Letters from the President

12 Sept 2025

POLAR Members,

On 9 Sept 2025 POLARS executed its third presentation to an industry and government assembly.  This was the second Technical Review Day (TRD) for industry, and it followed the presentations at TRD for government in Jun 2025.  We have now presented to over 1,000 government and industry attendees at the highest classification levels.  I may be biased but based on the feedback provided after these presentations I believe we are meeting our vision of providing legacy knowledge to those still dedicated to the defense of the nation. 

This recent event included several presentations framing the history leading to the ability to deliver today's and future capabilities.  The historical perspective presentation previously given was injected with additional historical program data with focus on considerations for those working to create “Golden Dome”.  This was followed by guided conversations with George Zielsdorff discussing challenges faced by a specific legacy program and KD Boyer who discussed challenges of mission planning in Desert Storm.  All these teed up the event of the day, a presentation of recent mission planning and execution for missions which leveraged all the capabilities of a variety of specialized aircraft.  One can imagine the significant challenges related to security for providing these presentations.

POLARS is particularly appreciative of the support and enablement provided by the government sponsors.  This government – private collaboration is living up to the vision originally framed by the government request and the POLARS charter.

You can only imagine the challenges of accumulating the historical data from decades of classified programs and then condensing it into a coherent story with lessons for current and future national capabilities.  Overlay on that the challenges of how to present that level of classified data to an assembled group of well over 300 people with limited prior exposure.  Government sponsorship is mandatory.

These presentations would not be possible without a collaboration across many organizations.  The government folks collaborating to enable these events include the (acting) Asst Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition Mr. Bailey, the (acting) Rapid Capabilities Office Director Mr. Bill Blauser, and the key interface for all actions Lt Col Nate Greiner.  Additionally, the ability to bring the voices of legacy program participant, without a clearance, into an environment where they can freely share their recollections of programs at whatever level of classification they can recall is an amazing lift by the AF OSI and AF General Counsel.  The OSI lead is Mr. Lee Russ.

As with any presentation, it does not happen without the hard work of finding, organizing, condensing, and preparing the material.  Much of that work is done by MIT Lincoln Laboratory and the key people are Kevin Craig and Dave Ebel, with a large team of security, graphics, and support personnel. 

These presentations would also not be possible without the support of the members of POLARS.  There are numerous expenses to bring people with legacy knowledge to these conferences.  As a non-profit organization the donations made cover these costs.  While we are pursuing donations, it is currently the revenue from our dues that covers these costs.   

Managing the tasks necessary to sustain the non-profit has fallen primarily on Matt Lewin and Cary Sosebee as Treasurer duties transition from Sheree Clark.  We also are thankful for the management of the email and website by Pat Saatzer and Mike Nelson.  

To enable an easier response to any questions, we have created a new email address info@polarspath.org.  This way you do not have to send an email to any one personal address, you can send it to this single address, and we can make sure one of us responds to your needs.    

What is next.  In November we will collaborate with the government and MIT to recommend a potential security realignment to simplify the presentation of legacy program information.  The goal here is to avoid some of the last-minute challenges we experienced in prior presentations.  To maintain relevancy, we will also be seeking the sponsors objectives and coordinate the material for the next presentations.  In parallel we will be soliciting donations from industry and seek a path, coordinated with the government sponsor, to be able to communicate the lessons learned from the past, even if not at the full level of TRD.  

As Dennys Overholser counseled us when he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 2023… there is more work to be done.

Best regards,

DH - David Hamilton

info@polarspath.org

15 June 2025

POLAR Members,

Even in our short lifespan, POLARS is seeing transitions. After doing a fantastic job is standing up the organization Paul Meyer requested to transition from the role of COO. At the same time, we had a passionate volunteer who had experience with standing-up other organizations and the associated filings and legal matters. To that end, please welcome Matt Lewin as the new COO for POLARS. If you do not know

Matt, he is a retired O-6 with significant experience in development activities which we all would respect. He is also currently a government civilian employee within the office that sponsored the public-private collaboration of POLARS, the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO).

The Director of the RCO has been temporarily assigned as the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition. This will consume much of his available time, but we have been able to continue substantive communications on future objectives. He remains an avid supporter of our activities, and his involvement has enabled participation and sorting security matters.

On 3 Jun 2025 we provided presentations at Technical Review Day for Government TRD-G. This was an updated version of the history briefing provided at TRD-I (Industry) September 2024, and we repeated one of the previous discussions with individuals involved in more recent operations. Between the TRD-I meeting in Sep and the TRD-G meeting this Jun, we have been able to provide history and context information via guided conversations regarding the evolution of low observables and aircraft survivability to over 600 people in a highly classified setting. We owe a huge thanks to MIT Lincoln Laboratory for collaboration on the presentations and storing the materials with special thanks to David Ebel and Kevin Craig for their contributions. AF OSI, Gary Bell, has also been of great assistance in navigating the challenges gain AF General Counsel approval to authorizing former program participants, who may not have a current clearance, the opportunity to speak about previous activities.

