Stewardship – A Growing Need to Manage a National Asset

Daniel Martens and Donald Latterman

Abstract:	This paper explores the concept of “stewardship” and how it applies to managing a Global Positioning and Timing Service (GPtS) as a national asset. We define “stewardship” in terms of providing governance, in an atmosphere of trust to provide a valued service to the owners of the service, the U.S. taxpayers. The steward does not have to acquire, operate, or hold the asset that is in trust, but must provide the direction and care necessary to maintain and grow this needed service. The users of this service are not really concerned about what system provides this service, but just getting accurate positioning and timing information. We define our concept of what a GPtS in terms of U.S. national interests and responsibilities. This paper then explores some ideas on what it takes to be a good steward of a GPtS citing some examples and giving some of our own ideas. This paper next looks at current management organizations involved in providing today’s GPS service and whether they can provide the governance to give adequate stewardship to a GPtS. Their scope of responsibility is generally limited to one system of the GPtS “system of systems,” and they must trade-off the requirements and costs against supporting other systems for which they are also responsible. The only place organizationally these interests and responsibilities come together is at the national level. Therefore, we recommended the establishment of a national-level office to provide stewardship of the GPtS that is above the parochial interests of the Departments in the Executive Branch. We gave an example of an organizational structure that could provide adequate stewardship but is not necessarily the only answer. Stewardship provided by such a national-level office must include addressing the difficult issues facing a GPtS. We recommended that DoD develop and operate its own augmentations to GPtS to provide positioning and timing services in a secure and survivable manner to the area of operations in time of conflict. This allows the basic GPtS to be provided as a civil or commercial service and allows the military to focus on military operations. This paper was designed to stimulate discussions on these issues facing the management of an asset as part of the national infrastructure and not offer the solution. We challenge our readers and the GPS national leadership to “think outside of the box” and craft an organization that will provide true steward ship.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 11th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1998) September 15 - 18, 1998 Nashville, TN
Pages:	1433 - 1448
Cite this article:	Martens, Daniel, Latterman, Donald, "Stewardship – A Growing Need to Manage a National Asset," Proceedings of the 11th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1998), Nashville, TN, September 1998, pp. 1433-1448.
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