Staying Ahead of Ready: Stephanie C. Hill (ENG)

Thank you so much, General Gillard, and good morning to everyone. It's such an honor to be here representing my 116,000 teammates from Lockheed Martin all around the world. I want to thank President Herzog for officiating the Herzliya Conference and the leadership of Reichman University for hosting us. In this era of uncertainty, it is vital that leaders from every sector of society—government, business, and academia—come together to discuss a vision and strategy for the future of Israel and the global community. And it's so fitting for this discussion to take place at one of Israel's premier institutions of higher learning, dedicated to advancing Professor Reichman's motto of liberty and responsibility. This year's conference is particularly special as it coincides with the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel. The Israel of today is a thriving nation of more than nine million people. But the leaders in this room know that over the past 75 years, this nation has been under constant existential threat. One of the gravest threats came in 1973, when Israel was attacked on the holiest day of the year in the Jewish faith, Yom Kippur. The Israeli Defense Forces' stock of munitions was quickly depleted by the surprise invasion. Prime Minister Golda Meir asked the international community for help. Richard Nixon was the US president at that time. Fortunately, he and key members of his administration, including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger—a Jewish immigrant who had fled from Nazi Germany with his family in 1938—recognized a fundamental truth about the relationship between our two nations: that the State of Israel is one of America's most crucial global allies in our shared efforts to deter aggression and preserve peace in a highly volatile world. Nixon quickly authorized Operation Nickel Grass, a major airlift of military equipment into Israel. At the time, the only transport aircraft in the world that had the capacity to carry the massive equipment that the Israeli forces needed was the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. A week after the war began, American C-5s began to deliver critical supplies to the IDF. Over the course of one month, the C-5s flew 145 missions and delivered 10,673 tons of equipment, including helicopters, tanks, and ammunition. In addition, Lockheed C-141 StarLifters, which were the C-5's smaller cousins, flew 421 missions over that same period, delivering 11,632 tons of equipment and supplies. The US government also supplied the Israeli Air Force with 12 Lockheed C-130E Hercules transport aircraft. The rapid infusion of munitions helped turn the tide of the Yom Kippur War. As your nation had done in the many attacks it endured since declaring independence in 1948, Israel once again prevailed. For generations to come, Prime Minister Meir said, 'All will be told of the miracle of the immense planes from the United States bringing in the material that meant life to our people.' Now, I share this story not just to convey my pride in our company's legacy of support for the State of Israel over the course of its 75-year history, but in my mind, this story illustrates several important lessons that are highly relevant to the challenges we face in this new era of uncertainty. It's an example of just how quickly and unexpectedly the threat environment can change. It shows the need for strong military and economic alliances among nations committed to preserving global stability. And it demonstrates the need for those allied nations to have a robust, modernized defense industrial base, which includes a highly skilled and innovative workforce that has the capacity to meet the security challenges of today and tomorrow—a defense industrial base that, in times of urgent need, has what it takes to make miracles happen, like the one Prime Minister Meir spoke of 50 years ago. And that's precisely what I want to discuss with you today: the dynamic and rapidly escalating threats our customers are facing around the world; our company's vision for building a global aerospace and defense enterprise that is capable of deterring and defeating these 21st-century threats; some of the unique challenges our industry faces in our efforts to realize our vision; and the excellent example that the State of Israel has set for the rest of the world on how to build a modern and agile defense industrial base. So let me start with the threat environment. Over the course of my 36 years in this industry, I've seen the threat landscape change drastically. When I first joined our Lockheed Martin team as a software engineer back in 1987, the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a global chess match of nuclear brinkmanship. Each country was engaged in an all-out effort to gain a technological advantage over the other. Our customers were depending on us in industry to help them keep an upper hand by churning out new defense capabilities that would make the Soviets think twice about testing America's resolve and escalating our standoff into combat. Today, we're once again in an era of great power competition, where near-peer adversaries are working diligently to erode our technological advantage. Because of the democratization of advanced technology around the world and the unprecedented pace of technological change that we're seeing today, our adversaries are able to close the gap much faster. In my role, I have the privilege of representing Lockheed Martin in meetings with customers all around the world. In fact, that's the purpose of my trip to Israel this week: to listen to the leaders, the policymakers, and the warfighters in this room and across this nation, and discuss how we can serve you better. Now, each nation I visit has its own unique set of