The most senior Senate defense appropriator is calling for more public-private partnerships to develop needed military technologies.

“There must be more collaboration between the private and public sectors,” said Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee and a member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee.

As the Senate passed the Border Security Improvement Act, Stevens stressed that 85 percent of the country’s critical infrastructure is owned by private entities.

“Any effort to secure this infrastructure requires a partnership between public and private sectors,” Stevens said, speaking at the Christopher Columbus Foundation’s Homeland Security Award breakfast sponsored by The Hill and AgustaWestland North America.

“Innovation is absolutely essential if we are to keep ahead of those who seek to do us harm,” said Stevens. “We must protect those who volunteer to protect us.”

It was collaboration between the military industry and academia that led to the development of body armor, called QuadGuard, to protect limbs. The leader of the collaboration team, Donna Branson, a Regents Professor and the director of the Institute of Protective Apparel Research and Technology at Oklahoma State University, received this year’s Columbus Foundation Homeland Security Award.

The Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation is an independent government agency established by Congress in 1992 to “encourage and support research, study and labor to produce new discoveries in all fields of endeavor to benefit mankind.”

Branson led a team of university researchers, industry and military partners to design and produce the test armor.

The development effort started in May 2004 and today about 5,000 of these 10-pound armor kits are in Iraq with the Marine Corps. QuadGuard provides protection for soldiers’ arms and legs against injuries caused by shrapnel from road bombs in Iraq. 

The development began after Gordon England, then Secretary of the Navy, visited injured military members and realized that 60 percent of their injuries were to the arms and legs, Branson recalled as she received her award.

By providing flexible extensions to protect arms and legs, QuadGuard differs from traditional body armor that covers only the torso. The flexible armored suit adds about 10 pounds to the torso-only armor and includes a hidden protective layer of ballistic cloth known as Dyneema, said to be 15 times stronger than an equal weight of steel.

Oklahoma State University received a grant of $3 million toward its research and development effort. Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.) secured the money for the grant in 2006.

The body armor project has been funded through the U.S. Naval Research Laboratories in Washington. The U.S. Army Research Lab and the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland provided ballistic testing and research support.

Branson also led a team from 2001 to 2004 to develop a portable cooling system for first-responders working on hazardous material incidents. The team developed a liquid-cooling garment that interfaces with a cooling unit, which would allow the first-responders to work much longer at the scene of a hazardous spill, for example.

The success of joint efforts by the academy, industry and the military to develop innovative technology should be inspiring, said Stephen Moss, CEO of AgustaWestland North America.

“We should not be sitting around for another request of proposals,” from the Pentagon,” he said. “We need to ask what we can do now.”

Stevens was the keynote speaker at the ceremony.