the TMaF’s strategic management capacity to help assess their defense market entry strategy. Tools that en- hance communication efciency like the TMaF will be critical to successful defense acquisition reform. Beyond assisting development teams and facilitating communica- tion among stakeholders, TMaF data represent a key resource to RDT&E portfolio managers and the broader defense acquisition ecosystem. It of- fers the opportunity for data-driven analysis of, for example, a program manager’s return on investment (measured through TMaF levels); transition management at portfolio and project levels; and key determi- nants of transition success. These TMaF-enabled analytics inform de- cision-makers how to best invest in emerging technologies to ensure that Warfghters expediently receive the capabilities needed to provide military assuredness and deterrence. Try the TMaF Detailed information on the TMaF and links to complementary tools, including Tech2PEO, can be found on MITRE’s Acquisition in the Digital Age (AiDA) site at https://aida.mitre.org/ tmaf/ . Try it out, and send feedback to tmaf@mitre.org ! ZIDES is a principal program manager and agile acquisition expert at MITRE. A retired U.S. Air Force (USAF) lieutenant colonel acqui- sition officer, she served as deputy director of the USAF Life Cycle Management Center’s acquisition excellence directorate and is a previous DAU guest lecturer. Zides holds a
[T]o the defense acquisition ecosystem more broadly, the TMaF ofers an efcient means of communicating technological maturity among stakeholders.
B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rensse- laer Polytechnic Institute and M.S. degrees in Organizational Management and Military Op- erations from George Washington University and Air University, respectively. FAUCHER is a principal economic and busi- ness analyst at MITRE. She is an expert in life cycle acquisition and cost analysis. Faucher has led enterprise and program-level analy- sis and planning, including cost estimation, risk analysis, analysis of alternatives, and business case analysis for DoD, NATO, and international and civil agencies. She holds a B.S. in Economics from Shepherd University and an M.S. in Information Technical Manage- ment from Brandeis University. YOUNGBULL is a lead energy technologies en- gineer/scientist and manages MITRE’s tech- nology transition support for the operational energy-innovation directorate in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisi- tion and Sustainment. Youngbull earned sev- en patents in her various industry positions focused on product development and manu- facturing of photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, and integrated circuit packaging. She holds a B.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science in Engi- neering from Ohio State University and the University of Washington, respectively. COCCO is a MITRE lead energy technologies engineer contributing to techno-economic and supply chain analysis of defense critical energy technologies. Before joining MITRE, he worked at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. Cocco holds a B.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Connecti- cut. He is currently an MBA candidate at the University of Maryland.
DARLING is the director of operational energy- innovation in the Office of the Deputy As- sistant Secretary of Defense for Energy Re- silience and Optimization. She manages the Operational Energy Capabilities Improvement and Prototyping Funds, overseeing more than $250 million in cutting-edge energy technol- ogy solutions. Darling holds a B.S. in Comput- er Science from the University of Massachu- setts and an M.S .in Business Management
from the University of Maryland. The authors can be contacted at tmaf@mitre.org .
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and not the Department of Defense. Reproduction or reposting of articles from Defense Acquisition magazine should credit the authors and the magazine.
DAU Resources • STM 1010: Introduction to DoD Science and Technology Management (Course) • STM 2040: Technology Project Management (Course) • STM 2050: Science and Technology Strategy (Course) • STM 2060V: Technology Portfolio Management (Course)
18 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION | September-October 2025
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