NORTH VERNON, Ind. - More than 50 members and guests of the National Defense Industrial Association toured Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, Sept. 12, to witness military operations and capabilities during Bold Quest 13.2.
Bold Quest 13.2 is a combined demonstration going on in Indiana at Camp Atterbury, Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, the 122nd Fighter Wing at Fort Wayne, Ind., Grissom Joint Air Reserve Base, and Jefferson Proving Ground. The U.S. and 11 other coalition nations are working together to assess the integration of joint fires, maneuver and network operations in a live/virtual environment and to help enhance combat effectiveness, reduce fratricide and increase situational awareness.
The NDIA is an organization dedicated to bringing together the defense community to advocate new technologies, promote a government-industry national security team, and provide legal and ethical forum for the exchange of information between industry and government on national security issues, per the association’s website.
Bold Quest gave NDIA an up close and personal look at the facilities and operations, and gave them a glimpse into the developmental testing venues the state of Indiana and Indiana National Guard offer.
“Bold Quest is a joint staff-sponsored capability demonstration and assessment prep geared to assess systems and test new processes before actual operational deployment,” said Chuck Rattè, Joint Staff, Department of Defense. “NDIA gets a look at how their manufacturing contracts for hardware and software development are used in a real-world testing situation.
Some of the high-profile NDIA attendees included State Chief of Staff Eric Holcomb, office of U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, Northeast Regional Director of Indiana Economic Development Corporation Brook Steed, Scottsburg, Ind., Mayor William Graham, and NDIA Central Indiana Chapter President Carl Boss.
“Primarily we are a group of small business,” said Boss, of New Palestine, Ind. “The opportunity here today is for industry partners to understand what happens to the items we manufacture, whether it’s cyber or hardware, and see how it is implemented by the military in the field. It gives us a window to see the real world application of our products and how it affects the warfighter.”
The NDIA attendees toured the facilities operations area including mock villages, prisons and railway systems. They viewed a live demonstration of a war gaming simulator and received a Bold Quest operations brief.
“We’re trying to grow the relationships between the National Defense Industrial Association and the small businesses across Indiana with a focus on the military to help develop that economic piece of the pie,” said Ted Markley, of Bloomington, Ind., treasurer for NDIA Crane Chapter. “Bold Quest is particularly interesting because you’re actually testing and evaluating products, making changes and immediately getting them back out to the warfighter, it’s really very impressive. I think this is an opportunity to get the citizens of Indiana aware of how big the footprint of the Department of Defense and national security is here.”