Leadership Dinner with VADM Frank Whitworth, USN
March 28, 2024 5:30 PM to 9:30 PM
On Thursday, March 28, 2024, more than 300 intelligence and national security professionals gathered for INSA's Leadership Dinner with VADM Frank Whitworth, USN, Director, National Geospatial-Intellignece Agency.
View Program Recording, courtesy of Everfox!
Director Whitworth kicked off the evening with prepared remarks, summarizing his current priorities, and the 5 S's guiding NGA's direction: Speed, Synthesis, Seriousness, Space, and Sharing. He stated there is no better example of NGA's speed and synthesis than the 24/7 watch called the National GEOINT Operations Center (NGOC), which constantly evaluates new GEOINT for potential action and dissemination.
He detailed "the serious issues that are prompting a serious GEOINT workforce to move with speed and synthesis to complement its 24/7 NGOC watch," notably the pacing challenge of China, the acute threat of Russia, Houthi threats in the Red Sea, and building independent understanding of the situation in Gaza among other priorities. Concluding his remarks, Director Whitworth highlighted how essential the sharing of GEOINT is to underpinning our success against global challenges.
Following dinner, Director Whitworth sat down with The Hon. Ellen McCarthy for a moderated Q&A focused on inter-agency communication, MAVEN, and workforce recruitment and retention. The conversation also touched on NGA’s evolving relationship with Space Force and the use of commercial GEOINT data with Luno, its new procurement program. Director Whitworth stated, “When it comes to collect[ing], I just want it all. We are very demanding that we get the right pixel at the right time…Sometimes you’re going to need additional coverage. [Luno] is the right direction for our country.”
The session concluded with Director Whitworth underlining the importance that the truth is put out there in response to disinformation and there is no better mechanism or domain to do that than GEOINT.
