Reforms would speed up technology acquisitions.

* Silicon Valley is becoming a top destination for Pentagon officials seeking to lure the tech industry. Outreach is important, says the Air Force's point man on procurement reforms. But he is convinced that many innovative companies will never work with the Defense Department until they see real change in how the Pentagon does business.

"It's not enough to make visits and then come back to D.C. and keep doing what we've been doing for 100 years," says Camron Gorguinpour, Air Force director of transformational innovation.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has made it a priority to recruit nontraditional vendors from the tech sector. "We want to be talking to small and big companies that don't want to do business with us. We want to know what we can change," Gorguinpour tells National Defense. "This is not a defense industry conversation. It's an American conversation. We just ignore the fact that most of America is not engaged in that dialogue."

The Air Force is testing a new contracting approach that it believes will help lower the cost of its information systems and harness the latest technology trends. To motivate contractors and...