A recent memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proposes a sweeping reorganization of defense acquisition work that would establish a new four-star general overseeing that work while moving new acquisition teams to the Pentagon.

It's unclear what implications such a reorganization would have for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which has long been the home of Air Force acquisition missions and a vital economic engine for Ohio and the Dayton area.

The memo proposes the nomination of an O-10 or flag officer -equivalent to a four-star general in the Air Force – to oversee the delivery of critical weapons, with authority over the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, the AFLCMC Development Office and the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.

AFLCMC is headquartered at Wright-Patterson, with about 9,940 employees at the base, including the 88th Air Base Wing.

Some 40% of the Air Force budget flows through Wright-Patterson.

Hegseth's memo, dated Aug. 6, does not mention Wright-Patterson. But it's unclear what such a reorganization might mean for AFLCMC's presence or employment at Wright-Patt. The memo proposes putting the new officer overseeing weapons in the Pentagon in Arlington, Va.

The memo also directs the new officer to "identify and maintain secure offices within the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and facilities in other locations as necessary (to include staff parking)."

Reduction of Duplication

A Pentagon official granted anonymity to discuss unclassified but sensitive information said: "The department is still working through details and the implementation of the new office, but the plan is for the workforce to remain where it is."

This official noted that the memo calls for "administrative management" for major weapons systems to remain with AFLCMC, the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, the Army Corps of Engineers and similarly situated commands.

While AFLCMC will still provide administrative management, program executive officers will report to the newly nominated O-10 instead of the service acquisition executive, this official said.

A number of critical program offices overseeing critical weapons are located at Wright-Patterson or have teams there, including the Bombers Directorate and the Fighters and Advanced Aircraft Directorate.

Jeremiah Gertler, senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Aerospace Security Project, sees the overarching goal as dealing with duplication among the services in what weapons they develop.

"When each service is in charge of its own plans, it's possible for them to – deliberately or accidentally – go down some of the same roads," Gertler told the Dayton Daily News. "By having a centralized view of what is going on across the services, duplication can be minimized and (at least the thought is) it'll be easier to share lessons learned and knowledge gained."

That could result in fewer workers, not just at Wright-Patterson, but in other services' research and development missions as well, he acknowledged.

"But it's not really possible to tell the effects until we see what it is they are really trying to do and how they are trying to do it," he said. "Which is a discussion not just for DOD, but the Congress as well."

U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, said he was looking into what the memo means for Wright-Patterson

"I have been made aware of this memo and am working to determine what the implications are specifically for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base," said Turner, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee. "I remain focused on the missions and advocating for our strong workforce, the men and women who perform the important work of protecting our national security."

'A National-Level Effort'

The memo, which the Dayton Daily News obtained, says the general overseeing the acquisition of weapons "will have direct hire authority to establish and sustain high-performance teams" for the weapons programs.

"Executing this authority will require full support from all DOD (Department of Defense) components, with administrative support from the (Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment), the Air Force Materiel Command and the" Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition.

Air Force Materiel Command is also headquartered at Wright-Patterson. When Gen. Duke Richardson retired as AFMC commander this summer, he was not replaced with another four-star general. There have been local and state concerns about where that leaves AFMC.

The O-10 would be aided "by a hand-selected staff" and administratively supported by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.

"This alignment ensures the appropriate consideration of existing and cutting-edge capabilities to the CMWS (critical major weapons systems) programs," the memo says.

The general would be expected to "immediately establish an agile and highly specialized team with funding support from the CMWS programs," it adds.

The O-10 – called the "DRPM-CMWS" for Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager-Critical Major Weapon Systems – would possess "major decision authority," and could, if authorized, act as the senior procurement executive overseeing weapons systems.

"The CMWS are a national-level effort whose success depends on the whole of DOD coming together as an integrated team," the memo adds. "I ask that all DOD components, staffs, and military services lean forward and provide all required support, facilities and resources as directed or requested to the DRPM-CMWS to ensure success of these critically important programs in defense of the nation."

Michael Gessel, vice president of federal government programs for the Dayton Development Coalition, said he could not answer questions.

"We can't comment on the memo, which has not been formally made public," a spokeswoman for the coalition said.

Wright-Patterson is home not only to AFMC and AFLCMC, but is the headquarters of Air Force Research Laboratory, the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, the National Space Intelligence Center and other missions.

Before the reduction of federal workforces this year, Wright-Patterson had about 38,000 military and civilian employees, making it the largest center of employment in one location in the state of Ohio.

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What’s behind a surge in funding recently for startups in Massachusetts and Rhode Island that want to design and build ships?

Two words: uncrewed vessels.

