Carlos Del Toro, secretary of the Navy and a 2024 Wash100 awardee, said the Department of the Navy is working to reduce sustainment costs and industry could help by providing DON access to technical data required to maintain its weapons systems.
In an opinion piece published Wednesday on Defense One, the Navy secretary wrote that the department’s contracting workforce knows that access to technical data rights is a “must have” in procurement contracts.
“When the DON’s General Counsel convened the Taxpayer Advocacy Project two years ago to identify legal tools to protect DON interests in acquisition and sustainment, the team noted that obtaining the technical data for certain aircraft programs would help facilitate cost reductions,” Del Toro noted.
In the piece, he mentions how the U.S. Marine Corps exercised its legal right to gain access to technical data packages in order to maintain a new generation of tactical equipment.
Del Toro also cited industry’s role in supporting the defense industrial base, particularly the submarine industrial base, through investments in shipyards and shipbuilding programs.