A running joke at the top-secret National Security Agency is that “If I tell you what I do, I have to kill you.”
Well, on Monday the NSA, based at Fort Meade, was busy telling potential business partners what the NSA does and how to get contracts and work from the federal agency.
William Semancik, chief of the NSA?s Laboratory for Commercial Innovation, said ideas submitted to him must have “functionality and performance, be cost effective and have an architectural fit” with NSA.
“The broader the application of the tool, the better the chance that it gets in,” Semancik said.
He said some good ideas from companies don?t make the cut because they don?t save the agency enough money and don?t have multiple applications.
For the second year, the security agency was part of a half-day workshop Monday titled “Doing Business with the National Security Agency.” It was sponsored by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the BWI Business Partnership and bwtech@umbc Research and Technology Park.”
Co-sponsors included the Corporate Office Properties Trust and Whiteford Taylor Preston.
Attendance doubled this year from last year with more than 150 registered.
No national secrets or intelligence gathering was compromised because the workshop dealt with “nonclassified” work at the agency, which made headlines recently when it was accused of asking telephone companies to supply the phone records of U.S. citizens.
Businesses at the workshop ranged from huge military suppliers such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to smaller firms such as Convergent Technologies. Deborah Bonanni, chief of staff at NSA, said the agency is working with companies to have better procedures make it easier for companies to get security clearance.
George Dands, president of Convergent Technologies, said the workshop helps his company “bridge the gap” between technology ideas and their applications withNSA.
