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Launch of the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence Video Transcript [back to release]

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[ Applause ]

^M00:00:07 >> Thank you Gail. First of all, let me extend a warm welcome to everybody who's joined us today for this auspicious beginning of the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. I'm going to talk in a few minutes about our vision for this center but first this, the gathering in this room is a testament to the fact that this is a partnership, a partnership at all levels between other federal agencies, a partnership with industry, a partnership with the state, and a partnership with our county and local government as well. So, I want to thank all of you for coming here. In a few moments, you're going to hear from the folks who are joining me today: Senator Barbara Mikulski, Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown, and Executive Isiah Leggett from Montgomery County. I also want to thank those of you who have joined us today: Ann Neuberger, special assistant to the director for the National Security Administration agency; Leon Rodriguez, who's director of Office of Civil Rights at HHS; Lee Holcomb, who's the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives from Lockheed Martin; Patrick O'Shea, VP for Research, University of Maryland, College Park; Jeff Summers, VP for Research from University of Maryland, Baltimore County. We have some here from Morgan State, is that correct? Great. Outstanding. Thank you for joining us. We also have Sidney Katz, the mayor of Gaithersburg, Maryland, and many others that I'm sure I'm neglecting. But we, this really would not be possible without all of you here. So cybersecurity is the topic of the day. As most of you are aware, cybersecurity is not a new issue for NIST; we've been doing it since before we were NIST. As the National Bureau of Standards, over 35 years ago, working with IBM and others, NIST created the first open public standard for high-quality encryption; it was called the data encryption standard, or DES. And that standard helped to spur the use of automated teller machines, ensuring the data could be transmitted securely between machines and banking centers. Today, NIST has a very broad responsibility to support a broad suite of standards required for the federal government with the exception of the classified systems, which are the responsibility of the National Security Agency, and which are used much more broadly than the federal government. They're widely and voluntarily adopted by state and local governments, by industry and, in fact, all around the world. The nation's cyber infrastructure is increasingly entwined with our lives. I don't need to tell you that; it's the way we communicate, it's the way we organize our lives, it's the way we do business, it's the way we run our organizations. And as key and as powerful a, an enabler as this technology is, it also comes with it a dependency on that technology, and we have become much more sensitive to its weaknesses. To the fact that others with malicious intent seek to undermine this infrastructure and exploit its vulnerabilities to new modes of crime, terrorism,, or other attacks. So addressing this challenge to promote trust in our cyber infrastructure is a big task. In fact, at the federal level government, at the federal government, it's no exaggeration to say it's a whole government issue. The unique role that NIST plays in this broad effort is to be the partner with industry, to work to make sure that the approach we take on cybersecurity is robust, is informed by the best minds and best ideas, and is effectively deployed into practice. This National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence will be a cornerstone of that effort. This center will be a place outside the NIST campus where we bring together the very best folks from industry, from our universities, from government, to work on particular focal areas, and the idea is really that we will have a sandbox where we can work together at the same time, rubbing shoulders, working on these new technologies at the same time we're looking at the standards and other deliverables from the government side. This center, this cybersecurity sandbox and the gathering is fundamentally enabled by the partnerships. This is a situation where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It will encourage industry and government and academia to work together on shared problems, seek shared solutions, and have those solutions adopted into industry. For a partnership, for a center based on partnerships to work effectively, it has to be, it has to be based on the organizations that support it. We could not ask for stronger partners to help us get the center off the ground than Governor O'Malley who has made cybersecurity a focal point for the state, for Lieutenant Governor Brown and Secretary Johansson and his team at the Maryland Business and Economic Development Department, and with County Executive Leggett from Montgomery County and his leadership in supporting this center here in Montgomery County. The state of Maryland and the county will be helping to provide the facilities that will, the physical space for this center, and we are grateful to them and to the many others who will be signing this memorandum today to solidify that partnership. So we're glad that all of you are here today to help us celebrate this new beginning, and we're looking forward to working with each and every one of you to address these important cybersecurity challenges. At this point, I would like to introduce somebody who played an outsized role--in fact I would say the key role-- in this center that we're announcing today. And that, of course, is Senator Barbara Mikulski, the senior senator from the state of Maryland. As you all know, Senator Mikulski has worked tirelessly to ensure that cybersecurity gets the attention it deserves, the funding it needs, and the attention it needs from our federal agencies. She serves as chairwoman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science in the United States Senate. She is a vocal and powerful spokesperson for cybersecurity within the U.S. Congress. She's been a champion of NIST, and more than any other person I can think of, it was her vision of making sure that NIST was a gateway to industry and providing the support for a center like this to cement that role. She's really been its champion from the very beginning, and so in no small measure, this is a celebration of her leadership at the same time. So today, we now have a new $10 million appropriations to kick off the center, and we're now have the task before us of rolling up our sleeves and getting to work. I'm delighted that she's here to join us, and I want to thank her very much for her support in making this happen. Senator Mikulski.

