More changes in Store For DHS' Science and Technology Directorate.

• Author: Magnuson Stew
• Position: Homeland Security News

* Congress created the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate in 2003 to develop advanced technologies for DHS' 22 components.

Since then, the agency's track record has been spotty. Lawmakers and government watchdogs have expressed disappointment with the organization. It has gone through several directors, each with his or her own idea of how the organization should function and its place in the larger DHS enterprise.

The second director, retired Navy Rear Adm. Jay Cohen, former chief of the office of naval research, took over the young organization in 2006 and attempted to instill Defense Department acquisition practices.

Its third director Tara O'Toole did a major restructuring of the organization, eliminating research projects that didn't have a future and attempted to remake the organization into the department's one-stop shop for for the testing of new technologies acquisitions.

Her tenure was marked by sharp reductions in the directorate's annual budgets, forcing it to concentrate on a few key sectors such as cyber security and border and maritime technologies, and drop or consolidate several divisions.

Meanwhile, the directorate never had complete authority over the department's research-and-development enterprise. Early in DHS history, the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office was created in order to concentrate its efforts on advanced nuclear radiation portals. That program ended in failure.

The BioWatch Generation 3 program, a "lab in a box" which was designed to sniff out deadly pathogens in real time, was handed over to the department's office of health affairs. It was recently scuttled.

The Coast Guard has its own research-and-development program as well.

All this prompted the Government Accountability Office to note in a 2012 report that DHS did not have a handle on all the research-and-development occurring among the components. There was no overarching strategy and a lack of coordination. The Science and Technology Directorate in the 2013 appropriations language was tasked with tracking all ongoing R&D in the department in order to mitigate redundant programs.

The newest director who will have to take on these challenges is Reginald Brothers, who has spent his career in the Defense Department technology development realm. He began at federally funded research labs, and he went on to work at BAE Systems, where he specialized in wireless communications and radar. He was a Defense Advanced Research...