Jennifer Parks
NEWTON, Mass. – Program executive officers from Hanscom Air Force Base discussed partnership opportunities with industry and academia during New Horizons March 11-12.
New Horizons is New England’s leading defense sector event for partnerships and support to the nation’s defense industrial base. This year’s agenda centered on providing service members the strategic advantage necessary to maintain a lethal fighting force, ensuring national security. This aligns with the Department of Defense’s intent of matching threats to capabilities.
“These hallowed locations [of the Battles of Lexington and Concord] are the birthplace of American command and control,” said Maj. Gen. Anthony Genatempo, program executive officer for the Cyber and Networks Directorate. “Paul Revere relied on a pre-planned network of many people with numerous nodes in place to ensure effective communication. Hanscom is taking the concepts of defined and resilient communications networks and honing them into weapons systems.”
Genatempo said information is critical to mission success. Cyber and Networks is about putting that capability in place.
Ultimately, the directorate exists to scale command and control infrastructure to the entire Department of the Air Force, and to increase the speed at which those capabilities can be delivered. One specific tool Genatempo mentioned was artificial intelligence.
“We need to be the directorate that brings artificial intelligence to the rest of the acquisition workforce,” the general said.
New Horizons panelists and speakers highlighted missions and business opportunities with program executive offices to ensure the U.S. Air Force remains ahead of global competition. On the second day of the conference, leaders from Cyber and Networks and Nuclear Command, Control and Communications presented updates.
“I am really interested in building our resiliency. The more capability we procure, the greater our ability to deter,” said Scott Hardiman, integrating PEO NC3 and director of the Air Force Nuclear Weapon Center’s NC3 Integration Directorate. “I also want these systems to be easy to operate and easy to deploy on the worst day. We need them to be intuitive.”
He explained the directorate’s overall purpose is ensuring communications work in degraded environments of a nuclear attack. Communication systems that call for this kind of resiliency also need to be easy to use when the warfighter is in duress. He added that resiliency can act as an insurance policy.
Lea Kirkwood, PEO Electronic Systems Directorate, and her directorate’s senior materiel leaders delivered their update.
Kirkwood outlined the primary mission of the new Electronic Systems Directorate and the six divisions therein, and how industry can contribute to the immediate vision for the future.
“We provide the sensing aspect of ground and air,” she said. “We deliver the crucial ‘observe’ and ‘orient’ within the observe-orient-decide-act loop. We are constantly looking for adaptable, common solutions to address the evolving threat landscape. What capabilities do we need to deliver for tonight’s fight and what do we need to deliver for tomorrow’s fight? We need to be poised and ready to execute both.”
Kirkwood emphasized the need for industry partnership to enable capability delivery and speed to the front.
Gordon Kordyak, deputy PEO Command, Control, Communications and Battle Management Directorate, presented a program overview and updates alongside the directorate’s senior materiel leaders.
The DAF’s PEO C3BM is responsible for delivering an integrated DAF BATTLE NETWORK. DAF PEO C3BM architecturally drives, integrates, and programmatically leads more than 50 programs of record to deliver resilient decision advantage for the joint and coalition fight.
“As we pursue acquisitions, we are more than just delivering lethal capabilities,” Kordyak said. “We need to have a mindset of winning tomorrow’s wars today. We facilitate the warfighter in doing their job well, and hopefully deterring wars before they start.”
The PEO expects to build on the successes of 2024 to shape the objectives for this year, Kordyak said.
“The more we can define the need, the more likely we can deliver those capabilities. We’ve had a lot of successes and a lot of challenges, and we continue to overcome those challenges, because the warfighters deserve it.”
Scott Hardiman, U.S. Air Force program executive officer for Nuclear Command, Control and Communications, headquartered at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., details how the U.S. Air Force can remain ahead of its adversaries during a presentation to government, industry, and academia leaders in Newton, Mass., March 11. Hosted by AFCEA’s Lexington-Concord chapter, New Horizons 2025 featured briefings, panel discussions, and business opportunities on numerous U.S. Air Force programs, all in an effort ensure the service remains ahead of global competitors. (U.S. Air Force photo by Todd Maki) 
Kristina Botelho, from left, Command, Control, Communications and Battle Management contracting officer; Lea Kirkwood, program executive officer for Electronic Systems Directorate; Maj. Gen. Anthony Genatempo, PEO for Cyber and Networks; Scott Hardiman, Air Force integrating PEO for Nuclear Command, Control and Communications (NC3) and director of the NC3 Integration Directorate, Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center; Scott Owens, Strategic Services director; Lt. Col. Robert Goeke, Contracting Branch deputy director of contracts; and Andrea Panagoulias, small business programs director and panel moderator, stand for a photo during a panel event held by the Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., Small Business Programs office in Newton, Mass., March 10, 2025. One of the main themes of the discussion was pathways for small businesses to connect with the Department of the Air Force to showcase their capabilities and to learn about new business opportunities. (U.S. Air Force photo by Todd Maki)