^M00:07:43 [ Applause ] 

^M00:07:52 [ Pause ] 

^M00:08:00 >> Gosh, you know I don't think I need it. Can you see me okay? [laughter] Here we go. This is rare. [laughter] This is a, this is a new standard. This is the Barbara standard. [laughter] Usually, they're built for Dr. Gallagher or ... Johansson or Governor O'Malley or something, so I have to carry my little auxiliary booster--my famous little stool. What a great day to be here today for this spectacular announcement--this Memorandum of Understanding that truly represents Team Maryland and Team USA. I want to salute all of the participants, Dr. Gallagher for his leadership here at NIST. You know every good idea doesn't remain a good idea unless you have the right resources to implement it and then the right person to take that and move it ahead. And then, of course, we have Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown representing the governor who just a few, it's hard to believe that it was just little more than a year ago, we were here at NIST announcing our cyber initiative. And, of course, Ike Leggett, the County Executive of NIST home plate here. And to all from academia and other colleagues in government. You know, America's under attack and it's under attack right this minute. And when we think about it, we think that it's in Afghanistan. We think about the troops and our Marines at Camp Leatherneck. We think about our troops who are leaving steadily from Iraq. We even think of our border war, where we're under attack from Mexican drug cartels. But we're under a new enduring a war. The new enduring war is a cyber war, and it attacks not only .mil, but it attacks .com and .gov. It attacks, it tries to find, predators are trying to find our military secrets and our military vulnerabilities. They're trying to hack into not only our state secrets but our trade secrets. Right now they're banging away over there at the Patent Office with cyber espionage. They're trying to find a way to wheedle and weasel into FDA to steal some of our new ideas on cancer research or cancer products or Alzheimer drug development or medical devices. And then they're over there at .com, everything from coming into NASDAQ, looking at vulnerabilities in the grid, and looking at your vulnerabilities, whether it's in your credit card, your online banking, or any other. So we are at war, and it's not a single force. It's everyone from nation-states to hate hackers who are not only here but over there. We have to protect and defend, and if necessary, retaliate. And America stands ready to do that. But where we are developing that is right here in Maryland. Maryland is the epicenter of cybersecurity and cyber development-- right here. What the Livermore Labs were to the nuclear age, NIST, the National Security Agency and IARPA are right here in Maryland. The reason the governor and I stood shoulder to shoulder--or kinda shoulder to shoulder--[laughter] side by side, was the fact that we knew we had the greatest assets in the world to take on this challenge. We had the National Security Agency that stands sentry over protecting .mil and the agencies that are on its campus. But at the same time, we knew we had to develop the new technologies to not only fight today but to be ready for tomorrow. That's why over on the campus of College Park at M3 is IARPA, the Intelligence Advanced Research, and then every good idea, in order to go into technology development, needs to have standards. This is where NIST comes in. And while we're developing technologies, we need to develop that workforce of the future, and I'm saying this, that the University of Maryland and its campuses--Morgan, Bowie, UMBC--are developing the best cyber workforce that the world has ever seen. So if you want to be a cyber warrior, if you want to invent the products to defend America, you want to come here. If you want to work in a company or work for your government to protect your country, you want to come here. If you want to study it to learn how to participate in it, you want to come here. So this is why the governor and I stood side by side to talk about this cyber initiative. One of the ideas that came out of his federal taskforce was that we have a tech center, and I'm going to salute Kevin Kelly and Secretary Johansson because it came out of there. The best ideas come from the people who are on the ground. For a modest investment of $10 million, we needed a portal, a gateway, where the private sector could work with a civilian agency to come in to develop the standards and the technologies to do that. I took that idea, and working with my colleagues, Senator Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, I ran with it. Now, you might not know me as somebody running down the field. I had some great linebackers in Chris and Ben. But using my power on the appropriations committee and funding for the Commerce Department and NIST, I knew a modest public investment would reap incredible dividends in a safer country and also creating the jobs of today and the future. So I was able to get $10 million in the federal checkbook to establish the Cyber Center of Excellence here at NIST, which in plain English means, it's a tech transfer where we take research, we take development, we make sure it doesn't wallow in the valley of death, it's out there, and it's an American standard, not the Chinese standard, and we're going to develop the best cyber technology in the world. We're going to research it here and we're going to make sure we develop it here. So I'm pleased to be able to announce that today. I think that deserves a round of applause.

