DIB Innovators: Zero Gravity Summit Edition

A manufacturer approached Eide Bailly expecting to buy 70 Azure GovCloud licenses for CMMC compliance. Principal Anders Erickson scoped them down to 3 people by mapping actual CUI flow. The company received purchase orders and occasional schematics from DOD, but everything they manufactured went to commercial markets. Commercially available products don't require the same controls as true CUI,...

The MIT study showing 95% of AI projects fail to deliver meaningful ROI isn't about the technology, it's about scoping. Jacob Andra , CEO & Founder of Talbot West , treats AI deployment as an organizational systems problem, not a technology implementation. AI solutions should become force multipliers for a process redesign, not the primary intervention itself.  Jacob also shares his definition...

AI's democratization of capabilities creates a paradox: the same technology that enables a three-person firm to compete with enterprise operations also enables nation-state actors to target them at scale. Daryan Dehghanpisheh , North America’s GTM Leader for AI Security at Palo Alto Networks , breaks down why defense contractors can no longer operate under the assumption they're too small for soph...

Small defense manufacturers face a relationship continuity problem that costs them contracts: your primary contact at a base rotates out every 2 years with no formal transition to their replacement. Trevor Scott , Senior Procurement Manager at HHI Corporation , rebuilds these institutional relationships through a three-pronged approach: trade shows, on-site base visits to understand actual problem...

Jake Bodily , Director of Business Development at SAE , walks through why their test for automation success is binary: done right, technology spreads through your operation like wildfire; done wrong, you get an expensive paperweight in the CFO's corner office. He offers a cobot failure as a case study: Jake sold 12 collaborative robots to a major manufacturer, but all 12 were donated to educat...

Romney Williams , CEO & Board Member, shares how DRYOUT reached Special Forces program-of-record status within months of a single introduction, bypassing the typical valley of death: already having domestic manufacturing partnerships and proven production capabilities from their consumer product line. It also helped that their moisture extraction technology absorbs 3,400 times more than DoD-st...

Draper scaled from 0 to 23 employees in Utah within 2 years by rejecting the relocation model, building classified engineering facilities where talent already lives rather than forcing engineers to their headquarters in Cambridge, MA. Their 30,000-square-foot Hill Air Force Base facility targets strategic systems work with full classified infrastructure for development and production. Paul Hendric...

Adam Kjar , Owner & CEO of Mountain CNC , deployed a post-acquisition playbook that flipped the typical integration approach. He started off by buying 100% ownership, which eliminated founder attachment to legacy processes, then he asked his team what had frustrated them for the last decade and systematically automated those pain points. Two estimators now handle the workload of five. New hori...

Vector bypasses traditional procurement by selling capability on service contracts using O&M dollars instead of procurement funding, enabling delivery in the year of execution rather than multi-year acquisition cycles. Their "modern warfare as a service" model means customers don't purchase drones as end items; they contract for training, tactical integration, product development...

Rick Sanford , CEO of Complete Aerospace Solutions, Inc. , is deploying capital through reverse mergers where founders retain 100% equity ownership while accessing growth funding. They provide capital for scale, but the original ownership keeps their equity and board control. Instead of taking upfront equity stakes, Complete Aerospace participates in a small percentage of annual growth each year u...

Utah's aerospace and defense sector drives 20% of the state's annual economic activity and impacts 500,000 jobs, yet the industry struggled with fragmentation until Aaron Starks , Co-founder, President, & CEO, founded 47G as an industry-led private nonprofit. The organization's structure is intentionally dual-purpose: one side connects 200 member companies with buyers, partners, and investors...