With maritime drones seeing action in the Middle East and the Ukraine-Russia conflict, entrepreneurs and investors in the U.S. bet that the Pentagon is becoming more interested in the technology – and that there could be an opportunity for new suppliers.

Last month, a Lexington, Massachusetts, startup, Blue Water Autonomy, raised $50 million to build a 150-foot autonomous warship.

Last September, HavocAI, with headquarters in Providence, Rhode Island, raised $11 million to build a 100-foot vessel, with a targeted completion date of late 2025.

Boston-based Sea Machines has raised $58 million and is pitching two autonomous ships to military customers.

This year’s Big Beautiful Bill, signed by President Trump in July, allocated several billion dollars^[1] toward unmanned systems across all branches of the military.

Becoming ‘the Waymo for the Open Ocean’

“Our big vision is we want to be the Waymo for the open ocean,” says Rylan Hamilton, CEO of Blue Water Autonomy. “The Navy is the most obvious customer, because they have a willingness to pay.”

One of Blue Water’s big backers is Google Ventures, the investment arm of the Silicon Valley tech giant. Hamilton previously worked for Amazon Robotics, the division of the e-commerce company that makes warehouse robots. He also spent four years serving as a surface warfare officer in the Navy.

Another co-founder, Austin Gray, served as a Naval intelligence officer and spent time working in a drone factory in Ukraine. He said in a recent interview^[2] with the website Infinite Frontiers that he is “obsessed with applying everything happening in Ukraine to the Navy’s force architecture.”

Hamilton said the company “is basically creating a pickup truck for the Navy, where we can carry different payloads in the back, in 20- and 40-foot containers.” That could be equipment needed in a war zone or surveillance gear.

The Navy has said it is also interested in launching missiles from unmanned craft.

Blue Water isn’t just trying to reduce the number of crew members needed on a Navy ship; it’s trying to eliminate the crew entirely.

“From the keel up, [the ship is designed to have] zero people,” Hamilton said. “The minute you put one sailor on board, your cost goes up by three times, because you need to build berthing, you need to build a galley, you need to put a gym on there ... You’re basically putting a hotel on top of a ship.”

Hamilton adds that the lower cost of losing an uncrewed ship — in both dollars and lives — makes them appealing to the Navy.

The company has not yet chosen a site for building its vessels, Hamilton said, but Blue Water is already testing a large-scale prototype ship, packed with still-in-development technology, in Massachusetts waters.

The company recently hired several key team members who worked on a Pentagon research project^[3] to design an uncrewed ship that could stay out at sea for up to a year.

Relying on Partners to Build

Sea Machines, based in Boston, got started a decade ago. But unlike Blue Water, it doesn’t plan to build its own ships.

“We’re working with builders that have that expertise,” Michael Johnson, founder and president of the company, said.

That includes one builder in Eastern Europe and one based in the Netherlands with an affiliate in Florida. Last year, Sea Machines unveiled two designs for small autonomous vessels, 22 feet and 26 feet in length.

Sea Machines has been supplying hardware and software to other shipbuilders that enable them to create autonomous or remotely-piloted vessels. The company has 42 employees and raised $58 million so far.

Johnson originally started the company in Texas, but moved to Massachusetts, “because I knew that I needed talent from the robotics space. I needed software talent.”

In contrast, he said, much of the shipbuilding talent and smaller shipyards are on the Gulf Coast and the Pacific Northwest.

HavocAI, the Rhode Island company, announced a partnership^[4] in May to put its technology into ship hulls built in Honolulu by a company called PacMar. Earlier this month, the company demonstrated^[5] that its small craft could help protect a ship convoy in an Army-sponsored competition held near Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.

Several of the startups headquartered in New England are already building ships outside of the region.

Gray Chynoweth, an angel investor in defense-related startups and a Navy reservist, said that it’s still “up for grabs” where the bulk of manufacturing will be done for this new kind of ship.

“I do think that there’s some cost structures that are going to be attractive about manufacturing elsewhere in the country, but I also think that there’s an opportunity for New England to figure out how to support those types of jobs here” — especially if they involve highly-automated assembly lines, Chynoweth said. “If labor [costs] aren’t a huge component of it, then it could be very cost-competitive to do it in New England.”

New Funding Could Flow

The defense sector could also be a bright spot for attracting federal research dollars – not to mention defense spending – in a region that has seen funding for many other kinds of scientific research decrease in 2025, Chynoweth said.

He noted that, in addition to companies building surface vessels, other startups such as Anduril Industries, Jaia Robotics and VATN Systems have teams in New England focusing on autonomous craft that would maneuver underneath it.

“I think a lot more autonomous companies could come out of Boston, given its deep roots in robotics,” Chynoweth said.

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