challenges, and there is one message that I've heard consistently nearly everywhere I've traveled in recent years, and that is that the threats we're facing globally today are the most volatile and complex we've seen since the end of the Cold War. They tell me, 'We need you, our industry partners, to provide us with more capable and agile solutions, and we need you to produce them faster than ever before.' We've heard our customers' message loud and clear. Siloed platforms and systems procured through a 20th-century defense acquisition simply won't be enough to keep them ahead of emerging threats. That's why we at Lockheed Martin have set our sights on 21st Century Security. It's our vision for modernizing the global aerospace and defense enterprise. Our vision is based on the premise that the aerospace and defense industry provides our customers with much more than just planes, ships, munitions, radars, and satellites. We provide our men and women in uniform with the tools they need to deter aggression and preserve peace around the world. Now, our 21st Century Security vision has a few elements. First and foremost, we believe that technological superiority on the 21st-century battlefield will be determined by the ability of forces and allies to operate jointly across all domains: land, sea, air, space, and cyber. We're focused on building networks that tie together all of our customers' platforms and systems, regardless of whether they're manufactured by Lockheed Martin or other technology providers. A network like this would enable the F-35, for instance, to act as a quarterback in the sky, relaying a comprehensive picture of the battlefield to IDF assets all across every domain. By providing our warfighters with the technologies they need to achieve joint all-domain operations, they'll be able to detect threats earlier, make decisions faster, and bring all of their assets to bear in a coordinated fashion to overwhelm their adversaries. Another element of our vision is to integrate rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and 5G communications into our platforms and systems to make them more capable. Partnerships among technology companies, including international partnerships, will be essential to make this part of our vision a reality. For example, one of the rapidly advancing technologies that we're seeking to accelerate into our defense platforms and systems at Lockheed Martin is directed energy, which is perhaps more commonly known as laser weapon systems. Thanks to the leadership of the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the innovation of your nation's aerospace and defense industry, Israel has emerged as a global leader in directed energy technology. Late last year, we signed a teaming agreement with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, one of Israel's leading defense technology companies, to jointly develop, test, and manufacture high-energy laser weapon systems as a part of the Iron Beam project. Iron Beam is expected to be the first-ever operational laser weapon system for ground-based air defense against threats such as rockets, mortars, and UAVs. By working together with Rafael, we'll be able to jointly deliver this life-saving technology to Israel, the US, and other allied nations all around the world. The final element of 21st Century Security that I want to discuss, which is truly the key enabler for our entire vision, is digital transformation. In addition to transforming the products and services we offer, aerospace and defense companies also need to transform how we operate internally. This is critical to meeting one of the demands from our customers that I discussed earlier: to deliver solutions much faster, at the speed of relevance to the rapidly evolving threats they're facing. Across the entire lifecycle of our products, from design and testing to production and sustainment, we're implementing new digital tools that will enable us to deliver solutions with greater speed and agility. We're also leveraging the incredible amount of data that's generated by these new digital tools to provide insights to our teams and our customers that they can use to make our products more affordable and more capable. One of the many Lockheed Martin programs that's benefiting from our investment in digital transformation is the CH-53K heavy-lift helicopter, and we're looking forward to delivering a fleet of CH-53Ks to Israel in the coming years that will help to further modernize your nation's defense capabilities. I'm very pleased to report that our Sikorsky line of business currently has 12 CH-53Ks in various stages of production for the Israeli Air Force. Those helicopters will soon come out of a factory that was built from the ground up with the latest digital technologies in engineering and manufacturing. At our factory, our engineers do their design work in a virtual reality environment, allowing them to build our products virtually before bending any metal in real life, and that saves an immense amount of time and helps drive down costs. Our team members on the manufacturing floor use tablets with augmented reality assembly instructions, automated tools like torque wrenches that are programmed to tighten bolts just the right amount, and 3D printers that allow them to create parts and tools right when and where they need them. I truly believe that our 21st Century Security vision holds great promise for the future of the global aerospace and defense industry and the ability of allied nations to confront emerging challenges together. But there are some critical barriers to achieving our vision that I want to discuss with you next. These barriers include the erosion of the industrial base and a shrinking pipeline of talent in the fields of engineering and manufacturing. Behind every one of the products