^M00:15:18 [ Applause ] 

^M00:15:26 This new center will buy two things: new experts to help do the center operations and give grants to industry and academia to really develop the standards for products. So what we're doing, a safer country, which we seek, is to use the resources of government and the ingenuity of the private sector to come to a civilian agency that develops its, its standards to be able to move this out. What it will mean is that it will mean new technology, that will mean new products, and it will mean new jobs. This is what we need to do to be able to protect and defend. I'm so proud that NIST is headquartered in Montgomery County. Too often Maryland wrings its hands and whines that we don't have enough headquarters--we do have headquarters. We have the National Institute of Standards, we have NIH, we have FDA. There is no other state and no other county that has the great federal labs that it does, and it's tremendously appreciated by the people who live here and work here and know what it means. So what I'm so excited about today is this is a new day and a new way for the private sector. Because remember, it's public resources to develop private-sector jobs by helping the private sector develop the products that will protect and defend. Today we're going to sign this memorandum of agreement with NIST and the state and the county to show how we are all partners in Team Maryland advancing this. We ... joined by academia as well who, I'm so pleased to see Dr. Kirwan and other presidents here is, our University of Maryland system as well. We're it. We're hot. [laughter] We're hot, and we just want to say to those foes of the United States of America: just you better watch out. Dr. Gallagher talked about the sandbox. I want to say to all of those who want to have predatory intent to us: here's mud in your eye. [laughter] We're signing this memorandum of agreement. Thank you, and may the force be with us.

^M00:17:52 [ Applause ] 

