The last couple of Defense-focused reporters/editors who were guests of the “Gov & Beyond” podcast were notable for their military experience. Courtney Albon, space editor at Air & Space Forces Magazine, is notable for her more traditional journalism career path.
Like many journalists over the decades, Courtney started her career as a small town news reporter. Writing for a local newspaper in Northeast Ohio, her first assignment was covering the county fair. She then went on to write about events like the local combine derby. And while that might sound like she launched her career in a Norman Rockwell painting, the job also laid the foundation for what followed by giving her experience in writing about how government works.
“I covered school board meetings, city council, a lot of budgets and business development topics,” she said. “So, for me, it was really a chance to learn about a lot of processes and bureaucracy that eventually, now in my current job, has sort of paid off.”
That experience has informed Courtney’s approach to covering the Pentagon when she eventually took a position at publications like Inside Defense, Defense News and her present one. She notes that she “sort of stumbled into the defense beat” after a move to the Washington, D.C. area and “was basically like a blank slate” when she started. But she proved a fast learner and was assigned the Air Force/space beat.
Covering Both Bureaucracy and Technology
It would appear that her history covering government bureaucracies exerts some influence on the topics she currently covers, such as the ins and outs of the Pentagon’s acquisition processes and its dizzyingly complex budget cycles. Asked about the topics that have stoked her interest recently, she mentioned issues such as the Space Force’s efforts to expand its launch capabilities and the department’s embrace of dual use or non-traditional companies and its plans to integrate that technology into its major programs.
“I think the Pentagon, in particular, has made a pretty big show of emphasizing this need to take advantage of commercial tech, non-traditional innovation,” she said. “I think it’ll be interesting to see if some of that energy, some of these acquisition reform efforts, actually do kind of translate into growth there and whether that looks maybe different than folks might expect it to.”
Her interest in the mechanisms of government complement her interest in how the Space Force and other agencies leverage technology to achieve their missions. She cites the Golden Dome missile defense initiative as an example, pointing to the space-based interceptor layer of the proposed architecture as a major point of interest. “I’m interested in who’s going to build that, what their concept is for both developing and then operating that capability, and then I’m also interested in kind of how they’re going to build out the sensor element of that,” she noted. “All of that, like technology, is interesting to me.”
Courting Courtney’s Attention
Representatives from tech companies who want to grab Courtney’s attention should note that there’s a certain amount of luck involved. She acknowledges that her response always depends on how busy she is at the moment she is contacted and whether she has time to talk further. But she said the pitches that interest her are ones directly related to the Defense contracts or projects she covers. Like many of the reporters and editors interviewed on “Gov & Beyond,” she added that the government these days has been less than forthcoming with public information on its programs. So she finds it extremely helpful to get industry experts’ perspectives on the topics she covers – even if it doesn’t result in an immediate article.
“When I am writing those broader trend stories or when I am writing about a significant piece of news, I can draw from that knowledge,” she said. “But also I can draw from the stories I learned about those companies, and kind of pull those in…I think right now we’re still trying to figure out what all those pieces are, so as many conversations as I can have with folks about it is helpful for me.”
Listen to the podcast or read the transcript below for a deeper dive into Courtney’s world. You’ll also learn more about her personal likes and dislikes – don’t sweeten any of her savory dishes and how her parents instilled in her an aversion to country music.
Timestamps
0:28 – Courtney’s background and path to Air & Space Forces Magazine
3:12 – What inspired Courtney to cover space and defense
4:39 – How Courtney has seen these industries evolve
8:05 – Important priorities in the military space market & “Golden Dome” Initiative
14:33 – Qualities that make a Golden Dome pitch stand out
16:46 – Courtney’s love for 30 Rock and The Office
17:49 – Courtney’s aversion to fruit salads and country music
Transcript
Intro: Welcome to Gov & Beyond. I’m your host. Luca Pagni, here with my cohost Joyson Cherian. This podcast features conversations with the newsmakers and influencers at the center of today’s public sector news cycles from our studio at W2 Communications, let’s go Gov & Beyond.
Luca Pagni (LP): Welcome, everyone, to Gov and Beyond. I’m your host, Luca Pagni, here with my co-host, Joyson Cherian. We’re excited to be joined today by Courtney Albon, space editor at Air and Space Forces magazine. Courtney, welcome to the show.
Courtney Albon (CA): Thanks, glad to be here.
LP: Glad to have you, Courtney. We’d love to start by learning more about your background and your role at Air and Space Forces Magazine. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your career thus far?
