Interview transcript

Terry Gerton Our listeners may not know what the International Stability Operations Association is. Why don’t you give us a quick primer? Who are you and what do you do?

Howie Lind Well, thanks, Terry. We are an industry association made up of about 200 companies, all different sizes, large, medium, and small, who support the U.S. Government and our allies overseas. We stand at the intersection of government and private industry to help both sides succeed in all of our missions and goals. We hold conferences around the world in support of our governments and our Allies. We help them in the combat and command regions of world, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Indo-Pacific, and we support our companies and we’ve been doing it since 2001, so going on 25 years. And it’s a great organization to be part of, for those out there that are not part of it.

Terry Gerton Stability operations are by their very nature unpredictable, dangerous. What are the biggest challenges in the government commercial relationships that you all help facilitate?

Howie Lind Well, we go to the kind of the not nice places of the world sometimes, our companies do, but a lot of them have prior experience, the employees of our companies, either prior military, probably diplomatic or in the development regions of the word, so they’re used to going in these sometimes not secure places. The biggest challenge though this past year really has been with the changing face of government contracting. So there’s been a lot of you know churn so to speak within our companies, but I think it’s leveling out now, and our companies are adjusting to the new climate.

Terry Gerton Well, to help them adjust, you’ve got a big conference coming up. Your global summit is your capstone event. What makes this gathering unique compared to other defense or contracting conferences?

Howie Lind Great question. We hold this every year, our annual summit in Washington D.C., and it’s really a culmination of all the different conferences around the world. And so we highlight each of those different regions within the annual summit. And for this one right now, though, we really feel will be a highly attended — we normally have about 300, but we are expecting more, maybe 350 or 400 attendees because of the government shutdown which ended a month or so ago. And coming right after the start of the new year, I think there’s a lot of pent up energy for people, for companies to want to hear what’s going on with our government contracting and we have a lot senior officials from the government to speak there so it’ll be a big interest for them.

Terry Gerton So as you look at this year’s agenda, what are the big themes? Are you talking about operational resilience, risk management, new contracting opportunities?

Howie Lind All that, exactly right, as well as the geographic areas of the world. But like I said, there’s been this new change. There’s an agency, it’s called the International Development Finance Corporation. DFC is the nickname for it. They’ve been in existence for a few years, but this year in particular, they’ve really been bolstered up to take over, so to speak, of the USAID role, but also within the administration’s priorities of where in the world, which countries our country wants to develop in. So there’s been a lot of focus within ISOA for DFC engagement. But that’ll be part of it. Other parts of this conference will be regional logistics. Our companies do logistics. That’s a big part of all of our company’s repertoire. There’ll be discussions about transportation issues, aviation issues, all different types of industries that our companies cover.

Terry Gerton You mentioned also that you’ll have a number of government officials. Has it been difficult to get face-to-face with government officials over the last year?

Howie Lind It has been, yes. And there’s restrictions on Pentagon Department of War officials, but we are still having some. We’ll have the Army Corps of Engineers, which is a big part of our company’s industries that we work with. There’ll be a keynote speaker from there, a keynote from, it’s called the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, DSCA, the leader speaking there. We’ll have two congressional representatives, Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Congressman Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) talking about their work in Congress with the House Armed Services Committee. And so we cover the spectrum of what companies want to hear about.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Howie Lind. He’s the president and executive director of the International Stability Operations Association. Howie, I also noticed that there’s an entire day of the conference carved out for small business. Why is that so important? And are you seeing small businesses face some unique challenges when they try to work in this space?

Howie Lind The Small Business Day for our summit is very important. We’ve done this the last few years, where we dedicate the entire day to hearing from smalls as well as the administration, government officials, about the state of small businesses. In particular, we have a speaker talking about the rewrite of the Federal Acquisition Regulation, the FAR, which is very much important to all of us, as well a recent event in Congress to re-look at all the set-asides for small businesses, which is a big deal. We view, and its true within the government, that smalls, it’s the critical aspects and experience that they have to our larges is absolutely important, a very important aspect for our community.

Terry Gerton Are there particular challenges that small businesses face when they’re operating in theater?

Howie Lind There are. And actually this year, back to the challenges of this redoing a lot of things, a lot restrictions this year, many of our companies have been stressed on what their missions are, particularly when the USAID, when that collapsed in the State Department, they had to redefine their roles and missions. But overseas, they can adapt very well. And that’s where, you know, the real true innovation sometimes, many times, occurs right within the small business community.

Terry Gerton Your organization emphasizes collaboration with agencies like state and defense. We talked about that a little bit earlier, but how does this summit help bridge communication between federal agencies and the contractors who support these operations?

Howie Lind Right, and that’s a very important aspect of all of our conferences and our summits, too, where we have key speakers, the keynotes, as well as panelists from the government there. We build in, we call them networking breaks, but it’s also the receptions at all sorts of time for companies to be face-to-face with their government counterparts. In particular, every one of our conference, we also hold, we called it a business matchmaking session. Speed dating is very accurate but it works. The companies love it. They spend 10 minutes apiece as they go around this big room, they can talk face-to-face with the government officials, as well as smalls meeting with the large prime contractors who they want to work with. So it works very well.

Terry Gerton So there’s an opportunity for folks really to get their questions answered by the people who are on the ground.

Howie Lind Correct. That’s correct.

Terry Gerton If folks are interested in registering for the conference, where do you want them to go?

Howie Lind Our website is Stability-Operations.org. Please go to that website, and there’s plenty of time. The summit starts January 12 — 12, 13, 14 in Washington, DC. The Willard Hotel, it’s a great location. So please go there and sign up, and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible.

Terry Gerton Well, beyond the summit, what trends do you see shaping stability operations in 2026?

Howie Lind Well, like I said, it’s an ongoing change in this administration. Right around the corner from the summit is our annual Middle East conference in Amman, Jordan, the first week in February, which we have focused, of course, on a lot of things happening in the Middle East with Syria and Gaza and Lebanon. The region is always ripe for things to occur with our companies. Following that, in the spring, in April every year, we have a Europe Industry Days conference in Wiesbaden, Germany. So, those are the next two big events after the summit.

Terry Gerton And will there be the same opportunity in those conferences to hear directly from government leaders in those areas of operation?

Howie Lind Absolutely. Absolutely. So again, we focus on the combatant command. So in the Middle East, it’s Central Command where we’ve been corresponding, communicating with their leadership to have many of their officials on the panels as possible, as well as keynote speakers from their leadership. European command, EUCOM, same thing in Europe, having keynotes and panelists from their command there.

Terry Gerton Well, this administration has certainly been shifting the playbook around the world. So I would imagine that your contractors, your members, have a lot of questions. What do you want them to know right now in terms of preparing for what may come down the road?

Howie Lind Well, right now we have a lot of speakers that are coming from the government to talk to them, to us, about what they see are the current changes and potential crystal ball looking forward within contracting. Let me make one point, too, though. All of our events are open for members and nonmembers, so both can participate in our events.

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