^M00:18:02 >> Good morning, how's everybody doing? So, Senator Mikulski said we're hot. She's hot, she's on fire, she's the cyber warrior. And I just want to say thank you very much, [applause] Senator Mikulski. Your leadership of Maryland's congressional delegation, you've taken that leadership, an important role in protecting our nation from attacks, the threats of, to our computer networks, you've done an outstanding job. I really want to thank you for everything that you do. Senator Mikulski takes a lot of pride, not only in NIST and NSA, but she didn't have time to go through the 50 federal agencies, labs, and installations that call Maryland home, and I can't think of someone, or anyone, that fights as hard as Senator Mikulski in the halls of Congress for these institutions. Is it because they're in Maryland? That may be part of it. Is it because they create jobs in Maryland--direct and indirect? That may be part of it. But the real part of it, and we see that in her remarks and the passion that she brings to this work, is Senator Mikulski believes in the mission, the mission of NIST and establishing standards, the mission at NSA and national security, the mission at DISA and defense communications. This is a member of Congress, our senior senator, who gets the important role that federal agencies play in securing and safeguarding this country. So, I want to thank you very much for your leadership, Senator Mikulski, and extend that as well to all of your colleagues on the congressional delegation. To County Executive Ike Leggett, let me say thank you to you, a steward of one of our greatest resources in Maryland, in Montgomery County, and all the assets in terms of people and facilities. It's an outstanding community with a robust economy, and we appreciate your leadership and your partnership in keeping it that way. To Dr. Gallagher here at NIST, and your entire team, let me say congratulations. From ATMs to a national cybersecurity center, you've come a long way, [laughter] and you certainly do an extraordinary job with a tremendous amount of responsibility, and your role will grow even greater as we bring this center online and as we expand more and more your mission while staying focused on the threat against this country due to cyber and other technological threats. So congratulations to you and your team. It was two years ago--actually a little bit over two years ago--we were in another room in this same building, it was slightly larger, and the governor rolled out--I know Christian Johansson was there. I think Dr. Kirwan was there, and I welcome President Wilson from Morgan State University who just joined Maryland since the time two years ago when we made this, you know, this fantastic announcement. The governor rolled out CyberMaryland Report, and as many of you remember, that was the blueprint for how government, academia, business, and industry would position Maryland to be the cyber epicenter of this country. And it laid out that plan, it had some actionable items, and today is a milestone in taking a plan, a concept, an idea and putting it into reality to get results. And this report also inventoried the tremendous assets that we have here in Maryland and also highlighted the capacity to advance innovations in cybersecurity. It highlighted our highly educated and highly skilled workforce. It highlighted the respected research labs and institutions of higher education. There are 13 Maryland institutions, we're number one, we lead every state in the country, there are 13 Maryland institutions that are recognized by NSA and the Department of Homeland Security as an academic center for excellence. That report also highlighted the federal facilities, all, many of which have already been mentioned numerous times today--NIST, NSA, DISA, and the U.S. Cyber Command, which is about to come online real soon here in Maryland. And it highlighted the innovation economy that encourages discovery to defend against cyber terrorism. In the two years since that report came out, and since we launched the CyberMaryland initiative, we've made significant progress. Our CyberMaryland partners, many of whom are here in the room today, have formed new cyber incubators and programs to nurture emerging companies, focus on information security and assurance. Our cyber experts and entrepreneurs have developed new technologies to address the ever-growing and ever-evolving threats of cyber attacks. Our institutions of higher education have created special programs to educate future generations of cyber warriors and harness the research on our campuses. And we've advanced new policies and programs to strengthen our tools in the war against cyber terrorists including additional funding at the state level. Our Invest Maryland program which will invest in companies here in Maryland who are on the cutting edge of new technology, creating jobs, turning concepts into products and services that are going to be used to fight the cyber threat. Our recent proposal before the Maryland General Assembly, the Maryland Innovation Initiative, where we're going to partner with our research institutions to commercialize the great research that's happening on our campuses, it creates the products and services that deliver results and creates jobs at the same time. Maryland has become the place for students, entrepreneurs, and companies interested in cybersecurity. One of the recommendations of the CyberMaryland report was the formation of the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. This center, as you've heard from both Dr. Gallagher and Senator Mikulski, is founded on the concept of partnership. And it brings together government, the private sector, academic institutions to support and grow the cyber industry. So today I'm very pleased to be here representing Governor O'Malley, the O'Malley-Brown administration, to sign this Memorandum of Understanding. We would not be here if it were not for the leadership of Senator Mikulski in securing what she characterized as a modest investment, but we in Maryland see it as an enormous investment of $10 million. And as Senator Mikulski mentioned, it is an investment in the private sector, because the work that happens in this center will certainly will be sort of the seed resources to create more jobs, more opportunities, more companies here in Maryland. So I'm really excited to be here today as part of this announcement, a part of this MOU signing, and with that it's my pleasure to call to the podium my good friend, Ike Leggett.

^M00:25:05 [ Applause ]

^M00:25:12 >> Thank you Lieutenant Governor Brown and Montgomery County certainly looks forward to working with you, Secretary Johansson and his staff to help us to realize the full creation and fruits of this signing agreement today. Let me also acknowledge and thank Senator Mikulski again. To obtain $10 million in this climate today is no easy feat. We can label her today as our cyber senator [laughter] but that's just not all of Senator Mikulski. I've been with her on occasion where I could've named her our cyber senator long before today, but also our educational senator, our environment senator, our public safety senator, our transportation senator. She delivers it all for the state of Maryland and for this country. Let's give her another round of applause for her tremendous leadership.

^M00:26:08 [ Applause ] 

^M00:26:12 Let me also acknowledge the Council President Roger Berliner who is here as well: thank you for coming, Roger. We are in the greatest city in all of America, in Gaithersburg [laughter], acknowledge again Mayor Sidney Katz. Now, I don't say that when I'm in Rockville, but I'm in Gaithersburg today [laughter]. Congressman Van Hollen wished that he could be here today but unfortunately, he could not be here but his staff is here, so thank him as well. We are really thankful to NIST director Dr. Gallagher whose team here at NIST make up the third, and perhaps the most important, part of this MOU--the development of innovations of cybersecurity technology standards, that is, to help create a streamlined national blueprint for the deployment of highly effective and reliable cybersecurity products. Montgomery County is proud to have NIST, along with 19 other leading federal agencies here, headquartered in Montgomery County. And we do not take that for granted. Steve Silverman and I and his team, we regularly meet with our federal agencies to assess their needs to see what we can do to help them, to let them know that we appreciate their presence and we want to continue to work with them and to make certain that we are working as partners always. I assure you today that Montgomery County will bring all of our economic development assets to the table to fully support the mission of the center and help grow innovation cybersecurity technologies and develop companies at the center. In fact, Montgomery County is very proud that one of our companies, Sonatype, which is headquartered in Silver Spring, is one of the top 10 finalists in the annual national competition to find new technologies that promise to transform the information technology security industry--the annual Innovation Sandbox Competition. That competition at the RSA conference--the world's leading information security conference and exposition--will begin next week in San Francisco, and we wish Sonatype the best of luck. This is the ultimate goal of the new National Center of Excellence for Cybersecurity, that is, to help support and grow more companies like Sonatype here in Montgomery County and Maryland and around the nation. Again, thank you for coming out today, and thank you Senator Mikulski. Thank you Lieutenant Governor Brown and Dr. Gallagher for your support. Thank you.

