Brig. Gen. Wayne “Ed” Barker, who heads program executive office for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, is retiring July 24, according to a post on LinkedIn. In his place, Brig. Gen. Kevin Chaney will be taking over. Chaney is currently the acting program executive officer for command, control, communications and networks.

Barker has held the role since April of 2023, having been the deputy for two years prior, capping off a 34-year military career that started as an enlisted soldier.

PEO IEW&S is perhaps the most expansive and diverse organization of its kind, responsible for delivering, among other things, electronic warfare; biometric systems; intelligence capabilities that span ground and air domains; position, navigation and timing gear; space systems; and offensive and defensive cyber tools for both the Army and the joint cyber mission force at U.S. Cyber Command.

Chaney comes to IEW&S with a long history in the acquisition community, most recently as the program manager for Future Attack and Reconnaissance Aircraft.

Brig. Gen. Shane Taylor will take his place at C3N, a familiar face there. Taylor will take over effective June 30, according to a spokesperson.

C3N is currently delivering on the chief of staff of the Army’s number one priority, Next Generation Command and Control, which aims to provide commanders and units with a new approach to manage information, data, and command and control with agile and software-based architectures.

Taylor comes to the job having just been chief of staff for the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology. He’s had multiple stints at the PEO, previously serving as program manager for Tactical Network and product manager for Tactical Mission Command.

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Electromagnetic spectrum operations have gained significant prominence in recent years, after decades of neglect from the U.S. military and conflicts that did not place a premium on agility within this invisible space.

In such a dynamic realm in which concepts and technologies can rapidly change — as evidenced in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine — how can the Army ensure that it stays relevant and not have to keep developing new tools?

The answer is modularity, a baseline level of commonality and tailoring for region and echelon.

Officials explained that there ‘s no one-size-fits-all solution, and systems must adhere to an open systems architecture.

“If we don’t do that openness from the sensor standpoint and the software standpoint, then that’s where we’ll lose that battle,” Brig. Gen. Wayne “Ed” Barker, program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, told DefenseScoop in an interview at the Army’s Technical Exchange Meeting Dec. 12 in Savannah, Georgia.

The Army has been pursuing open systems requirements under something it calls Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (C5ISR)/Electronic Warfare Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS). CMOSS allows for capabilities to be inserted, updated and swapped on hardware platforms — harnessing the modern abilities of software.

Tailoring for theater and echelon

The Army currently does not have a program-of-record jammer fielded. However, the service has been developing such a capability for several years and it’s expected to be fielded soon.

Additionally, the department has started thinking about other needs in the spectrum for forces to be successful against adept adversaries such as spectrum analyzers, spectrum management tools and deception capabilities to disguise forces within the spectrum.

Given the uniqueness of units and theaters, the Army can’t provide everyone the same gear like it did in previous years. For example, the Pacific region is rife with thick jungle foliage and vast distances, while Europe is more mountainous — all of which pose unique spectrum challenges. Light infantry, airborne and vehicle-based formations such as Stryker or armored units, also have different needs.

According to Barker, some level of commonality will provide a baseline to build capability, but then the PEO must be flexible enough to tailor on top of that “foundational capabilities. And then there may be specific new theater needs to get at ranges — PACOM versus EUCOM as an example,” he said, referring to U.S. forces in the Pacific and Europe.

The Terrestrial Layer System-Echelons Above Brigade (TLS-EAB) system — a signals intelligence, cyber and electronic warfare capability designed primarily for divisions, corps and Multi-Domain Task Forces to sense across greater distances — is a case in point.

The Army came to the determination that this solution would likely have to be tailored based on theater and thus, not provide a single solution to users.

“A lot of the conversation has been what are the commonality, what’s the commonality that could be generic enough, applicable to all — and then starting to look at the specific requirements that may be applicable to specific” areas of responsibility, Barker said of the EAB capability, which is still in early development with the Army and vendor Lockheed Martin.

It also gets to the notion that TLS is a family of systems, with a manpack version for soldiers to carry jammers while dismounted and the smaller Brigade Combat Team version that will be mounted on Strykers and eventually Army Multi-Purpose Vehicles — each for a specific unit or region.

All this tailorability and adaptability needed to stay ahead of adversaries in this dynamic environment requires the Army to work across communities to ensure systems and concepts work together.

“As we iterate with the materiel, everything that we learned on the materiel side needs to be fed back to the” Army capability managers, Baker said, referencing the personnel that generate requirements. “We have to move together [across the Army].”

Moreover, the capability managers and various PEOs have to be in lockstep, especially from a platform perspective. If a platform is designed without enough power or space for electronic warfare systems from the beginning, it will involve much more work later in the prototyping phase that will cost significantly more money in retrofitting and redesigning after the fact.

Much of these changes are making their way into contracting language, codifying their importance.

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The Theater Signals Intelligence System, or TSIG, has been designated to transition into a program of record and will be a new start for the Army in 2025.

“That’s really to provide the tactical commanders at echelon above corps with a forward deployable and remotely or even locally controlled signals intelligence systems and supporting potential contingency operations,” Brig. Gen. Wayne “Ed” Barker, program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, told reporters during a media call Tuesday. “We were designated as the office of primary responsibility for that effort this year and that’s an acquisition new start that we’re looking at in FY 25.”

