Distinguished Colleagues,
Good afternoon from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) Alaska at 61+ Degrees North and 149+ Degrees West. The fledgling Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies has continued working at a stiff pace of planning near and longer term in order to create this new center as well as an agenda of activities based on the strategy of "building while doing" to guide us to a planned initial operating capacity by this coming summer and a full operating capacity by the summer of 2023. Here's a list of important updates for your information and insight:
TSC Establishment via NDAA 2022. For those who may not have heard, on 27 Dec 2021, the President of the U.S. signed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2022, addressing a needed concern to align TSC alongside the prior established centers in Sections 342 and 2611 Chapter 16 (Security Cooperation), Title 10, U.S.C. as DOD's newest regional center, in Anchorage, Alaska. This was a very important milestone and one that greatly helps our onward planning and development. The next steps now underway is to gain administrative authority via establishment within the U.S. Federal Registry. Here's the associated link for NDAA 22.
https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/s1605/BILLS-117s1605enr.pdf
Until established in the U.S. Federal Registry, the TSC remains under the administrative authority of the Daniel K. Inouye Center for Asia-Pacific Studies at Fort DeRussy in Honolulu Hawaii. We remain so very appreciative of the Inouye Center who have been absolutely critical to our establishment.
Update about TSC "POAM." We are organizing the TSC to a framework to establish mission areas of 1.) Executive Education, 2.) Engagement/Outreach, as well as 3.) Research & Analysis, that includes a dedicated support function that seeks to create a "hub and network" construct, including activities in-person, virtual and hybrid constructs and will have select programs about the Arctic...in the Arctic. We have created a comprehensive "Plans, Objectives And Milestones" (POAM) that is in final review at the Office of the Secretary of Defense that will serve to guide the organizational development as well as creating the associated content and activities for the Stevens Center. As of this week, the Stevens Center has a total of 3 X DOD civilians and 6 X Contractors and remain hosted by 11th Air Force. We are anticipating the ability to move into a stand-alone provisional location on JBER soon, while our Executive Agent, Defense Security Cooperation Agency works with the USAF basing process to establish the center's enduring facility.
Welcome aboard the TSC Deputy, Mr. Craig Fleener. Earlier this week, the Stevens Center welcomed aboard the Deputy Advisor for Arctic Security Affairs, Mr. Craig Fleener. Craig is a highly respected and admired Arctic leader, born and raised above the Arctic Circle in Fort Yukon, and has an amazing list of accomplishments and experiences, within the military, as an elected official, contributing member of the Arctic Council, a State of Alaska Deputy Commissioner, Arctic Policy advisor to the Governor of Alaska, a wildlife biologist, Alaskan entrepreneur and more. Craig just completed his second activated/active-duty tour (shortened in order to come aboard the TSC) at 11th Air Force and I am personally honored to be serving with him in establishing DOD's newest Regional Center. While serving as a DOD civilian, he will also maintain a traditional guardsman role within the Alaska Air National Guard.
DOD civilian employment opportunities. In concert with the Inouye Center and DSCA, the Stevens Center has employment opportunities now, with more coming soon for DOD civilians. This week we opened a job posting for a Budget officer/analyst in USA Jobs and will have more coming out over the coming weeks, for both supporting leadership as well as staff. Some of these positions will be established via Title 5 General Schedule "GS" perm roles and others via Title 10 "Administratively Determined" (AD) term positions. We have been working on personnel descriptions and classifications for a small but growing number of staff positions and we are looking forward to listing these to USA Jobs shortly. There will also be faculty opportunities a bit further down the road aligned via AD functions. Here's the Budget Analyst position link: USAJOBS - Job Announcement OPEN: 02FEB2022 – 16FEB2022.
TSC Defense Contractor employment opportunities. Established via the FY 2021 Omnibus appropriation as the inaugural contract team supporting the Stevens center on 30 Sep 2021, "ACT-1" is a National Capitol Region based defense contractor and an industry-leading provider of mission-critical solutions across Aviation, Homeland Security, Business Technologies, and Intel Solutions market. ACT-1 has been supporting two DOD Regional Centers at Ft McNair for some time and is currently recruiting for several positions in the Anchorage area to support the TSC. Here's the link to the ACT-1 career site website: Careers - ACT I (act-i.com)
TSC's Inaugural Fundamentals course, the Arctic Region Security Orientation Course (ARSOC). In support of Alaskan Command and U.S. Northern Command in aligned to the mission charge of Professionalizing Arctic Service, the TSC and our contractor team have been creating a 5 day/35 hour of instruction on the fundamentals of Arctic security, aligned to U.S. Professional Military Education (PME) methodologies. We are pressing hard to present this course to ALCOM and USNORTHCOM sponsored participants on 21-24 Mar 2022 via virtual means. This first course is just the beginning of a number of educational tiered seminars the TSC will offer to the community of security and defense practitioners and other invited participants.
Stevens Center support/participation to the community of collaborators in Arctic Security. While the Center continues to create processes, content and personnel, an important part of "building while doing" is to support the community of collaborators in Arctic Security. Recently the TSC was pleased to support the Joint Staff J7 Multinational Capability Development Campaign for an Arctic Climate Security Line of effort focused in creating a framework for an Arctic Technical Requirements Work Group (ATRWG). The Stevens center is looking forward to participating with the North American & Arctic Security and Defense Network (NAADSN) and the University of Alaska's Arctic Domain Awareness Center for the 3rd "Advancing CANUS Collaboration in Arctic Security Workshop" (ACCUSARS3), which will be held virtually on 24-25 March. ACCUSARS 3 takes the area of focus to the eastern side of the North American Arctic and builds upon prior efforts in Strategic Foresight Analysis. Prior ACCUSARS information can be found at: Events (arcticdomainawarenesscenter.org). Next, on Tuesday, 8 Feb from 12:00-1:30 PM Eastern, please consider to joining us for an Atlantic Council webinar on 8 Arctic oriented discussions for Energy, Resilience and National Security. Webinar Link: The Arctic in transition: Energy, resilience & national security - Atlantic Council. Lastly, please consider joining the upcoming Arctic Encounter Symposium 2022, 7-8 May 2022, hosted in Anchorage. See https://www.arcticencounter.com/arctic-encounter-anchorage-2022.
ALCOM Arctic Symposium 2022. Please mark your calendars for ALCOM's Arctic Symposium 2022, 3-6 May 2022, Dena'ina Center, Anchorage Alaska. In support of United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), Alaskan Command (ALCOM) (a subordinate unified command reporting to USNORTHCOM), located at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) Alaska, is honored to host Arctic Symposium 2022 (AAS22) a symposium about the Arctic, conducted near the Arctic. ALCOM AAS22 is planned principally as an in-person event but will have a number of virtual participation options from 3-6 May. Additionally, there will be two advance events hosted on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) on 2 May. Accordingly, 2 May is considered AAS22 “Day Zero.” Please see the attached draft documents for more detail.
Please stay safe, be well and hope to see you soon...either virtually or in-person...remaining hopeful that someday we will transition collaboration to more in-person than virtual...hard to believe it's now just about 2 years since the community of Arctic collaborators had to pivot from in-person as the norm to virtual endeavors...here's to hoping that we can once again be more 3 dimensional than 2 in the coming weeks and months!
Very best wishes and very respectfully, Church