we build in our industry is a long, interconnected chain of raw materials, parts, and services provided by thousands of businesses all around the world. Over the past several decades, the number of suppliers in the defense industrial base has declined. It's happened for a number of reasons, including a decrease in demand for defense technologies after the Cold War and economic globalization that has resulted in a shift of manufacturing capacity and manufacturing jobs from the developed world to the developing world. Recently at Lockheed Martin, we've seen the supply chain challenges firsthand in our efforts to ramp up production of missiles and rocket systems and other key technologies in response to the war in Ukraine. We face challenges in acquiring enough motors and other essential components from our suppliers. This is more than just a business or economic issue; it's a threat to global security and stability. After the Cold War ended, allied nations evolved toward a defense acquisition system that is designed to produce technologies 'just in time' because it was the model that aligned with our threat environment around the world at that time. Now that we're back in an era of great power competition, we need to evolve once again into a model that can produce technologies 'just in case,' so that we have what we need to deter threats from increasingly aggressive near-peer adversaries. I believe there are three key actions that allied nations should take to bolster our defense industrial base and deliver 21st Century Security for their people and interests around the world, and it's going to take a collective effort among nations and across every sector of our respective societies. The first action is to commit to consistent investment in military readiness and modernization. The second action is to build partnerships across industry and international boundaries. And the third action is to strengthen the pipeline of talent in science, technology, engineering, and math. On all three fronts, I think it's vital for the leaders in this room to be engaged in solving this global challenge, because I believe Israel offers many lessons for the rest of the world. Thanks to the foresight of your nation's leaders over the past 75 years and the realities of the threat environment you face every day, Israel has consistently prioritized investment in its military readiness and modernization. The amount of funding that your nation invests in the military as a percentage of your GDP is among the highest in the developed world. Consistent funding gives industry the stability and predictability it needs to raise capital, invest, and plan for the future, and to take calculated risks to develop new capabilities through independent research and development. It also helps preserve small and medium-sized manufacturers, which are the backbone of the defense industrial base and a vital source of good-paying jobs for people here in Israel and allied nations around the world. Israel has also demonstrated the power of building partnerships among government, the aerospace and defense industry, and commercial technology companies, including partnerships that transcend national boundaries. The Israeli tech sector has been a global leader in developing dual-use technologies for both military and commercial markets. The development of dual-use technologies is crucial to staying ahead of adversaries like China, which is using its authoritarian regime to focus every sector of its society on eroding our technological advantage. Israel is showing how to harness the ingenuity and patriotism of free people and the healthy competition created in free markets to build a 21st-century arsenal of democracy. I'll conclude by talking about the single most important asset in the defense industrial base, which is our skilled and talented people. In our race to secure our military advantage over surging adversaries, we're going to need the best and brightest talent to design, test, build, and sustain the defense technologies of the future. This means that we must bolster the pipeline of talent in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM. Our company has been honored to partner with the Ministry of Education, local municipalities, and the Rashi Foundation on a number of STEM programs here in Israel. Last year, I had the pleasure of traveling to the northern Israeli city of Beit She'an to open the latest Mada Kids kindergarten complex. Mada Kids is a program designed to immerse children in the wonders of STEM at a very early age, with the goal of inspiring them to grow up to become the innovators of tomorrow. Ten Mada Kids kindergartens have opened across Israel since 2015. I was so thrilled to see the faces of the children light up when they were engaged in science experiments, and they were three to five year olds. It reminded me of how the world of STEM was revealed to me when I took a computer coding class in college. While my STEM inspiration came much later in my educational career, seeing the children at Mada Kids made me think about how many lives will be changed for the better by exposing young people to the wonders of science and technology at such an early age. I believe it's a best practice that Israel can share with allies around the world. I want to thank the conference organizers and university leaders once again for the incredible honor of joining you here today. And as I said earlier, I believe this is truly an ideal group of leaders to be discussing this vital issue at such a crucial juncture for Israel, the United States, and allied nations across the globe. While this is a challenging moment, this gathering gives me great hope for our ability to work together to secure a safe and prosperous future for generations to come. Thank you so much for your attention this morning.