DANC Needs Your Input and Help!

The Defense Alliance of NC (DANC) is a private, non-partisan, non-profit, member-run, statewide professional organization focused on strengthening North Carolina’s defense industry and the communities it supports. DANC leadership recognized the importance of collaboration to achieve its goals and recently forged a strategic partnership with the North Carolina Military Affairs Commission, grant supported by the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. An MOU was established to enhance two-way communications, improve constituent understanding of the importance of the defense economy, and better align state goals with our community’s needs.

 DANC has played leading roles in key development initiatives, including:

• Establishment of NC4ME, NC’s nationally recognized military employment solution
• Hosting each of the past 3 NC governors for business development trips to the AUSA annual meeting
• Aligning SOCOM and the NC Motorsports Alliance which resulted in GM Defense building a full production facility in our state to produce vehicles for the Army
• Conducting Washington DC Outreach conferences, annual defense industry celebrations and business-to-business trade events, monthly forums and committee round-tables
• Completion of the Defense Asset Inventory and Target Cluster Analysis that identified the 6 target markets where NC can compete;  Advanced Manufacturing, Autonomous Systems, Data and Knowledge Management, Human Performance, Materials, and Power.  The initial effort (our prototype/model) has been focused on Human Performance.  RTI International has taken the lead on this effort.

A menu of potential cluster organizational activities has been developed to implement the recommendations of the study.  This will be a significant effort, but will position North Carolina for better access to future DoD research and contract funding priorities.

The DANC Executive Board and Management Council will continue to seek support for this implementation effort through a variety of actions:

• Assistance in recruiting critical contributors to each cluster in order to optimize their robustness, resilience and competitiveness in meeting Defense Department needs;
• Assistance, as needed, in executing outreach events and engaging critical Federal and North Carolina support agency officials to establish and build sustainable ongoing relationships;
• Assistance, as needed, advocating on behalf of the needs of the technology clusters on matters pertaining to agency budgets, programs and initiatives;
• Support, as needed, to develop a proposal to the North Carolina Military Affairs Commission for resources to meet the administrative and technical requirements of this effort.
• DANC will continue to conduct forums organized to support the six target markets of the current iterations of the NCMAC Defense Asset Inventory and Target Market Industry Cluster Analysis.

If you would like more information and are interested in future engagement with any of these initiatives, we encourage you to participate in a quick survey.