Alumni Magazine - Summer 2008 - (Page 71) Duluth, followed by a move to the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories in 1988. While at Sandia, he was selected as an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics congressional fellow. He served with the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and then joined the committee’s professional staff. During his tenure with the committee, Young served as the staff analyst for Department of Defense procurement, research, development, test and evaluation programs. In addition, he was responsible for reviewing Defense Department aircraft procurement programs as well as the activities of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. When Young interviewed for his first Pentagon job early in the Bush administration, he ended up speaking with Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, who, as chance would have it, had run the Fort Worth division where Young had worked some 15 years earlier. “I knew him but not well,” Young says. “He certainly wouldn’t remember me running through his office a few times as a co-op student. “He felt strongly that the person running Navy acquisition had to be an engineer-manager, and then the fact that I had worked on the Hill and knew that part of the business — which definitely affects how the Pentagon operates — was kind of a trifecta for him. So based on the interview and those other things, he recommended me to the president to be the Navy acquisition executive, and from there it has continued.” England, who has since moved up to the post of deputy secretary of Defense, brought a business approach to running the Navy, according to Young, and expected the same of his subordinates. “There are things done well in business that we should continue to do,” Young explains. “We’re going to have to be more efficient overall because we have to get the cost of systems down.” Terrorist groups aren’t encumbered by a Pentagon-size military bureaucracy, he points out, “so we’re going to have to continue working on speeding up the delivery of systems to make sure the nation’s safety and security are protected in the future.” Come January, Young will be out of a job when a new president takes charge. “This is the first time a transition will occur in a time of war,” he observes. “It has to be handled with great care. Once we have a new president-elect, Secretary Gates will be very open and cooperative with the transition team so things go as smoothly as possible. “A lot of people come to the Pentagon at the end of their careers, but I’ll be looking around for a job. I have three kids who have to go to college so I’m going to keep working,” he says. “My experiences have been incredible — it is truly an honor and privilege to come to work every morning,” Young says. “I can honestly say there is nothing more satisfying than serving the people of the United States and specifically the men and women of our armed forces.” GT Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2008 71 http://www.myspace.com/eoncondos http://www.eonatlindbergh.com http://www.eonatlindbergh.com
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