Dayton, March 3, 2021: Wright Brothers Institute (WBI) and Treble One Aerospace Consulting have entered into a collaborative agreement, forming a new strategic partnership between the organizations that will enhance both businesses and provide considerable added value to their mutual customer, the United States Air Force. For nearly two decades, both organizations have grown organically, serving different, yet complementary Air Force units under the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC), headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) in Dayton, Ohio. AFMC develops, delivers, supports, and sustains the war-winning capabilities the Air Force needs to defend our nation and its interests today and tomorrow. This is accomplished through the research, acquisition, development, testing, and maintenance of existing and future weapons systems and their components.
Since 2003, WBI has predominantly supported the AFMCs Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) unit headquartered at WPAFB with front-end of innovation and commercialization support services that enable the advancement of basic and applied research program initiatives conducted by AFRL to move new discoveries and early technical concepts toward advanced demonstrations and transfer to industry and small business partners for further development and commercialization. Conversely, over that same time span, Treble One Aerospace Consulting has largely supported the AFMCs Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) unit, also headquartered at WPAFB, to identify and support commercial solutions providers who can deliver capabilities to address Air Force needs.
Through the newly formed partnership, WBI and Treble One can now provide the Air Force, industry, and small business customers with an end-to-end service delivery framework that fosters rapid industry technology transition and insertion across the entire acquisition lifecycle from discovery through development, production and sustainment of new Air Force capabilities. Through this partnership, WBI will be better able to better connect AFRL with Air Force customer needs, wants, and desires, and ultimately make technology more easily acquired and transitioned, said WBI Executive Director Wendell Banks. Our innovation services framework has always started with end-user needs in mind. Now, well be thinking and working solutions alongside AFRL and our extended innovation ecosystem partners to incorporate acquisition protocols earlier in the innovation and commercialization planning phases to condense timelines and expedite the transition of technologies.
Treble One has a wealth of enterprise knowledge around Air Force technology acquisition, transition, and sustainment requirements. We help Air Force customers and commercial solution providers navigate these requirements in order to bring new capabilities inside the Air Force enterprise, said Brian Bullerman, Treble Ones Managing Member. We proactively find and align viable commercial technologies that have capabilities that meet an Air Force requirement and bring them to the Air Force. Often, those solutions require modifications to harden their application to military environments and use cases. With WBI and their partnership intermediary relationship with AFRL, we can more easily apply the technical expertise, prototyping and testing capabilities needed to rapidly advance the adoption and transition of those solutions. Both organizations have a legacy of working closely with others throughout the broader innovation ecosystem. New opportunities to support Air Force intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs and small business innovators across the private sector to engage with the Air Forces AFWERX Spark, Prime, and AFVentures programs are on the horizon and hold promise for deeper Air Force community engagement and collaboration. Were excited about the potential, said Banks. There are plenty of opportunities to apply this end-to-end framework against and well evaluate those to identify the ones where we can add the most value and create the largest impact for our customers and the community. Were at the very beginning stages of scaling this model, but were already seeing the positive impact it can have for military and commercial partners alike.
About Wright Brothers Institute
Wright Brothers Institute (WBI) is a cutting-edge innovation and technology commercialization center for the Air Force Research Laboratory, with facilities located just outside of WPAFB in Dayton, OH. We drive fast, agile innovation that enables successful technology development to solve the Air Forces most complex challenges by leveraging resident experts, unique facilities, disruptive innovation processes, and extensive networks. We leverage subject matter experts and intellectual property from AFRL and SBIR companies to unlock the right problem, connect to new partners and synchronize transition pathways through our commercialization partners.