\u201cPennsylvania has always been at the center of our national defense. So at this moment of change, Pennsylvania can lead the way for America.\u201d<\/p>\n
With those words, Sen. Dave McCormick explained his rationale for creating the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle.<\/p>\n
The summit brought together political leaders, titans of the defense industry, and some of the largest global investors to spotlight the importance of national security and identify investment opportunities in the Commonwealth. Over two days, more than 1,300 attendees \u2014 including 600-plus C-level executives, representatives from 500-plus organizations and more than 130 exhibitor booths \u2014 took part in over 1,500 meetings connecting investors, suppliers, workforce leaders, university researchers, warfighters, and Department of War officials.<\/p>\n
McCormick talked about the importance of the moment and Pennsylvania\u2019s role in the past and what it can be in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Carlisle Arsenal here supported George Washington\u2019s army,\u201d said McCormick. \u201cThe hallowed fields of Gettysburg, a few miles from here, is where America was in many ways went through its toughest chapter and was reunited. And of course, the arsenal of democracy was Pennsylvania. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019re entering a new phase of enormous innovation in defense, and Pennsylvania should be, and in many ways is, the point of the spear. We have 190,000 employees, we have 9,000 defense-related companies, but even as important as that is, we also are on the cutting edge of innovation: drones, AI, autonomy, robots \u2013 where the future is headed in terms of what our military capabilities need to be. So, in this moment of change, President Trump\u2019s talked about peace through strength. Pennsylvania, in my opinion, can lead the way for America, and as it as it always has, and as it should.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gov. Josh Shapiro talked about what he and his team are doing to ensure that investments are made in the modern reindustrialization strategy for Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, defense is critical to the future growth of this Commonwealth, and we can build on that wonderful heritage as we think about how to create more jobs, more prosperity, and most importantly, more national security for the greatest country on the face of the earth, right here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,\u201d said Shapiro. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think we are uniquely poised to grow the defense industrial base, in part because of leaders like (moderator Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi) in academia, in part because of some of our traditional defense companies, but in large measure, also because of a lot of what we talked about last year, our AI companies, our tech companies, and figuring out how to bring all of that together is going to make our nation more secure, make Pennsylvania more prosperous, and continue to have us as a leader in this space.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we think about the future, we think about the kind of workforce that a Hanwa (Defense USA) needs, for example, they made an unprecedented announcement of an investment of $5 billion in the Navy Yard, and we\u2019re incredibly proud of that and excited about it,\u201d the governor continued. \u201cWhat\u2019s the most important thing they need? They need welders. They need skilled trades. And so, another thing we\u2019ve done at the state level is dramatically increased our funding for the skilled trades, raising it by more than 60% So we have more welders, more electricians, more people who can power our economy going forward. So this is central to our growth strategy. It\u2019s a core part of our history, and Pennsylvania at the state level working with our federal partners puts us in a position to really succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bendapudi served as the moderator for a forum that included McCormick, Shapiro, Michael Coulter, CEO of Hanwha Defense USA, and Danny Deep, president of General Dynamics. She asked the panelists about how the Commonwealth\u2019s educational institutions factor into the defense industrial base.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to really be in the lead of this innovation that\u2019s driven by AI autonomy, drones, by robots, and we also uniquely have that expertise here in Pennsylvania,\u201d said McCormick. \u201cI see (President) Farnham Jahanian here from Carnegie Mellon. We have the robotic center there, which is truly the leader in the world, one of the great AI universities in the world as well. We have the Naval Propulsion Lab, which I had the opportunity to visit with (Bendapudi), which has been doing cutting edge research for seven decades. We have that cutting edge expertise here. We have to support it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe traditional primes are critically important, but also critically important are what the big brains at Penn State and Pitt and elsewhere are learning and thinking about and innovating over,\u201d said Shapiro. \u201cWe have got to figure out a way to better and more quickly connect the research that\u2019s happening in our universities with our tech companies, with our traditional primes, and connect all of that together in a more robust and a far more quicker procurement process through the Department of Defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just have to, in government, work to streamline that process, speed it up, and overtake China when it comes to innovation. That\u2019s in America\u2019s national security interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCormick\u2019s hope for the Summit is unusual, saying he wants it to be a catalyst that creates more questions than answers.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody should leave here anxious that we\u2019re not doing enough, anxious to do more, anxious to work together, anxious to follow up on creating the kind of change that everybody on this panel has talked about, said the senator. \u201cWe\u2019re on the cusp, but we have to really drive a dramatic transformation in how we think about national security and who\u2019s leading the charge. And we got a lot of those potential leaders in this room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Summit attendees included JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Blackstone President Jon Gray, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet, General Dynamics CEO Phebe Novakovic, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, SpaceX director Antonio Gracias and artificial intelligence firm Palantir chief technology officer of analytics Shyam Sankar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cPennsylvania has always been at the center of our national defense. So at this moment of change, Pennsylvania…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-244158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}