Defense Industry Adjustment Program

Washington State Department of Commerce

Defense Industry Adjustment

The Washington State Department of Commerce with the support of the Washington Military Alliance has created this program as a proactive response to changes in federal defense budgets. The goal is to understand, support, and respond to the needs of Washington’s more than 1,500 defense businesses at the state level. This program is funded through a grant awarded by the Department of Defense Office of Economic Adjustment.

Learn more about Defense Industry Adjustment here.

View the final deliverables of the Defense Industry Adjustment Program here

This grant intends to:

  • Understand the extent of the military and defense contracting footprint in the state
  • Reduce the exposure of regional businesses to a reliance on military and defense spending and develop a diversification strategy and support system for those companies that are overly reliant on defense spending
  • Support capability for technology transfers and advanced commercial spin-off to the private sector
  • Generate a ‘seamless’ transition or ‘soft-landing’ for dislocated defense contract employees
  • Understand future opportunities for industry growth in both the public and private sector to meet defense needs
  • Focus on retaining and strengthening the defense sector workforce and businesses in Washington and support national defense interests

Office of Economic Adjustment Grant

Download the project plan from Washington’s Defense Industry Adjustment Grant from the Department of Defense Office of Economic Adjustment here.

Download the Trade and Export Amendment here.


OEA Grant Final Deliverables

Download the final deliverables of the Defense Industry Adjustment Program here

The Defense Industry Adjustment Program also offers one-on-one business consulting. Click here to learn more about how to get the help you need!

Number of Department of Defense Contracts by County: Fiscal Year 2014

Top Military Spending Locations: Fiscal Year 2014

This grant has five major parts

They are:

  • Setting the Table: Organization, Communication & Stakeholder Management
  • Understanding the Playing Field: Assessment & Forecasting Capacity
  • Finding & Planning a Solution: Analysis, Pilots & Outreach and Awareness Building
  • Determining a Path Forward: Planning, Identifying Growth Areas & Focusing on Tech Transfer, Entrepreneurship and Commercialization
  • Branching out on our Own: Implementation Planning

An additional Trade and Export program has been added with an amendment to the current grant.

Below are more detailed descriptions for each part. Click for more information.

1. Setting the Table

This portion of the grant will organize state and regional stakeholders through the formalization of the Washington Military Alliance, as well as create a strategic communications plan.

3. Finding & Planning a Solution

The largest of the five parts, this component of the grant encompasses understanding Washington’s capacity for a statewide response to changes in defense spending, a defense manufacturing and a defense services supply chain pilot to test successful diversification strategies, a workforce transition pilot to support defense contract workers in transitioning to targeted sectors, the creation of a tool to support workforce transition, and providing outreach and awareness, including one-on-one business consulting.

5. Branching out on our Own

In this final part, we will successfully transition from OEA funded support to integration with state, local or other federal programs to continue the success of the Defense Industry Adjustment Program.

2. Understanding the Playing Field

This part aims to assess the current state of the defense industry in Washington. This will result in a military & defense sector asset and supply chain map, an interactive forecasting tool and a directory of Washington State companies doing military and defense related work.

4. Determining a Path Forward

Moving forward, this portion will create clear short and long-term strategic plans for success in the military and defense sector. These plans will identify growth areas in conjunction with the other targeted sectors as well as develop a program to accelerate technology transfers and commercialization from the defense supply chain.

Trade & Export

With an amendment to the current grant, we will be integrating a trade & export program into the existing components of the Defense Industry Adjustment Program. This work will include: establishing an industry advisory council within the Washington Military Alliance, creating 5 international market reports focused on defense-specific export issues, a defense focused export compliance & regulation seminar series to be held across the state and produced as webinars, integrating the identified 1,900 defense companies in Washington into the Department of Commerce’s directory for direct industry outreach, and a comprehensive export assistance program for defense companies.