^M00:28:42 [ Applause ] 

^M00:28:50 [ Pause ]

^M00:29:08 >>Gail Porter: Thank you everyone. I think at this point we have time for a few questions from the news media.>> Hi, I'm Blair Tomlinson from Federal Times. So say I'm a vendor, and I, once this center's built and done, I go to do what? Kind of give me an example, there's, of what will happen.Gallagher: >> So the idea behind the Cybercenter of Excellence is to basically allow a company working at the developmental edge of technology to work alongside federal experts who are developing some of the cybersecurity standards. So if you're a company and you're working in one of the areas that have been identified as a focal point--because cybersecurity is a broad area--so we will identify use cases that define a particular problem area, and then we will have an open process for you to basically apply to come work with us. You don't have to pay anything, and you'll basically join us and be able to work in this facility alongside experts from academia, from the federal government, and possibly from other companies to look at the role that these technologies can play in your product and how to meaningfully incorporate them into the products. And so that's how we think this will work in practice.

>>Gail Porter: Okay thank you.

>> Senator Mikulski: So is that pre-prototype?

Gallagher: >> So I, you know, I think it is. I think generally we're looking at pre-competitive activities. That would provide the most robust environment for companies to work alongside each other. But you said earlier something that was very important-- this is all about tech transfer. This is about a very efficient process where ideas move from the desktop into practice. And so a key part of the Cybercenter of Excellence is getting the IP environment and the rules for working alongside each other so this is a really creative and safe haven for companies to work together.

>>Mikulski: But let's be clear--when a company comes to work with NIST, they still are the company. They're no- they come to work with NIST, not for NIST. So they work at NIST to take the research during the D phase, the development phase, and that's often been called the valley of death, which is that somehow or another all that needs to go into taking ideas into prototypes, in order to develop a product, usually falters. The government's very good at funding research. The private sector is very good at products, but it's this in between that we really need to develop. What I don't want to happen in cyber--it's like what happened to Kodak in its digital photography. They invented digital photography. They were so into the nostalgia of who they were, it just sat on a shelf. And now, Kodak makes printers. Well, this is the dawn of a new age, so we want to make sure that if we do the research, and we have it early, we encourage our great American entrepreneurs to develop the products.

Gail Porter: >> Okay we'll take our next question. We have Evan Koblentz from Law Technology News on the line. Evan, go ahead.

>> ^M00:32:35 [ Inaudible question ]

^M00:32:46 >>

Gallagher: Could you repeat the first part of your question? We were having a volume problem.

Gail Porter: >> Yeah the volume was down low. Could you try that one more time please?

Koblentz: >> Okay, the center was first announced in July 2010. How have you seen the security challenges change since then or requirements change since [inaudible] and when are you anticipating the center will be [inaudible]?

>> Gallagher: So let me answer the question in reverse order. So we would like to stand up the center as quickly as possible. In fact, we are working right now with our state and county partners to identify a facility outside the NIST campus where we can sort of start locating these assets. We're going to start looking at workshops to identify the use cases that will provide the focal point for this work, and in fact, next week at the RSA conference, this will be a big theme as we try to move. So we anticipate trying to stand up as quickly as possible. The resources that Senator Mikulski was able to provide in this year's appropriation budget are available to us now so it's imperative that we get moving as quickly as possible. With regard to how the cybersecurity challenges are evolving, I think--look, in a case where the technology that you have in IT-based technologies itself is evolving as quickly as it has, it's, it would be perfunctory for me to identify any particular area that is evolving, that has changed over the last year since this was announced. One of the signatures of IT is the pace of technology. And that's one of the reasons we think it's so important to provide a venue where companies are working alongside the researchers. There's, otherwise you will have this very inefficient process where the research world basically comes up with a set of requirements, publishes them, puts them out, and then a company has to pick them up and look at adoption. This is not a way to keep up with a fast-moving technology set and that's where something like the cyber center of excellence really comes to its own, by providing a place where you're parallel processing; you're working at the same thing at the same time. And I think that's where we're going to see some of the big advances. I think the use cases are going to pivot around both the technology challenges that are hard, but also around the applications that are critical. So things like electronic medical records or identity management or cases like that where getting this right is the key to our success.

