at the board level, but with 40 7g I think that's hugely vital for creating these innovation ecosystems. What are you hearing in the defense sector here in Utah about what our needs are?
Brad Mortensen 12:07
Yeah, it's really, when you're able to talk directly to the folks at Hill, it just it adds a new level of importance to this whole work. Because, you know, I frequently kind of compare the amount of attention that Silicon Slopes receives, and it's it's very attractive and cool, and a lot of cutting edge technology, and I think the aerospace and defense has all of those things, plus the importance to our national defense.
Elizabeth Cantwell 12:42
That massive service, yes.
Brad Mortensen 12:46
And it — it just it's a little bit harder to attract the level of public excitement and enthusiasm around that for whatever reason. So I really appreciate the effort of 40 7g and getting to hear from these leaders about a year ago, General Stacey Hawkins, who I was the commander here at the air logistics complex at Hill Air Force Base, and now is the commander over the Air Force Sustainment Center and Air Force material command. But he was giving a briefing, and he said that Hill Air Force Base is implanted in every operational imperative of the United States Air Force and and then he went on to talk about what some of those imperatives are, and how vital they are to national defense in the light of what our adversaries are doing. And you just kind of like, sit back and go, Okay, this is, this is important at a national and global scale, in ways that, yes, that people who drive by Hill Air Force Base every day don't realize might not know people who go to work there, I think, have a greater realization of that. But it just it. It makes me feel like it's incumbent on me when, well, it's probably, I guess it's two months ago now, when General Bell, I had a chance to sit down with him at his office, who's the current commander of the early logistics complex. He I just said, we want to bring more capacity here to the West Gate, to Falcon Hill, to be able to work on these robotics projects and AI things that we're trying to do to improve our maintenance efforts, and we can't spend time, we can't shut down our floor shop operations to test this stuff. So we're trying to send it to Wichita and other places, but then we have to send our people there to test it. Let's figure out how to do this right here in Utah, northern Utah, and that's just one of many, many examples where we could, like you said, before, develop these facilities where we can partner with the defense entities, with contractors, with academia, and find these vital solutions.
Elizabeth Cantwell 14:55
Yeah, and you know, you and I sat down probably the first time to talk about this a while. Go when I first got here. And I think we're finally putting a proposal on the table that says, how do we bring these two universities together to take research and workforce development together and really propel the space and defense sector in Utah to entirely new levels? And we've kind of put it an idea on the table for the state that says, if you, if you get us started, we believe that within three to four years, we can actually bring in enough federal funding to be reasonably self and funding from some of our commercial partners to be reasonable, least self supporting. And these Institute ideas, at least in my experience, really, especially when you have more than one university involved, they become kind of really vital forcing functions for for areas of the economy. So we put this institute concept together space and Defense Research Institute and workforce initiative and and we've really proposed to bring basically student pipelines and federal funding pipelines and unique workforce, not just developing workforce, but there will be a cadre of specialized engineers that train students and are the interface Between a hill, Air Force Space need, or a Space Dynamics Lab need, and the universities so that we can much more rapidly than we do now, channel the resources that we have into solution sets that might be able to harness more innovation than an Air Force base might be able to, for the reason that you just said they they are very constrained in taking the funds that they have and applying them in the ways that they are. They are constrained to do so we can bring new ideas to the table. And they come often through young people. They come through students. So, you know, you've thought about this a lot from the student perspective, and particularly the undergraduate student perspective. How do we see an initiative like this and an institute like this really upping the volume for students to have more opportunities to engage in these areas, to learn by doing? Whether it's internships, or it's hands on manufacturing, or it's undergraduate research, and then actually going out, staying in Utah, but going out into the workplace and bringing those ideas with them.
