Client Story: Soldier Systems D-Mil
Spanning Space to Sea with Strategic Manufacturing Solutions
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Meet Victor Horodincu, a Business Advisor who solves problems. He brings a unique blend of global experience, sharp strategy, and entrepreneurial drive to NH SBDC’s work in the Keene and Upper Valley regions.
A former entrepreneur himself, Victor takes a collaborative approach—helping clients clarify their goals, explore what’s possible, and move forward with confidence. His background includes assisting 71 startups across the EU to launch and working in biotech and research science.
Victor says, “The first thing that comes to mind when I think of my current business advisor role with SBDC, is that I wish I knew about this organization when I was an entrepreneur. There is a tremendous amount of first-hand know-how and wisdom among all the advisors that our clients can access. To see how it all comes together from a client’s ideation phase to exiting a business, we can just plug in and make a difference for individuals who never started a business or for those who just need a bit of support in their business journey. And with every business we help we make new relationships and new amazing and creative friends, and our cumulative wisdom grows. I truly enjoy this role. It taps into my colorful experience and I finally found a platform where I can share my lessons and help.”
Victor thrives on solving challenges creatively and supporting business owners through each stage of their journey.
We’re lucky to have Victor on the NH SBDC team. His insight and dedication make a real difference for the businesses we serve.
DLA Eyes Strategic Materials Recapture from Excess Property
SSD-MIL Principal Engineer, Rob Winkler, left, identifies Germanium scrap from decommissioned DOD Thermal Imaging Devices with
DLA Disposition Services General Supply Specialist Lisa Inghram.
Photo by DLA
News | June 24, 2025By Jake Joy DLA Disposition Services Public Affairs
BATTLE CREEK, Mich. – Germanium: Atomic Number 32, symbol “Ge” on the Periodic Table. A metalloid long prized for its semiconductive capabilities. Transparent to infrared radiation, making it ideal for infrared optics and night vision devices.
Unfortunately for the producers of military optics, germanium is a rarity in Earth’s crust, occurring primarily as trace amounts in other minerals. It is typically mined as a byproduct of coal ash or zinc.
But perhaps there’s another source.
In late May, the Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services team at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia put the finishing touches on a collaborative agency effort to identify and transfer about 126 excess germanium-bearing thermal cameras and sights to DLA Strategic Materials for eventual material recapture and addition to the National Defense Stockpile, which provides “feedstock” to the armed services and industrial base.
“We are going to become a mine for some of that strategic material by pulling it out of scrap and excess,” said DLA Disposition Services Director Mike Cannon.
Rare earths became a hot news topic late last year when China established export control restrictions on several valuable elements U.S. firms rely on for cutting-edge technologies. With obscure names like yttrium and dysprosium, these materials may be mysterious to the layman but remain vital to the production of complex components found in drones, submarines, radar systems, and missiles.
Defense Department planners saw the Chinese tactic coming. The 2024 National Defense Industrial Strategy set a goal for the nation to develop a complete rare earth supply chain capable of meeting all U.S. defense needs by 2027. In fact, hundreds of millions of dollars have already been allotted for domestic mining and processing efforts. While those capabilities are developed, pressing questions remain about how industry will source its current defense modernization priorities.
In March, Cannon took part in a DLA Director Lt. Gen Mark Simerly-led visit to the DLA Strategic Materials depot in Indiana, in part to evaluate how the agency’s major sub-command responsible for reverse logistics might support DLA’s Strategic Material Recovery and Reuse Program.
DLA Strategic Materials can fund, award, and administer SMRRP contracts for recovery and processing of National Defense Stockpile watchlist materials. DLA Disposition Services handles DOD’s worldwide contracts for everything from the demilitarization of nuclear submarines to bulk scrap removal. It also manages DLA’s Precious Metals Recovery Program. Each year, equipment originally valued at billions of dollars makes its way onto DLA excess property books. Many items turned over by units possess some amount of valuable material on the agency’s critical materials watchlist.
“It was enlightening to discover all the various ways that the DLA Disposition Services mission and business model shares symmetries with DLA Strategic Materials and its rare materials recovery and reuse efforts,” Cannon said of the strategic materials depot visit. “As the Defense Department’s reverse logistics experts, we want to ensure we’re contributing all that we can toward ensuring National Defense Stockpile remains a robust supply source for domestic industry.”
DLA Disposition Services Process Engineer Don Helle started tackling the problem late last year, working with his DLA Headquarters Research and Development colleagues and DLA Strategic Materials to build momentum toward the development of a “circular economy” mindset that identifies critical elements during manufacturing and plans for their eventual recapture and recycling once used items are turned in to DLA.