Gail Porter: >> Okay thank you. We have Aliya Sternstein on the line with Government Executive. Go ahead Aliya.

Sternstein: >> Hi, thank you. Will the center be involved in certifying cybersecurity professionals?

Gallagher: >> We don't envision the center itself playing a direct role in the certification of professionals. It may turn out that the collaboration that happens at the center becomes a launch point for things like that, but our focal point right now is to provide this technology transfer hopping-, you know, stepping-off place where the broad federal government effort can work right alongside the private sector community.

Mikulski >> That's really up to professional associations to develop those certificates of proficiency, no more than the federal government says what someone would be to be an M.D. Learned societies develop what that criteria is, government implements the reg but we don't. What government does do is certify certain academic institutions as eligible for the National Science Foundation scholarship money. To receive that scholarship, you must be certified by NS- by the institution, must be certified by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The University of Maryland and several of its campuses have been certified. There is no other land grant college in the United States of America that has that many campuses certified. It beats Harvard, who I don't think is certified at all. [laughter] We won't ask what they're certified in, but [laughter] the University of Maryland, and then even our communi- several of our community colleges are. And what is so great in our state, it's our flagship at College Park, but it's also UMBC and our historically black colleges, the HBU's, which are Bowie and Morgan. This is phenomenal. It really means that we are looking at a diverse population that can really study, right there in their own home state, to be able to do that. And by the way, if you live anywhere in the United States, come here and study. We're where it's happening.

Gail Porter: >> Okay. And on that note, I, it doesn't appear that we have any further news media questions. Oh we do have one more? Okay. 

^M00:38:13 [ Pause ] 

^M00:38:18 >> Hard to do that with one person.

>> Thank you. Blair Tomlinson again from Federal Times. I was wondering, the FY13 administrations budget appropriates several million to DHS to ramp up their cybersecurity in protecting, you know, critical infrastructure. How is this Cybersecurity Center of Excellence going to differ from DHS's new ventures to ramp up their cybersecurity?

Gallagher:>> Well I think, you know, as I made, mentioned in my remarks, addressing the challenge of cybersecurity is broader than the mission space of any one agency. We need departments of Homeland Security to work, we need the National Security Agency to work, we need NIST to work, and we need all the mission-specific agencies--Department of Energy and Health and Human Services and everybody else to contribute as well. So I think every agency is going to contribute within the strengths of its core mission. The Cybersecurity Center of Excellence is really designed to create this portalled industry, exploiting the fact that NIST as a technical but non-regulatory agency with a special mandate to work with industry and the private sector has the, an efficient vehicle for doing that and I think if we do this right, this will be the kind of center that we would welcome all the agencies joining us

Tomlinson: >> I have a follow-up about the center. 10 million--do you think that will get, hope the appropriations will complete a new construction of building? I mean there hasn't been a good track record. DHS's is pretty backed up backed up. FDA with White Oak is has been backed up as well. Do you hope to see this get through and finished? I mean, $10 million to me seems a little short for a brand new Cybercenter of Excellence.

Brown: >> And as you're answering that can you clarify, I'm not sure that this is necessarily new construction.

Gallagher: >> That's correct.

>> Yeah.

>> So this is no- actually not construction funding so we're looking for existing facilities that we can leverage right away. So we're not going to be building a new facility. This is not about the bricks and mortar, this is about matching companies with the expertise, so we hope that the physical facility part is not the focal point. The real focal point is creat- is around the research activities and this mixing the R with the D, getting that those technical activities. And the key then is picking the right use case so that that $10 million level of effort is focused and significant.

Mikulski: >> So it's not about bricks and mortar, it's about clicks and motors.

Gail Porter:[laughter] >> We need to, we need to get some of our VIP's on to their next event, so I really appreciate everyone coming today.

Mikulski: >> I read that somewhere, so [laughter] don't think I'm that cool. [applause]

>> Thank you all.