With the shift to what the Pentagon refers to as great power competition, the military will need to fight larger and more sophisticated forces across greater distances. As a result, the Army is placing greater importance on capabilities and procedures at higher echelons such as division, corps and even the theater Army as opposed to the brigade, which was the primary fighting unit during the counterinsurgency fight of the last 20 years.

Ken Strayer, project manager for electronic warfare and cyber at Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors, explained that the system is essentially a conglomeration of existing capabilities that have been in the field and support theater intelligence collection.

“These are systems that have been built in the [quick reaction capability, or QRC] world, are in operation, and starting in FY 25, we’re going to collect those QRCs up into a new program or record for the purposes of sustainment and continued modernization,” Strayer said, referring to systems that were built rapidly to address specific capability needs relative to threats forces face in the field.

According to the PEO, TSIG is “a system of systems comprised of persistent, non-persistent and survey signals SIGINT systems with a novel network transport layer. Material solutions include persistent (Picket Line) and non-persistent (TROJAN Soldier Portable Remote Intelligence Group – TSPRING) variants and survey (Survey Collection and Analysis Mobile Platform – SCAMP).”

Congress still has not passed a budget for the current fiscal year and the government is running under a continuing resolution, which means funding levels have stayed the same as the prior year. Under a continuing resolution, the Pentagon is not allowed to begin new start programs.

“It’s always a challenge whenever you have a new start that’s occurring in the same year that you have some type of CR,” Barker said.

“The challenge always becomes you get your money late in the year and when it comes to how those dollars are aligned from an execution standpoint, the further you get into the year, the more of a challenge it can be from the ability to be able to execute,” he continued. “Then the other challenge associated with that is the longer it goes, the more likelihood you have of your dollars not being aligned properly.”

Barker also outlined other new starts his office intends to undertake in the coming years.

One is called the Modular Electronic Spectrum System, or MEMSS, which Barker said supports command post survivability through employing techniques in the spectrum to confuse and deceive the adversary while also disrupting their targeting cycle.

He added that this is an important capability within the European theater right now. Dating back to its 2014 incursion into Ukraine, Russia has demonstrated an adept ability to be able to target command posts based solely on their electromagnetic signature, locating their position and either jamming them or firing lethal munitions on their position.

This was an instructive lesson for the Army at the time, leading to an overhaul in how the Army operates its command posts. Top officials have, as a result, described a need to be faster and smaller from a physical standpoint to move quicker on the battlefield, and possess a lower electromagnetic signature.

MEMSS will be a new start in fiscal 2026.

Another capability is called the Spectrum Situational Awareness System, or S2AS, which will be a new start in fiscal year 2025 and is envisioned to be a commercial off-the-shelf solution that will provide sensing and visualization of what units look like in the spectrum.

Barker said this would allow commanders to be able to sense and report in real-time their command post signature, sources of electromagnetic interference – either from coalition partners or the enemy – and what threat emissions look like.

This capability will be critical to allowing units to understand their own electronic footprint.  

Updated on Dec. 7, 2023 at 11 AM: A previous version of this story included information from a Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors website that the PEO later said was inaccurate. This story has been updated to reflect the new information that was provided to DefenseScoop.

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Barker, who has been the deputy PEO since July 2021, takes over for Mark Kitz, who assumed the role in May 2021.

It was not immediately clear where Kitz will be headed. A spokesperson said his next assignment has not been confirmed.

“This a great win for the Army, BG Barker has done a fantastic job as our Deputy the last two years and I know the organization will be in good hands for years to come,” Kitz said in a statement emailed to DefenseScoop. “This organization is at the forefront defining how the Army will fight and win in the future and our programs and capabilities will help define the future of the Army.”

Barker, in a statement, provided he is “honored with this tremendous opportunity to continue serving with the incredible Soldiers, civilians and support contractors that make up PEO IEW&S,” adding the team “will continue our unwavering efforts to deliver critical capabilities for our Army and Nation.”

PEO IEW&S is responsible for equipping the Army and joint force with some of the most sensitive technologies that span intelligence collection and dissemination, cyber warfare, electronic warfare, artificial intelligence and more.

The office is in charge of several key capabilities pivotal to the Army’s transformation and modernization efforts in the next decade. Those include the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN), which is the Army’s next-generation ground system to collect and disseminate sensor data, and the High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES), which will be a high-altitude fixed-wing jet the Army is developing to replace several systems and will cover mid-tier altitudes up to the stratosphere.

Both are key pillars for what the Army calls deep sensing, or the ability to collect intelligence over thousands of miles to inform long-range missiles and other effects.

The PEO also recently created a new program office for offensive cyber and space capabilities. Officials previously explained the new office was needed due to the amount of joint work the Army is doing on behalf of U.S. Cyber Command to deliver capabilities and programs for the cyber mission force across all the services.

One such program the Army is running for the joint cyber mission force is the Joint Common Access Platform (JCAP), which will allow the Department of Defense’s cyber operators to connect to their targets beyond friendly firewalls.

Editor’s note: This story was updated April 25 with comments from Kitz and Barker.

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