{"id":184523,"date":"2012-03-31T18:57:00","date_gmt":"2012-03-31T23:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2012\/03\/31\/huh-i-interviewed-there\/"},"modified":"2012-03-31T18:57:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T23:57:00","slug":"huh-i-interviewed-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2012\/03\/31\/huh-i-interviewed-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Huh, I Interviewed There"},"content":{"rendered":"

RedX Defense, where we now have allegations of self dealing on DARPA contracts<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Top Pentagon research arm Darpa gave a well-connected firm millions of dollars to build bomb-detectors \u2014 despite deep internal reservations about the technology involved. After years of work and millions spent, the company\u2019s sensor was less effective than \u201ca coin flip\u201d in spotting homemade explosives, in the words of one military insider.<\/p>\n

By itself, the washout wouldn\u2019t be terribly remarkable. Darpa\u2019s charter is to try out risky technologies, many of which don\u2019t pan out. It\u2019s that dedication to high-risk, high-reward projects that leads to breakthroughs like GPS and the internet. But these contracts were given to RedX Defense, a company partially owned by outgoing Darpa director Regina Dugan and led by Dugan\u2019s family. Agency bosses were repeatedly told that investing in RedX was a waste of time \u2014 and moved ahead with the contracts anyway. The bottom line, says a second source familiar with RedX\u2019s work: \u201cThe technology just didn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

………<\/p>\n

Then, in July of 2009, Dugan was named the director of Darpa. Her father, Vince, became RedX\u2019s CEO. Her sister, Christina Haney, worked as vice president of marketing. Some Darpa employees assumed Dugan would sell her shares in RedX, since the firm continued to pursue contracts from an agency now headed by its co-founder and former chief executive. Dugan didn\u2019t sell those shares, however. Nor did she forgive the $250,000 loan she gave to RedX.<\/p>\n

Dugan did officially recuse herself from any business dealings between the agency and the company. An internal Pentagon review later found that the recusal was \u201cconsistent with the letter and spirit of relevant laws, regulations, and policies governing conflict of interest,\u201d according to Lt. Col. Melinda Morgan, a Pentagon spokesperson. But the move wasn\u2019t consistent with Darpa\u2019s recent history. Under previous director Tony Tether, contracts that posed a potential conflict of interest were passed to someone higher up in the Pentagon hierarchy, who would theoretically be immune to pressure from subordinates. Instead, Dugan left the decisions about RedX to her employees \u2014 people acutely aware of their new boss\u2019s background and her family ties to RedX.<\/p>\n

A few weeks after Dugan assumed command of the agency, her family firm submitted a proposal to fund MAE WEST for $3.5 million. The proposal ignited a firestorm within the agency, one source familiar with the inspector general\u2019s investigation says. Not only was the company tied to the new director, there were glaring gaps in the proposal \u2014 everything from the schedule of experiments to the scientific approach involved. Nevertheless, this source contends, agency deputy director Ken Gabriel told employees to put the RedX proposal at the \u201ctop of the list.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo other program had this kind of pressure,\u201d the source adds. \u201cOr even this much interest.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dogs still work better than anything else, FYI.<\/p>\n

The revolving door is spinning awfully fast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RedX Defense, where we now have allegations of self dealing on DARPA contracts: Top Pentagon research arm Darpa gave a well-connected firm millions of dollars to build bomb-detectors \u2014 despite deep internal reservations about the technology involved. After years of work and millions spent, the company\u2019s sensor was less effective than \u201ca coin flip\u201d in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1008,1025],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-procurement","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184523"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}