CA: Yeah, so I started out my journalism career as a newspaper reporter in small-town Ohio, Northeast Ohio, Ashland, for anyone out there who might be familiar, but my first assignment there was covering the county fair, which is like the biggest event of the year. I covered the combine derby as my first story, but small-town reporting was also for me, learning about how the government works. I covered school board meetings, city council, a lot of budgets, and business development topics. So, for me, it was really a chance to learn about a lot of processes and bureaucracy that eventually, now in my current job, has sort of paid off. So I was there at that paper for about four years, and I kind of thought I would follow in what was at that time like the more traditional path of kind of moving to a larger paper in a larger city, but that was sort of proving not to be the viable option. So, I started looking at, you know, other opportunities at trade publications and things like that, and I went to school in DC, and so was looking at the DC kind of job listings, and ended up getting a job at Inside Defense, covering the Air Force. Didn’t have, you know, any sort of military background, wasn’t, you know, an avgeek (aviation geek), like some others, but I found that, as I started, to understand some of the processes, you know, like I mentioned, like how the, how the budget works, how the acquisition system works, how the military is structured, it really helped me kind of, understand how how things functioned, and get my bearings. So I was there at Inside for about nine years, covering bigger Air Force acquisition programs like the F-35 you know, KC-46 but then also kind of had free reign in the Air Force’s space portfolio, and then I spent three to four years at Defense News and their sister publication, C4ISRNET, covering like space and emerging tech, and then last September moved to Air and Space Forces magazine, where I focus really on the Space Force and kind of all of the growth and transformation there they’re going through right now.
Joyson Cherian (JC): You touched on it right there. You’ve covered the space industry for nearly 15 years, what inspired you to want to cover this sector?
CA: Yeah, so like I kind of mentioned, I sort of stumbled into the defense beat, and when I started, I was basically like a blank slate. I had a lot of great people kind of teaching me the ropes, connecting me with experts in the community, but at the time we didn’t really have a reporter on our Air Force team who was focused on space, and so my editor saw that as an opportunity to put that on the on the new guy, and let them build that, I guess. So that was in 2012, and at that time, like within the Air Force, the space community was a little more isolated. It was a highly specialized community, and maybe you would say it was a little disconnected from other parts of the Air Force, so as a reporter, you’re always looking for novelty, not just being the first one to big news, but also writing about new ideas, underreported topics, and I’d say at that time, the military space community kind of checked those boxes. And so, for me, as a new person to this world, I liked that I had a chance to cover something that others were ignoring. If that makes sense.
LP: That definitely does, and I think that’s honestly a perfect segue into, you know, we’ve seen space and defense as two of the industries that seem to always be rapidly evolving, but especially in the last few years, and even more so in the last, I’d say, 12 to 15 months. As someone that’s been covering space and even the defense industry over this time frame, how have you seen these markets grow, and where do you see them going in the future?
CA: Yeah, I’d say for the military space market, the Space Force in particular, there’s obviously been significant growth in the service over the last five or so years. They were created as a standalone service in 2019, and they’re really, if you look at their budget, that kind of tells the story. Five years ago, in 2021 you know, they had their first like dedicated budget request, and it was something like $15 billion, and now they’re requesting $71 billion in their budget this year. That’s obviously an influx of money, a lot of projected growth in personnel, and it also points to demand for existing missions like satellite communications, data transport, missile warning, and tracking, but then new missions like the ability to track targets from space, things that normally would be done by, you know, aircraft, are now they’re shifting some of that to space. So, I think there’s a lot of growth potential there. If you look at the spaces budget documents, which, there’s a lot to dig through, if you do that, but you can sort of see that this, the Space Force expects that you know their funding will stay kind of around this level for the next, five years or so, so maybe in the near term, this is kind of where they expect to hover, but if you factor in the growth of programs like Golden Dome, if you look at, continued demand for launch, new missions like space logistics, refueling satellites, possible operations around the moon for the military, there could be a lot more growth coming down the road if you look further out. And then stepping back, looking more broadly at the defense market, I’m definitely watching kind of this theme of like dual use or non-traditional companies, and how the department integrates that technology into its major programs this isn’t a news insight or anything I think the Pentagon, in particular, has made a pretty big show of emphasizing this need to take advantage of, like, commercial tech, non-traditional innovation. I think it’ll be interesting to see if some of that energy, some of these acquisition reform efforts, actually do kind of translate into growth there, and you know whether that looks maybe different than folks might expect it to, so that’s definitely an area of growth that I’m watching.