As a result of the recent TRD-G meetings there were requested to provide some of the background material to more senior government leadership. We await that opportunity. Additionally, we were requested to organize a history of mission planning for a future meeting. We have already been able to reach out to people like KD Boyer, Chuck Maihlot, and Bob Hasling. The ability to have a rolodex to guide current activities to former experts is a core part of that POLARS can accomplish. We plan to craft a presentation over the next few months.

As we work through organizational challenges, we are focused on providing presentations at these government sponsored and coordinated meetings. These activities have been in collaboration with Lt Col Nate Greiner the lead for the Family Of System Team at the RCO, the person responsible for TRD meetings. That said, these presentations are not the only support we have provided. Current program managers, PEOs, and SAEs have requested support for ongoing activities. We have been able to connect them with people, now retired, who have considerable experience in with their particular matters.

In March 25 we were able to connect with the Flight Test Historical Foundation and the Flight Test Museum at Edwards AFB. The Museum has several aircraft of interest and plans to have dedicated displays as the new museum building is completed and they move from their current location. That construction project took a schedule hit with COVID because of the escalation of material costs. We were able to discuss how POLARS and these other flight test-oriented groups may collaborate in the future.

While it is a challenging opportunity to start an organization based on leveraging the available time of volunteers, feedback from those who have received presentations suggests that we are seeing some level of success. Any success is based on the great startup work of Paul Meyer, Sheree Clark, Pat Saatzer, and Matt Lewin with significant support from Tom McMahan and Mike Nelson. We owe them a thanks for their continued support.

All these interactions come with some expenses. Please take time to remember to pay dues and to solicit others whose life passions may be advanced by making tax deductible contributions to advancing the objectives of our organization.

Best regards,

DH

David Hamilton

President

The Pathfinders of Low Observables and Related Survivability

(POLARS)

15 September 2024

POLAR Members,

After some significant groundwork with the sponsoring government office of RCO and OSI, we pulled off a major success at an annual USG hosted event at MIT LL. For reference, we have a copy of one signed letter to Paul Meyer outlining the boundary conditions by which we operated that coincides with our Charter.  This construct was approved reviewed by the AF General Counsel's office and signed by the RCO and OSI.  

As a synopsis, there were 4 different events at the conference.  The first provided a historical context for the work accomplished in aircraft survivability since WWII and into today's operations.  This was presented at the highest level of classification of the conference.  Then we arranged three individual sessions in front of a crowd of at least 200 Industry/USG participants to give a brief overview based on a distinct generation of stealth leveraging a specific program in each session. Dave moderated each session of two individuals each and led the conversation with appropriate questions that could apply to today’s generation of Program execution complexities.  The three sessions covered Tacit Blue, activities at Skunkworks 1970's to 1990's, and some current operations.  Closing remarks were provided by Gen Fraser, the former Commander of TRANSCOM and who previously was the ACC Commander for many current systems.  At the end of each session, lasting almost an hour, Dave asked the Director of RCO, Bill Bailey, for any input and in each case, he responded with an appropriate ask of the two individuals.

Due to concern by OSI that allowing the audience to ask questions might pose an inadvertent release of classified information to which the speakers were not cleared, they were not allowed to ask question directly to the speakers. After the sessions though, the government oversight recognized the impediment that created, and stated they intend to sort out how to better enable such direct questions for future sessions. 

Audience responses after the event were very positive with not only the presenters, but also Dave and Paul Meyer in receipt of several statements of “well done” and “very valuable”, and most importantly, thank you for making this happen. This has obviously spiked interest in joining POLARS and with the website now active, we expect to see success.

We were also able to thank Bill Bailey for his support in our mutual success as it would not have been possible without his sponsorship. Letters of thanks will go out to LtCol Goodreau (RCO) and Gary Bell (OSI) for their support on the USG side as there were many behind the scenes efforts to make this a success.  We will also be coordinating letters to the individual speakers. 

In summary, we achieved what many in the recent past said was too hard and likely impossible to execute.  Obviously, we pushed forward with the vision of the organization in mind and succeeded.  Based on immediate feedback, we met the objectives set by Mr. Bailey to communicate and inspire the current cadre of people working to meet highly sensitive national needs.  

We will also be sending out letters of thanks to the six individuals who donated not only their time but also expense in participating in this inaugural event as they represent the passion we expect as a foundation for being a member of POLARS. It remains our objective to fund travel and per diem for future events, but time was not on our side for this event.

That’s all for now as we shift to recruitment and dues collection to prepare for our next venture and validation of POLARS.

Best regards,
DH

David Hamilton

President

The Pathfinders of Low Observables and Related Survivability

(POLARS)