Clark Haymond, COO of DEWM, leveraged active duty relationships to compress validation timelines that would take years through traditional AFRL sequences. Having friends now in squadron leadership enabled direct jet time allocation for hypothesis testing, proving DEWM's DART could complete actual SEAD kill chains before committing to the formal program of record pathways. This network-driven approach delivers a combined operation with real-time feedback loops impossible in controlled SBIR phases.
Clark also explains why Air National Guard units became initial customers: state-controlled budgets enable faster procurement decisions than ACC. Guard wings need robust EW environments but face $5-15M price tags for traditional threat emitters. DEWM's 2-foot dish exploits the power threshold gap between legacy radar warning receivers and modern HTS pods, achieving tactically relevant detection ranges without massive amplifiers. Haymond candidly admits the MBA network delivered "almost none" of the value compared to Defense Ventures Fellowship placements and direct operator access.
Topics discussed:
Transitioning from permissive environments to building training systems for contested near-peer warfare scenarios
Solving range emitter density problems where NTTR has tens of systems due to prohibitive replication costs
5th gen sensor sensitivity differences that enable lower-powered threat emitters to achieve tactically relevant detection ranges for training
Building attritable radar targets using open architecture software-defined radios that customers can reprogram without vendor dependency or additional costs
Leveraging active duty networks and squadron relationships to accelerate product validation cycles and compress AFRL timelines
Comparing MBA network value versus Defense Ventures Fellowship placements for defense startup founders building hardware solutions
Scaling from Wessip weapon evaluation to international F-35 customers seeking cost-effective EW training infrastructure for SEAD mission preparation
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