Brad Mortensen 17:30
Well, I really think it begins even before they step foot on campus. At the university, there's a lot of effort that we need to do, reaching out into the high schools and junior highs and elementary schools to have students see this as an exciting career path, which can help them do the preparation around science and some of that they need to be successful. You know? The other thing is that they — that the Air Force people tell us all the time, one of the reasons why they want to do outreach like that to younger ages is like, don't do anything stupid, because you're going to have to have a background check, and that can be a career-limiting move, some of these decisions you make as a teenager from these very cool opportunities. So just kind of helping that early on. But then one thing that we're finding is trying to get students into internships early, even in their second year is important, because that gets them in this background check queue. Which I don't understand why it's so terribly complicated and slow, but it —
Elizabeth Cantwell 18:39
I could explain it to you, but I will say this is really one of these little like, if you know, you know, and if you don't know, you don't know. But it does take a long time and getting young people who have an affinity for national security and want to work in these environments and want to make a contribution, to understand that this is a piece of that lifestyle, and it comes with, you know, a few constraints. Don't get drunk and take a picture of something unusual and post it on your social media, because that's not useful or cool and it constrains you. But it also, yes, it does take a long time. Yeah, yeah. And the younger you are, for any young people listening to this, the younger you are, the faster you can get a clearance by a lot. So the earlier you get into this mode of national security work, the easier it is for you. And then you get exposed to all this cool stuff, really. By that, I mean important problems that you sometimes will be able to have responsibility and authority for helping solve that problem very early in your career, you don't have to wait 15 or 20 years until someone gives you the keys to making a real difference in the world. And again, younger minds like. Take AI as a like really canonical example, are unsullied by a lifetime of you can't do this, and you can't do that, and you can't do that, and are really good at asking the why not questions, why? Why can't we do it this way? Why can't we do it that way? I can't wait till we have this funded and we can start doing kind of innovation challenges with one another and with our with our partners, because those are incredibly cool and around things like autonomy and AI, I think our students are going to blow our minds. I think they're going to try things that we wouldn't have even thought about because we've been trained in a particular way. One of the other areas just, I mean, I guess maybe I want to kind of dig in a little bit to what are we talking about here. We are talking about advanced manufacturing. We are talking about autonomy. Both Weber and USU have kind of clusters of autonomy related either training or research, and we are building out test beds, but it would be really interesting to have those test beds be affiliated with a location where they can directly be applied to national security types of problems. I think that's absolutely huge. I'm going to evangelize for just a minute, because my background is when you can build an institute like this, not only jointly with other universities, but with state agencies and with federal agencies, then you can really fairly rapidly leverage very large federal investments. And we have, I think, I believe, every reason to expect that in the aerospace and defense sector, those investments will continue in this new administration, and in fact, maybe accelerate some and certainly around novel forms of advanced manufacturing, novel advanced materials, which is a huge deal in Utah, not only for aerospace and defense, but for our energy sector, because of the availability of every possible underground resource you could imagine, all in the state of Utah. But then AI applications that have to advance at the pace that the adversary is advancing. And you can pick your favorite adversary, I like to talk about China because they are moving so fast. We can't afford to sit around and look at things and go, do we want to do that? No, we have got to work with our partners and get rolling. And so I see this initiative as a real a real benefit to to the nation, but where we can create these hubs of economic value here in Utah. So I wonder, I think it's really valuable. And Brad, you and I have talked about this to kind of future cast a little bit, which is the title of this podcast, to how potential collaboration, you know, at really at scale, between Weber and USU can deliver outcomes for the state. I know we've talked about that. I wonder if you could riff for a little bit, and I can do that as well on what's this going to bring to Utah in the future?
Brad Mortensen 23:10
Yeah, I think first and foremost there is, right now what's happening at Hill Air Force Base with the development of the next generation intercontinental ballistic missile system, the Sentinel project, you know, which is a 90ish billion dollar contract to develop that system. We then need to figure out how to manufacture and maintain and all of that, which are more follow on contracts down the road. And you know, that's being headquartered right here in Roy, Utah, by Northrop Grumman. And if we can figure out how to stand up the technologies and workforce development, those jobs are going to go somewhere in the future. And we we have all the potential in the world to keep those at home in Utah, if we play our cards right in showing that we can lead out both on the workforce development side and on the innovation and technology development side. And so to me, that's that's really important. It's incumbent upon us as leaders in this space at this time to for the future employees and residents and others of Utah that we don't let this opportunity pass us by.
Elizabeth Cantwell 24:25
I will underscore that through my little Utah State University lens. So we manage the U R called the Space Dynamics Lab. It has, as I said, $2 billion in IDIQ work. We'd like as much of that work to come to the state of Utah as possible, and we have to fulfill, first and foremost, the workforce needs that would be required in order to execute all of that here. Space Dynamics Lab has a partnership with Hill Air Force Base at that scale. And growing from there, there will have to be significant presence in that physical location. And both of us, Weber and USU or. Have to just scale our development of engineers like mad in order to serve that need, but it would be a crying shame if we allowed that work to go to another state because we couldn't service either the workforce need or the innovation needs to scare people. I always point to Austin, Texas, and the army futures command, which went there, I'm going to say, six or seven years ago, and has driven billions, if not trillions of dollars of economic value in the Austin, San Antonio region. We can do that here, these problems that we are purporting to solve jointly with our partners are massive, and they are not going away. And certainly on the space and space defense side, assets in Leo, assets that are associated with national security, is exploding. I just I want them in the state where I'm acquiring my students and training my students, I want them to stay here and make it happen here.
Brad Mortensen 26:06
Yeah, I agree 100% and then if you think about we don't even know what spin offs or other innovations. Well, you know, we know these problems that are before us now and what we're trying to solve, but as always happens the next generation of innovation happens through by chance or by luck or by intention while you're working on this one. And so I just think we have to be priming that pump constantly here and now in order to — we're so proud in the state of the economic vitality that we have shown. But it only takes one economic cycle to miss the boat, and then you're no longer in that place. And there are many examples that we could cite of that fact. So I just, it's so very important, and I just, I feel a lot of responsibility to do everything I can while I'm in this role to to help bring that to fruition.