“Reclamation can begin at the ‘end’ of lifecycle logistics, converting the old ‘cradle-to-grave’ business model to an improved ‘cradle-to-cradle’ business model and the beginning of self-sustainment,” Helle said. “We believe reclamation/circular economy is not only a pillar of supply chain stability, but also a cornerstone of tax dollar stewardship.”
Helle said that in April, DLA Strategic Materials Stockpile Engagement Liaison Curt Stough and Physical Scientist Nancy Albertson began coordinating with DLA Disposition Services on items currently on the agency’s excess property inventory rolls that hold potentially recoverable materials, like an aircraft helmet display unit originally valued at $100,509 at the site in Pennsylvania, a thermal elbow assembly in Okinawa originally worth $80,000, and a lab instrument analyzer in Ohio originally valued at $297,000.
Because the DLA Strategic Materials team has an already-existing contract to harvest germanium from excess federal property, the agency’s Robins Air Force Base property disposal site was targeted first for the optics it held in its excess inventory. Once Material Handler and Identifier David Garbo and General Supply Specialist Lisa Inghram combed the site’s stores for items matching DLA Strategic Materials’ requests and upgraded item condition codes from scrap to usable, Strategic Materials’ Rob Winkler and David Landry arrived to confirm and arrange for transfer to the Strategic Material Reclamation office for disassembly and recovery. The end result will produce germanium ingots suitable as feedstock for infrared optics and solar wafers.
“You’re going to see more and more efforts like that,” Cannon said. “Where we take an item, and when it’s not needed for [reutilization], we’ll make a value judgement – can that become a mine for something inside it? Is there juice we can squeeze out of that item that’s going to help us make something else?”
Cannon said there’s more work to be done for the organization to fully adopt a “mine-to-foxhole,” circular economy-driven process, but the effort will be critical to DLA Disposition Services’ future role in combatting the weaponization of element embargoes.
BATTLE CREEK, Mich. – Germanium: Atomic Number 32, symbol “Ge” on the Periodic Table. A metalloid long prized for its semiconductive capabilities. Transparent to infrared radiation, making it ideal for infrared optics and night vision devices.
Unfortunately for the producers of military optics, germanium is a rarity in Earth’s crust, occurring primarily as trace amounts in other minerals. It is typically mined as a byproduct of coal ash or zinc.
But perhaps there’s another source.
In late May, the Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services team at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia put the finishing touches on a collaborative agency effort to identify and transfer about 126 excess germanium-bearing thermal cameras and sights to DLA Strategic Materials for eventual material recapture and addition to the National Defense Stockpile, which provides “feedstock” to the armed services and industrial base.
“We are going to become a mine for some of that strategic material by pulling it out of scrap and excess,” said DLA Disposition Services Director Mike Cannon.
Rare earths became a hot news topic late last year when China established export control restrictions on several valuable elements U.S. firms rely on for cutting-edge technologies. With obscure names like yttrium and dysprosium, these materials may be mysterious to the layman but remain vital to the production of complex components found in drones, submarines, radar systems, and missiles.
Defense Department planners saw the Chinese tactic coming. The 2024 National Defense Industrial Strategy set a goal for the nation to develop a complete rare earth supply chain capable of meeting all U.S. defense needs by 2027. In fact, hundreds of millions of dollars have already been allotted for domestic mining and processing efforts. While those capabilities are developed, pressing questions remain about how industry will source its current defense modernization priorities.
In March, Cannon took part in a DLA Director Lt. Gen Mark Simerly-led visit to the DLA Strategic Materials depot in Indiana, in part to evaluate how the agency’s major sub-command responsible for reverse logistics might support DLA’s Strategic Material Recovery and Reuse Program.
DLA Strategic Materials can fund, award, and administer SMRRP contracts for recovery and processing of National Defense Stockpile watchlist materials. DLA Disposition Services handles DOD’s worldwide contracts for everything from the demilitarization of nuclear submarines to bulk scrap removal. It also manages DLA’s Precious Metals Recovery Program. Each year, equipment originally valued at billions of dollars makes its way onto DLA excess property books. Many items turned over by units possess some amount of valuable material on the agency’s critical materials watchlist.
“It was enlightening to discover all the various ways that the DLA Disposition Services mission and business model shares symmetries with DLA Strategic Materials and its rare materials recovery and reuse efforts,” Cannon said of the strategic materials depot visit. “As the Defense Department’s reverse logistics experts, we want to ensure we’re contributing all that we can toward ensuring National Defense Stockpile remains a robust supply source for domestic industry.”
DLA Disposition Services Process Engineer Don Helle started tackling the problem late last year, working with his DLA Headquarters Research and Development colleagues and DLA Strategic Materials to build momentum toward the development of a “circular economy” mindset that identifies critical elements during manufacturing and plans for their eventual recapture and recycling once used items are turned in to DLA.
