Comment:  Look back and look forward at weapon systems development then and what's needed now.  Kudos to Rickover and Schriever are presented here.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2025/04/trumps-defense-industry-executive-order-hits-right-notes/404459/?oref=d1-related-article

Quote:

Consider that heading into World War II, the United States didn’t have much of a defense acquisitions system—really just a handful of mid-level supply and logistics officers. However, as recounted by historian Arthur Herman, it had men like Franklin Roosevelt and William Knudsen—then CEO of General Motors — who unleashed the creativity and productivity of American industry to generate prodigious quantities of armaments. 

Then, in the early years of the Cold War, patriots fiercely devoted to results, like Adm. Hyman Rickover and Gen. Bernard Schriever, combined organizational genius and an iron will to create America’s nuclear submarine and ballistic missile forces. They did so in a fraction of the time and budget that a middling modernization program requires today. Experience, expertise, and sheer longevity were essential factors. Rickover led the Navy’s nuclear enterprise for nearly three decades; Schriever effectively oversaw the Air Force’s space and ballistic missile forces for more than a decade. 

By comparison, acquisition leaders today, in keeping with the military’s career management system, will rotate through Program Manager or Program Executive Officer billets every two to three years—sometimes less. Just as an acquisition officer begins to get savvy to the nuances of a complex program, he or she will move on to another assignment.

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https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/1000bennie/

"The Man Who Built the Missiles"

USAF Photo

Quote:

Gen. Bernard A. “Bennie” Schriever, unquestionably one of the most important officers in Air Force history, ranks alongside the legendary Hap Arnold and Curtis LeMay in terms of long-term effect upon the service and the nation. Foremost among his many achievements was the development and acquisition in the 1950s and early 1960s of a reliable and operational ICBM force. It was a towering accomplishment-one that helped propel the United States to military dominance in space, as well.

No one doubts Schriever’s pivotal role in these two stupendous achievements. In April 1957, his image appeared on the cover of Time magazine, which called him “America’s Missileman.” His official USAF biography flatly proclaims that Schriever is “the architect of the Air Force’s ballistic missile and military space program.”