‘Next-generation threats require next-generation assets’: FBI’s Redstone Arsenal center to play crucial role in training agents

HUNTSVILLE — The FBI is continuing to grow its presence on Redstone Arsenal.

The agency has transformed the base into a second headquarters of sorts, complete with more than a thousand employees, the latest technology, and cutting-edge field training.

At the annual Redstone Update, Johnnie Sharp Jr., assistant director of the bureau’s IT Infrastructure Division, went into detail about the progress taking place, specifically the organization’s Innovation Center.

“The Innovation Center will provide space dedicated to training cyber threat intelligence, digital forensics, and analytical tool development,” Sharp told the sold-out crowd at the Von Braun Center. “We understand 21st century threats are rapidly changing and evolving which requires us to not only be well-trained, but better prepared to defeat them.”

Sharp elaborated on the potential of the facility for agents and organizations partnered with the FBI.

“The Innovation Center will be the epicenter of the FBI’s technology infrastructure and tool development, centralizing our tech talent tools in a connected campus environment,” he said. “Once this building comes online, our goal is to not only utilize the space for training purposes but also for an increased focus on collaboration within the FBI. As well as our partners within the intelligence community, law enforcement, industry, and academia.

“We’re setting a new standard having more of the capabilities that the Innovation Center will house.”

With some 4,000 agents and employees in Huntsville, Sharp said the center’s mission is clear.

“The FBI recognizes that next-generation threats require next-generation assets,” he said. “Creating, fostering, training on, and enhancing our mission with those assets is what the Innovation Center is all about.”