Aberdeen Test Center courts partners from private sector.

• Author: Cast, Mike

The Aberdeen Test Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., is seeking to form a profitable partnership with private industry and academic institutions by establishing a "limited liability company," or LLC.

This type of business arrangement enables the partners to pool their resources, business capital and diverse expertise to provide products and services, while limiting the financial liability of each partner for any civil lawsuits that might result from the work it does.

The ATC is planning to form a partnership referred to as the National Testing Training and Technology Company, said John Roth, who has led the efforts to establish the company. Roth expects the test center to select partners and set up the company by fiscal year 2004, provided the Army and Congress complete authorizing legislation.

Operation of the company will then be a five-year pilot program that Roth expects to be a radical departure from business as usual. Though the test center will seek to generate new business and income through the new company, it will continue to conduct its core business of testing developmental weapon systems.

The secretary of the Army has approved a recommendation from the Defense Department's Business Initiatives Council to test the LLC concept and has asked for fiscal year 2004 enabling legislation.

John Foulkes, the director of the Army's Test and Evaluation Management Agency, is the Pentagon champion for this program.

The process for creating the company began two-and-a-half years ago, Roth said. Its impetus was Section 246 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1999. The bill included authority to waive Department of Defense policies, procedures and regulations not required by law so that government agencies could operate more like businesses. Section 245 of the fiscal year 2000 bill authorized the Defense Department to explore ways to improve efficiency.

Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's former head of testing and evaluation, funded ATC to study a wide variety of innovative business practices, and to determine the best ways to meet the letter and spirit of Section 246.

ATC conducted the study over the past year through a cooperative research and development agreement with Drexel University of Philadelphia, and Barelle Memorial Institute, of Columbus, Ohio.

Just 25 percent of ATC's funding comes directly from Army appropriations, while the other 75 percent comes from rest customers, Roth said. ATC faces the challenge of...