JC: You mentioned a key phrase there that’s been gathering a lot of attention over the last year, Golden Dome. What other topics, trends are really capturing your interest the most, and what are you going to keep an eye on the rest of the year?
CA: Yeah, so the Space Force budget growth that I mentioned is definitely on my watch list, and I think I’m particularly interested in how that fares in these broader budget debates about a $1.5 trillion top line and this reconciliation bill that may be moving through Congress. I think if the Space Force can hold on to the funding that they’re asking for through this uncharted appropriation cycle, I think you could argue that it points to there maybe being sort of a consensus across the government about the need for space capabilities, but that’s a big if, and so that’s, that’s definitely a big topic. I’ll also be watching how the Space Force pursues and thinks about competition in its major programs. We hear a lot about SpaceX’s dominance in the space market, and they’re about to go public with this almost $2 trillion valuation, I think, and the service being the Space Forces, is very reliant on SpaceX, for sure. They’re the preeminent launch provider, they’re the first company to build out this mega constellation in low Earth orbit, and actually, just last week they won about six and a half billion in contracts from the Space Force for two really high-profile new programs on the Space Data Network and the mission I was talking about before the space-based air-moving targeting. So those are going to be really important missions for the Space Force, and SpaceX is on top right now, so I’m definitely going to be watching how the Space Force thinks about bringing on more vendors as they build out those programs. I’ll mention, too, yeah, obviously, Golden Dome is one of the acquisition programs I’m watching, but launch is really top of mind right now, too. The Space Force manages the two biggest launch ranges, one in Florida and one in California, and they’re seeing just a major increase in demand for launch services from commercial customers. In particular, a few weeks ago the Air Force secretary said the Space Force thinks it might need a third site in order to manage just the number of launches it expects it will need to support in the next like 10 years or so, and so I’ll be really interested to see kind of what steps they make toward growing that capacity, growing their ability to manage demand, and how they sort of, again foster competition to make sure they have like a sustainable strategy going forward.
LP: Yeah, there’s definitely a ton to keep an eye on these.
CA: Yeah, it was hard to pick just a few things.
LP: No, like we said earlier, it’s such a big market with so many little pieces that all come together, that it’s going to be amazing to see how things evolve over the next few years. And just because you know, it is naturally the big topic, and we’ve talked about it a little bit with so many businesses trying to tie themselves to Golden Dome. Is there a specific aspect, or even multiple aspects of the program that you’re going to be particularly interested in?
CA: Yeah, so I think, I think obviously I’ll be interested in, in just really any detail. I think we’re all kind of grasping on to any little bit of information we get about kind of the budget, the architecture, how DOD is going to be buying these things. We saw, like, the Congressional Budget Office put out its trillion-dollar cost estimate, and then the Pentagon pushed back and said, hey, you know, you guys don’t know the ins and outs of what we’re building, so you can’t actually tell us how much it’s going to cost. So I’ll be looking, you know, obviously, for any indications on architecture and whether they’re kind of sticking to those cost estimates. But I’m also interested, of course, in the space-based kind of technology elements of the program, so this space-based interceptor layer is a big headline. I’m interested in who’s going to build that, what their concept is for both developing and then operating that capability, and then I’m also interested in kind of how they’re going to build out the sensor element of that; all of that like technology is interesting to me. And then I think I’d say too that we’ve seen in the past, these big like high priority initiatives like kind of ebb and flow, I guess, but if, if the department, in the near term, does get the money that it’s asking for, I’m really interested to see how quickly they can move and how they’ll kind of capitalize on that, like what capability they can deliver now, and, how they can make some of that money stick and endure, even if a future administration kind of moves away from Golden Dome, as we think about it now. So, I guess you know, what are some of the broader technology breakthroughs that Golden Dome could drive like that? So that is something that I’m thinking about as well.
LP: That’s an excellent point, and I guess, just kind of to that end, I know you mentioned the interceptor’s portion, but just kind of the general architecture. To that end, we’re sure that your inbox is probably flooded with different pitches about Golden Dome. What has made vendors or pitches stand out when offering perspectives and insights on this topic?
