Retired Army colonel takes on Silicon Valley.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Technology Tomorrow

One of Ashton Carter's legacies during the two years he served as secretary of defense will be his campaign to reach out to Silicon Valley and other geographical centers of innovation to tap into the brainpower of both startups and tech giants.

The goal was to bring some fresh thinking and new technologies to the Defense Department from nontraditional sources. One concrete result was the creation of the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, DIUx, an office located in California set up to bridge the gap between the department and these companies.

As DIUx was setting up shop, a retired Army colonel was already on the ground in Silicon Valley, hitting the pavement and trying to broker deals between startups and the Defense Department.

Peter Newell decided after a 32-year military career that the next chapter in his life would be devoted to bridging this gap. He moved to Silicon Valley in 2013 and opened his consultancy BMNT Partners LLC, with a staff he could count on one hand and no seed funding from investors. If he couldn't swing any deals, he wouldn't earn any money, he explained during a panel discussion at the National Defense Industrial Association's Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict conference in February.

"I was really frustrated that we could not get emerging technology coming out of startups into our hands and to the point where we could actually use it some place," he said.

Newell's final stint in the Army was director of the Rapid Equipping Force, an organization designed to bypass acquisition red tape and to quickly field technology for those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But even with that experience, it was tough going at first. "I didn't even know who to talk to, to get where I wanted," he said. It took about two years before the consultancy hit its stride.

One of DIUx's hurdles, as explained in numerous National Defense Magazine articles over the past two years, is that private sector companies unaccustomed to working with the Defense Department, can't, or don't want to, contend with its moribund acquisition system.

But Newell came to realize that the military had something that the startups in Silicon Valley truly needed, and it wasn't money.

"What we did realize was that nobody was coming to the Valley with really good problems to lay out in front of them," he said. "Eventually we realized what defense folks bring to the Valley that is most valuable, is not money. You have some of the hardest, nastiest gnarliest...