“I feel like I have been incredibly blessed and fortunate to have been able to serve our great nation for over thirty years and do so with so many people around the world that I like and respect. I also believe our country’s future is bright because of the dedicated and fantastic people that I have had the opportunity to serve with and to have been part of teams of people, many still serving government, that work hard to deliver positive results for the American people, our military and law enforcement personnel, and all other parts of government,” Williams said.

Williams had served as FAS commissioner since 2006 and filled in as acting administrator of the GSA at the end of the George W. Bush administration.

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Zients stated, “This memorandum highlights for agencies policy and legal issues related to the implementation of the Obama Administration’s commitment to increase the use of prizes and challenges as tools for promoting open government, innovation, and other national priorities.”

The memo included potential benefits of prizes, such as “stimulate private sector investment that is many times greater than the cash value of the prize.” It also included a section on the use of prizes and challenges and a section dedicated to the pre-prize and post-prize stages.

The Obama administration is hoping to launch an online forum in the next four months. This forum would be a place to seek solutions to the legal barriers agencies might be encountering.

The next due date for agencies in the Open Government Directive requires agencies to develop and publish an open government plan. Part of this plan is to consult the American public in their efforts and explain how it will “improve transparency and integrate public participation and collaboration into its activities,” so the memo released on Monday comes at an opportune time.

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“These incredible young people, the enthusiasm they have, and they have some good feedback about partnering with the Afghans,” Gates said. “And talking to them directly always in some ways is more reliable than what you see on a PowerPoint slide.”

Among his stops were the headquarters of the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry, where 22 names of fallen soldiers were read. The 17th Infantry is part of the 2nd Infantry Division’s 5th Stryker Brigade based at Fort Lewis, Wash. The unit was supposed to deploy to Iraq, but the mission shifted when President Barack Obama ordered more troops to Afghanistan.

Addressing how the area around Frontenac was a Taliban redoubt, Gates praised the soldiers for their efforts to endure roadside bombs and indirect and direct fire.

“You came into an area that was totally controlled by the Taliban,” Gates said to about 200 soldiers at the battalion headquarters. “You fought for critical battle space, you bled for it, and now you own it. And you demonstrated extraordinary courage and determination in making that happen.”

Gates said he wants to ensure that servicemembers in the fight get the tools they need to do the job. He noted he has read a memo calling for improvements to the Stryker wheeled armored vehicle to make it more effective in Afghanistan, and he is overseeing the effort to get more all-terrain mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles to the fight.

The secretary also met with young soldiers in Now Zad and Marines serving in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, and visited Regional Command South leaders before taking a V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft to Frontenac. Gates said the young servicemembers he met are inspirational.

“They are resilient, they know what they’ve lost, and yet they seem very committed and very much with their heads in the game,” he said. “They know what they are here to do, and they are clearly prepared to do whatever it takes personally to make it happen. I was very impressed.”

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In her address at a conference in San Francisco, Napolitano declared, “We need to recognize that those answers are found not just in Silicon Valley or Washington D.C., but in the wisdom of crowds, in the creativity of a classroom, a series of small refinements and large technological leaps.”

Ideas for the campaign need to be submitted by April 30. What will the winner of the contest receive? He or she will be invited to an event in DC at the end of the spring to work with the department in the planning process of the campaign that will be launched in October, during National Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

This contest prize aligns with the release of the memo by Zients on Monday because it is not an end in itself, but it is a way to spur more innovation in change. Ideas can be submitted to this website: http://www.dhs.gov/files/cyber-awareness-campaign.shtm

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At a Government Executive Leadership Briefing held yesterday, Orszag talked about the recent press coverage that showed that for certain occupations, average salaries are higher in the federal government than in the private sector, according to GovExec.

“I think the key thing to remember about that is the federal workforce is more highly educated than the private workforce,” Orszag said. “Roughly a third of the private workforce has a college degree, for example, [while] well over 50 percent of the federal workforce [does].”

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, recently requested federal agencies report to him on how many of their employees make $100,000 or more, and whether those numbers have increased in recent years. USA Today reported last week that for 216 jobs for which there was both public and private sector pay data, 180 of those positions had higher average salaries in the federal government.

“Basically the entire delta between private sector and public sector federal government average pay can be explained by education and experience,” Orszag said. “While there may be some remaining disparities, I think some of the more dramatic newspaper stories I’ve seen about that disparity are somewhat misleading.”

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DoD Deputy Secretary William Lynn

Yesterday, the U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) launched its official Facebook and Twitter pages. In response to DOD Deputy Secretary William Lynn’s memo regarding the responsible and effective use of social media and web 2.0 applications on Friday, February 25, USTRANSCOM moved forward quickly with plans to establish a presence on social networking sites.

U.S. Army Major General William Johnson, USTRANSCOM Chief of Staff, said “USTRANSCOM will use these sites to tell the world what we do every day: deliver what the warfighter needs to execute successful missions.  They are a significant step forward in our efforts to engage with our partners and the public. I encourage partners, customers, and friends to visit frequently, leaving comments along the way.”

CLICK HERE to visit USTRANSCOM’s Facebook page.

CLICK HERE to visit USTRANSCOM’s Twitter page.

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The increased funds will go into projects that are in the Veterans Health Administration, as well as the Veterans Benefits Administration. The senate committee also wanted to increase funding for the Veteran Affairs Telehealth budget by 23%.

Ironically, Roger Baker, the Veterans Affairs Department CIO, said he did not need any more funding for fiscal 2011. If all of these new increase proposals go through, Baker and the VA Department will have a budget of nearly $7 billion.

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To cull information from officials of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), the committee organized public meetings, including contractors involved in the development of its environmental impact statement. Also included were Fort Detrick emergency personnel, the Frederick County Board of Commissioners and members of the local community.

While acknowledging the uncovered problems, the committee came to the conclusion “that it would not be useful to propose specific revisions to the environmental impact statement given that construction of the new facilities has begun.  Rather, the Army should develop new guidelines for conducting hazard assessments of biocontainment facilities.”  There is, at this time, no specific guidance for such assessments.

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The Army has invited companies who are bidding on the email contract to partner up with the Defense Information Systems Agency. DISA operates 13 computer centers worldwide and would be able to house the email system.

Using numerous systems creates a more vulnerable environment for potential cyberattacks. Multiple systems can also lead to large administrative costs, so the consolidation would be a large cost-cutter. Sorenson hopes to have the entire Defense Department using it in the future.

The department hopes to have the service completely consolidated by fall of 2011. Due to the fact that it is going to be built on Microsoft Exchange 2010, Warren Suss, president of Suss Consulting, remarked, “No matter who bids, Microsoft is the winner.”

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According to NextGov, Peter Alterman, senior advisor to the NIH chief information officer for strategic initiatives, “It’s a real advantage for the user, who doesn’t have to get another password and try to remember it.”

“The less personal information that we have to keep, the safer things are,” said Alterman. An advantage of this new service is that government agencies will not have to maintain a list of all IDs and passwords.

The General Services Administration has approved the Open Identity Exchange Technology, which is the coalition of providers including Google, PayPal and Equifax.

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