Elizabeth Cantwell 27:05
I — yeah, I'm gonna underscore, — Brad, I think we don't live in an era where we can assume that we can get comfortable and then, you know, put up a sign, and then things will come to us. We have to really work for it. I know in the case of the space and defense Institute, we've done, run some numbers, and figured that for something on the order of a 10 to $12 million investment, we can garner hundreds of millions of dollars of federal investment within five years or so. And that's not even talking about how those ideas translate through some sort of an innovation ecosystem to attract venture funding, and there's an enormous amount of it right now. It's not necessarily focused on Utah right now. That is focused on national security and those exact kinds of advancements that you were just talking about. I will just say to anybody listening, we can do this in Utah. This is not beyond our capacity and the relative investment, I think between these two institutions, we have what it takes to really, to really scale an investment on the part of the state to where we want to go. So I'm actually this is probably of all the things that I've worked to promulgate since I became president of USU. This is the one I'm the most excited about, because I think it is with a little investment on the part of the state, we can make amazing things happen. And I'm also, I mean, I I'm really interested in being, you know, we're not that far, physically distant from one another, in being, in demonstrating how you do this kind of partnership, how you take a regional and an r1 and you actually work together. You don't, you know conflict, and build enormous economic value. I am, I could evangelize about that all day long.
Brad Mortensen 28:50
Yes, I agree. I mean, there, you know, historically, I think there's been a notion that we're competitors, right? And not just in athletics, but in students and for funding and for donors and on so many landscapes, but, but really, we have so much more to gain by working together and leveraging our strengths that will lift up the whole not just our institutions, but in our students and alumni, but the whole communities and the state in which we serve. I just think it's, it's too important to put those, to not set aside those other competitive forces that have been in place, and to really look at the big picture.
Elizabeth Cantwell 29:31
Well, let, let, let us gladly join together and compete with states around us. Yeah, I mean to be really clear, as they all experience some version of a demographic downturn, and we experience, within a decade or so, what we're, I think, calling a demographic dip. So it's not going to be as extreme in Utah. We are competitors, and we would like to ensure that the landscape in Utah is as. As competitive as possible, so that people want to come here, but But students want to come here, and then they want to stay here, because their ability to not just get good jobs, but live in a place where they want to raise their families and where they want to do all of their outdoor activity happens. So I'm happy to evangelize Utah from now until until, but this kind of Institute actually, is what I call an attractor. It's an attractor for students. They may not look up on the website for Weber or the website for USU. They're not looking for, oh, do you have a defense Institute? I can work at. What they will do is see that, and they will see, oh my gosh. Look at the scale of internships that those guys are offering. Look at the cool innovation work that they're doing. It is important to me that as people flee California, they come — and I'm not talking about people poor, unbelievably challenged, people fleeing a conflagration like what's happening in Los Angeles with regard to fire — I'm talking about young people, 17-year-olds, who are looking at where they want to go to college and and having discussions with their parents about what's important to them, that we are the place that they go. Oh, that looks really cool. I think I'm going to do that. And so in addition to all of the economic value and all of the national security value, making us more competitive is really high on my radar.
Brad Mortensen 31:25
Right? And there's no reason why we can't exert our competitive juices in that realm, rather than with each other.
Elizabeth Cantwell 31:31
Absolutely correct. So I think we've talked about students, we've talked about industry leadership, we've talked about the remarkable partner that 40 7g is for us, and the legislature has always listened to us when we want to truly create more economic value through the work that we do with students, through the research work that we do, through the partnerships that we create. I believe this is that, and Brad, I know you share with me the perspective that national security is getting more and more complicated, and we don't want to leave the nation behind. We have an enormous amount both of us to bring to the table, and scaling that for us is kind of a passion project that, oh, by the way, also can result in real economic value for, certainly for northern Utah and for the state of Utah. So I'm super, super grateful to have a partner like you. And I don't know if you have any last thoughts for for our listeners and teaming up in space and defense?
Brad Mortensen 32:33
I just am also very excited about this. I think there's a huge amount of potential to realize some really important economic benefits at a at a macro and micro level, but, but more importantly, just contribute to our national defense solutions by what we're doing here in northern Utah and — and so to be able to partner with the with the great strengths that Utah State has, and Weber State — it's exciting to me, and I think it will be exciting to our legislators. And continuing this conversation.
Elizabeth Cantwell 33:10
And we know that our partners in the defense sector in Utah and at Space Dynamics Lab and at Hill are champing at the bit to have us scale up our workforce capacity. I'm really deliver that sooner than later. When I do not want Utah companies to go to Washington State University or Idaho State or pick your favorite for their workforce, I want, I really want to. I mean, I feel this pressing pressure I need, and want to deliver them right here in Utah, and we can do that. So thank you so much, President Mortensen, and hopefully we'll get to talk about this again when it's happening, and we can point to some of the successes we've had and really give people a sense of why this works, why this kind of partnership works. So blessings for coming on future casting, which we are doing a bit of, and we'll do it again soon. And I so appreciate you as a partner. So thank you.
Brad Mortensen 34:03
Yes. Thank you very much. And as a closing shot, I can hear the F35 taking off from my office.
Elizabeth Cantwell 34:07
Yes. We call that the sound of freedom. Thank you, Brad. Appreciate you. Bye, bye.
Future Casting with Utah State is a production of Utah Public Radio and Utah State University, sponsored by the Office of the President. Thanks to Justin Warnick for the theme music, the USU Marketing and Communications team, and producer Hannah Castro.