CA: Yeah, I think I’ll caveat that with the reality that whenever I get a pitch, it always depends on how busy I am at the moment and whether I have time to dig into it. But I think the ones that grab my attention are obviously the ones that are connected with a contract or a demonstration, or there’s some sort of a hook or connection to work with the department, so those are the pitches that obviously draw my attention there. But then I would say that because there’s so much that is not in the public domain on this program, I always appreciate really a chance to talk to experts in these fields and industry who can, [when] maybe there’s not an immediate story that’s going to come out of that conversation, but that helps me to understand the technology, that helps me to understand the types of conversations that are being had and connect the dots, so that you know when I am writing those maybe broader trend stories, or when I am writing about a significant piece of news, I can draw from that knowledge, but also I can draw from the stories I learned about those companies, and kind of pull those in. So, I don’t know if that’s helpful, but I think right now we’re still trying to figure out what all those pieces are, so as many conversations as I can have with folks about it is helpful for me.
LP: Yeah, that was definitely extremely helpful insight, because we know that, like I said, everyone wants to talk about Golden Dome. It’s trying to find what makes those conversations valuable to the media.
CA: Yeah.
JC: Courtney, in that last answer, you hinted a little bit about your limited availability at times. At the end of these podcasts, we often like to get to know our guests a little bit beyond their deadlines and what’s in their inbox and what they’re focused on immediately. So, we like to close with three get-to-know-you questions. But the first one, you know, to get a little bit behind the scenes is, you know, what’s one of your most frequently watched movies? If you come across it, you’ll stop what you’re doing and start watching.
CA: Yeah, so I don’t know if this is going to be annoying, but I’m going to do the thing that people do with journalists all the time, and reframe the question, because I don’t really have a go-to movie, but for me it’s more TV shows, and I would say either The Office or 30 Rock, are those shows that I’ve just watched so many times, and when I can’t sleep, I turn them on, like that kind of thing. So yeah, I would say The Office is 30 Rock, probably.
JC: I think I’d make a 30 Rock reference at least once a week.
CA: Nice. Alright, lovely.
LP: I can confirm he does. Well then, kind of switching gears, you know, as Joy said, and I have hosted the podcast, we’ve learned that when you ask our guests what they like, they’ll give you an answer, but if you start asking them what they dislike, they start to get really passionate and heated at times about what they really dislike. So, to that end, is there a dish or food ingredient that you just absolutely despise?
CA: So, I would say it’s for me, it’s about the context. So broadly, I don’t like when people try to make like a savory dish sweet, and I feel like the best example is like putting fruit on a salad. I really don’t like when people put fruit on salads, so I don’t know, that’s my best example of what I dislike, but I’m a salty person, so if I’m expecting a savory dish, I really don’t like when they do that sweet twist on stuff, so yeah,
LP: So I’m going to assume that you’re not the biggest fan of during Thanksgiving when people try to put marshmallows on their sweet potatoes, that’s a little too much?
CA: Yeah, I avoid that dish for the most part.
LP: Let’s just say I’m in that same boat for the same reason.
CA: Yeah, totally.
JC: Lastly, if you never had to hear this song, you would be extremely happy. What song is it?
CA: I feel like I’m doing this with all these questions, I’m sorry. But, I don’t have a specific song, but I will say that I was brought up to dislike country music. Both of my parents really don’t like country, and that’s sort of like baked into me, so I know that genre is more than the typical like dog, truck, beer stereotype, but I don’t know, it just like that was instilled in me early, so I’m not like a hardcore like hater or whatever, but yeah, that’s the best, that’s the best example I could think of, I guess
LP: That’s fair. I am a little hurt as someone that does love country music, but I will say that Luke Bryan’s most recent song did not help that narrative, considering it’s literally just what you said; it is exactly just those words on repeat.
CA: Exactly that. So, my wife is a huge Reba McEntire fan, so I’ve had to kind of open my or have a little more open mind around country, and I’ve found that there’s some songs to be liked out there.
LP: It’s hard to hate Reba.
CA: Yeah, exactly.
LP: Well, Courtney, thank you so much for your time today. If any of our listeners wanted to learn more about you and the work that you’re doing, what would be the best way to reach you?
CA: Yeah, so you can reach me by email, it’s just calbon@afa.org. I also use LinkedIn a lot, and Twitter, Blue Sky, I’m at @calbon. So, yeah.
LP: Perfect. Well, thank you to everyone who tuned into this episode, and Courtney, thank you again for helping us go, Gov & Beyond.
CA: Yeah, glad to be here. Thanks.
Outro: Thank you for joining us on today’s episode of “Gov & Beyond.” To learn more about our podcast and hear all of our episodes. Please visit us at w2comm.com/govandbeyond, and make sure to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter at Govandbeyond. You can also subscribe anywhere podcasts are found.