“Reclamation can begin at the ‘end’ of lifecycle logistics, converting the old ‘cradle-to-grave’ business model to an improved ‘cradle-to-cradle’ business model and the beginning of self-sustainment,” Helle said. “We believe reclamation/circular economy is not only a pillar of supply chain stability, but also a cornerstone of tax dollar stewardship.”
Helle said that in April, DLA Strategic Materials Stockpile Engagement Liaison Curt Stough and Physical Scientist Nancy Albertson began coordinating with DLA Disposition Services on items currently on the agency’s excess property inventory rolls that hold potentially recoverable materials, like an aircraft helmet display unit originally valued at $100,509 at the site in Pennsylvania, a thermal elbow assembly in Okinawa originally worth $80,000, and a lab instrument analyzer in Ohio originally valued at $297,000.
Because the DLA Strategic Materials team has an already-existing contract to harvest germanium from excess federal property, the agency’s Robins Air Force Base property disposal site was targeted first for the optics it held in its excess inventory. Once Material Handler and Identifier David Garbo and General Supply Specialist Lisa Inghram combed the site’s stores for items matching DLA Strategic Materials’ requests and upgraded item condition codes from scrap to usable, Strategic Materials’ Rob Winkler and David Landry arrived to confirm and arrange for transfer to the Strategic Material Reclamation office for disassembly and recovery. The end result will produce germanium ingots suitable as feedstock for infrared optics and solar wafers.
“You’re going to see more and more efforts like that,” Cannon said. “Where we take an item, and when it’s not needed for [reutilization], we’ll make a value judgement – can that become a mine for something inside it? Is there juice we can squeeze out of that item that’s going to help us make something else?”
Cannon said there’s more work to be done for the organization to fully adopt a “mine-to-foxhole,” circular economy-driven process, but the effort will be critical to DLA Disposition Services’ future role in combatting the weaponization of element embargoes.
SSD-MIL President/CEO, John Solomonides, explains polycrystalline structure of a Germanium ingot to Congresswoman Goodlander.
Photo by Goodlander Staff
Support for Military Supply Chains
22 April 2025
Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander, NH-02, member of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Committee on Small Business, toured Soldier Systems D-MIL Facilities.
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Photo by Mysti Bicoy
Eric Deal, a contracting officer with Defense Logistics Agency DLA Strategic Materials, holds a night vision lens that contains germanium August 1, 2018, at Hammond Depot, Indiana. Photo by Nutan Chada
DLA Program Introduces Domestic Germanium Recycling Capability
June 27, 2022By Beth Reece
FORT BELVOIR, Va. – A Defense Logistics Agency program for recycling optical-grade germanium used in military weapons systems and night vision equipment has led to new capability in the U.S. defense industrial base.
“Until now, there was no entity in the country that could do this complete process, from demilitarization and disassembly to ingot production. Everything that’s being done to recycle the material through this program is being done 100% stateside,” said Nancy Albertson, a chemist and program manager for DLA Strategic Materials.
The recycling is being done by a service-disabled, veteran-owned small business. Optical-grade germanium is considered a critical material because it’s sourced mainly by China and could be hard to acquire in a national defense emergency.“Mainland China pretty much has a chokehold on the market right now, so if it decided to either ramp up the cost or cut us off completely – and that’s not unheard of – that would be a very big issue for us,” Albertson said.
The U.S. relies on imports for over 50% of its germanium needs, and nationwide consumption was about 30,000 kilograms in 2020, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The DLA program is expected to yield 2,200 to 3,000 kilograms of recycled germanium a year – nearly 10% of the nation’s annual need – for use in night-vision and thermal-sensing devices in platforms like Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, Apache helicopters and naval systems.
Most germanium scrap being recycled through the program is from Pennsylvania’s Tobyhanna Army Depot, which specializes in demilitarizing military optical systems. The agency is also working with Navy officials and others to expand access to scrap germanium. It can otherwise end up on a barge back to China or get dumped in a landfill, Albertson said.
Military organizations are bound by numerous executive orders and recent Defense Department policy to pursue acquisitions that are green and sustainable. While recycling germanium for new applications is inherently green, the program also reuses material that surrounds lenses and windows.
“Probably 98% of everything that goes into this process is recovered and recycled, including aluminum, stainless steel and recyclable polymers,” said Gary Porter, DLA Strategic Material’s director of material management. “It’s one of the reasons why this program is so successful.” Even the recycling process is green, Albertson added. Most germanium lenses and windows are coated with thorium, a radioactive element, or carbon that must be removed before recycling. The contractor uses a self-contained process with water-based, environmentally friendly solvents to disassemble the scrap and remove the coating. Waste from thorium is shipped to Rock Island Arsenal Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, which has experience disposing of radioactive waste. The rest is nonhazardous.Albertson and Eric Deal, who monitors the recycling contract, verify that scrap is indeed germanium before it’s sent to DLA warehouses, where it’s then sorted for de-coating.
“Once the contractor de-coats it, they melt it down,” Albertson said, “It comes back to us in beautiful, shiny ingots that are 99.999% pure. A lot of metals you can’t get that pure. You’d never have that for bulk iron or zinc, for example.”
The ingots are glasslike and can be brittle, so they’re cradled in wooden storage boxes and kept in DLA warehouses until needed by equipment manufacturers who have contracts for making military systems. Though the program focuses on optical-grade germanium lenses and windows, the ingots could potentially be used for other Defense Department applications.
“The crystals that can be made with this germanium can also be used for solar cells in satellites. That’s just one of the many other ways DOD uses germanium,” Deal said. He’s also seen it used in proximity sensors in cars.
“There’s only so much germanium being produced in the world, and with more options for its use, we don’t want to have to compete for it,” Deal added. “That’s another good reason for us to recycle it.”
Germanium was added to the Strategic National Stockpile in the early 1980s after being recognized for its growing use in semiconductors, fiber optics, infrared sensors and other electronic applications.
FORT BELVOIR, Va. – A Defense Logistics Agency program for recycling optical-grade germanium used in military weapons systems and night vision equipment has led to new capability in the U.S. defense industrial base.
“Until now, there was no entity in the country that could do this complete process, from demilitarization and disassembly to ingot production. Everything that’s being done to recycle the material through this program is being done 100% stateside,” said Nancy Albertson, a chemist and program manager for DLA Strategic Materials.
The recycling is being done by a service-disabled, veteran-owned small business. Optical-grade germanium is considered a critical material because it’s sourced mainly by China and could be hard to acquire in a national defense emergency.“Mainland China pretty much has a chokehold on the market right now, so if it decided to either ramp up the cost or cut us off completely – and that’s not unheard of – that would be a very big issue for us,” Albertson said.
The U.S. relies on imports for over 50% of its germanium needs, and nationwide consumption was about 30,000 kilograms in 2020, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The DLA program is expected to yield 2,200 to 3,000 kilograms of recycled germanium a year – nearly 10% of the nation’s annual need – for use in night-vision and thermal-sensing devices in platforms like Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, Apache helicopters and naval systems.
Most germanium scrap being recycled through the program is from Pennsylvania’s Tobyhanna Army Depot, which specializes in demilitarizing military optical systems. The agency is also working with Navy officials and others to expand access to scrap germanium. It can otherwise end up on a barge back to China or get dumped in a landfill, Albertson said.
Military organizations are bound by numerous executive orders and recent Defense Department policy to pursue acquisitions that are green and sustainable. While recycling germanium for new applications is inherently green, the program also reuses material that surrounds lenses and windows.
“Probably 98% of everything that goes into this process is recovered and recycled, including aluminum, stainless steel and recyclable polymers,” said Gary Porter, DLA Strategic Material’s director of material management. “It’s one of the reasons why this program is so successful.” Even the recycling process is green, Albertson added. Most germanium lenses and windows are coated with thorium, a radioactive element, or carbon that must be removed before recycling. The contractor uses a self-contained process with water-based, environmentally friendly solvents to disassemble the scrap and remove the coating. Waste from thorium is shipped to Rock Island Arsenal Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, which has experience disposing of radioactive waste. The rest is nonhazardous.Albertson and Eric Deal, who monitors the recycling contract, verify that scrap is indeed germanium before it’s sent to DLA warehouses, where it’s then sorted for de-coating.
“Once the contractor de-coats it, they melt it down,” Albertson said, “It comes back to us in beautiful, shiny ingots that are 99.999% pure. A lot of metals you can’t get that pure. You’d never have that for bulk iron or zinc, for example.”
The ingots are glasslike and can be brittle, so they’re cradled in wooden storage boxes and kept in DLA warehouses until needed by equipment manufacturers who have contracts for making military systems. Though the program focuses on optical-grade germanium lenses and windows, the ingots could potentially be used for other Defense Department applications.
“The crystals that can be made with this germanium can also be used for solar cells in satellites. That’s just one of the many other ways DOD uses germanium,” Deal said. He’s also seen it used in proximity sensors in cars.
“There’s only so much germanium being produced in the world, and with more options for its use, we don’t want to have to compete for it,” Deal added. “That’s another good reason for us to recycle it.”
Germanium was added to the Strategic National Stockpile in the early 1980s after being recognized for its growing use in semiconductors, fiber optics, infrared sensors and other electronic applications.