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GovCon Expert Jerry McGinn Discusses Center for Government Contracting Impact on Research, Education, Collaboration Training
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GovCon Expert Jerry McGinn Discusses Center for Government Contracting Impact on Research, Education, Collaboration Training

The George Mason University School of Business’ Center for Government Contracting has released its 2021 Report on Thursday breaking down the year’s achievements and features a foreword from GovCon Expert Jerry McGinn, executive director of the center and a 2021 Wash100 Award winner. 

“It’s been a tremendous year of growth for the Center. While COVID continues to affect us all, we are grateful that our work is becoming more and more impactful in the government contracting community,” said McGinn. “As we conclude our third program year, we have continued to focus around our three lines of effort: research, education & training, and collaboration.”

GovCon Expert Jerry McGinn highlighted the Center’s three million dollars in DoD-funded research studies in areas such as defense finance, pricing, small business, and intellectual property. He discussed the expansion of the Center’s board of advisors, its collaboration efforts and the launch of its GovCon Student Ambassadors in education and training. 

You can read the full 2021 Report from the Center for Government Contracting right here. 

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CIO Raj Iyer on U.S. Army’s 2021 Digital Transformation Strides
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CIO Raj Iyer on U.S. Army’s 2021 Digital Transformation Strides

Dr. Raj Iyer, chief information officer for the U.S. Army, said the service branch has made significant strides in the Army’s first digital transformation strategy over the past year in the face of drastic changes in the geopolitical environment.

In a Profiles in Excellence CIO Achievements interview with the Federal News Network, Dr. Iyer identified the establishment of accredited cloud environments, network modernization and the deployment of remote collaborative environments among the Army’s key achievements in 2021.

Regarding the Army’s cloud transition efforts, Dr. Iyer said the initiative was “critical because it was not just about moving apps to the cloud, but for us in the Army, it was about us leveraging the cloud as a war fighting platform.”

Citing the cloud as the Army’s next-generation solution for exchanging operational and mission data across tactical and enterprise networks, Dr. Iyer said, “We established those accredited environments, and we actually were successful in migrating over 300 systems to the cloud just in one year, and that included three of our most complex SAP ERP systems.”

Dr. Iyer was named the Army’s first civilian CIO in Nov. 2020, following his post at Deloitte Consulting as managing director of government and public services. He noted that because he assumed the newly created CIO role during a complex era of significant global shifts, he had to prioritize the Army’s emerging issues as well as long-term ones.

“It was really important to kind of balance the near-term priorities and ongoing operations with the reason why the office was stood up in the first place, which was for us to be forward-leaning and for us to keep up with the changing pace of technology,” Dr. Iyer commented.

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Air Force, Northrop Showcase Tech Converting Sunlight Into RF Energy
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Air Force, Northrop Showcase Tech Converting Sunlight Into RF Energy

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and Northrop Grumman have demonstrated for the first time a sandwich tile that can convert solar power into radio frequency for a future space-based energy system. 

The tile, which consists of one layer of photovoltaic cells and another with RF transformation and beamforming components, will serve as the base of a conversion panel that will fly with the Arachne experimental satellite in 2025, AFRL said Tuesday.

During a recent Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations and Research event at a Northrop facility, the tile turned sunlight from a solar simulator into RF energy in front of on-site and virtual stakeholders.

“The successful conversion of sunlight into RF energy in a lightweight and scalable architecture is a significant step forward in delivering the technology building blocks to achieve the Arachne mission,” explained Jay Patel, vice president of Northrop’s remote sensing programs business unit.

In November 2019, Northrop received a contract valued at over $100 million for the development of the solar power conversion technology.

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Secret Service Appoints Special Agent Roy Dotson as Pandemic Fraud Recovery Coordinator
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Secret Service Appoints Special Agent Roy Dotson as Pandemic Fraud Recovery Coordinator

The U.S. Secret Service has selected Roy Dotson, assistant special agent in charge, to coordinate investigations into deceitful COVID-19 relief applications as the agency’s national pandemic fraud recovery coordinator.

Dotson will work with financial institutions, money services businesses, U.S. attorneys and other federal agencies to seize pandemic relief funds that were received using illicit means, USSS said Tuesday.

He will also lead the organization’s cyber fraud task forces in looking into money laundering schemes involving cryptocurrencies and unwilling victims.

“The Secret Service is hitting the ground running, trying to recover everything we can, including funds stolen from both federal and state programs,” explained Dotson.

As of Dec 21, the Secret Service has arrested over 100 fraudulent individuals and recovered more than $1.2 billion and returned over $2.3 billion in unemployment insurance and Small Business Administration loan and grant programs.

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CISA & Partners Release Joint Cyber Advisory on Log4j Logging Package
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CISA & Partners Release Joint Cyber Advisory on Log4j Logging Package

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI, the National Security Agency and international partners jointly released an advisory on how to mitigate vulnerabilities of the Apache Log4j software library. 

CISA said Wednesday that its new joint advisory addresses global exploitations of weaknesses in the Java-based Log4j logging package, which is used in websites, operational technology systems and enterprise services.

The advisory recommends organizations identify assets affected by Log4j vulnerabilities, update Log4j assets and run incident response efforts to detect exploitation.

“We continue to urge anyone who is impacted by the Log4j vulnerability to apply all recommended mitigations from CISA and visit fbi.gov/log4j to report details of your suspected compromise,” said Bryan Vorndran, assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division.

CISA also published a webpage dedicated to providing resources on mitigating Log4j vulnerabilities. New Zealand, Canada, Australia and the U.K. served as CISA’s international partners for the joint advisory.

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Navy-led Trident Warrior Exercise Runs 27 Technology Tests
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Navy-led Trident Warrior Exercise Runs 27 Technology Tests

Naval Information Warfare Systems Command gathered partners to conduct 27 technology tests in this year’s iteration of an annual large-scale information warfare exercise, DVIDS Hub reported Tuesday.

Trident Warrior 2021, the annual event’s 19th iteration, consisted of fleet experimentation activities conducted at shore-based facilities and aboard naval ships in Southern California.

Experimented technologies included the Cooperative Autonomous Systems for Standoff Maritime Inspection and Response (CASSMIR), which uses unmanned surface vehicles to help remotely operated vehicles perform reconnaissance in the water.

NAVWAR experimented with a USV and a tethered ROV to investigate, search and neutralize objects that simulated seabed mines at the Imperial Beach Mine Range.

The command will use the exercise’s results to inform a report scheduled for a January 2022 release. NAVWAR also hosted the TW22 mid planning conference from Nov. 10 to Dec. 6 in preparation for next year’s Trident Warrior exercise.

TW22 will take place between operating areas in Hawaii and Southern California during the larger Rim of the Pacific multinational exercise.

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State Department: 3-Year Rolling Average of Authorized Foreign Military Sales Hit $47B in FY 2021
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State Department: 3-Year Rolling Average of Authorized Foreign Military Sales Hit $47B in FY 2021

The State Department has announced that the three-year rolling average of foreign military sales (FMS) of defense weapons implemented between fiscal years 2019 and 2021 by the Defense Security Cooperation (DCS) Agency was $47 billion. 

The department said Wednesday the total value of implemented FMS cases dropped from $50.78 billion in FY 2020 to $34.81 billion in FY 2021. From FY 2019 through FY 2021, direct commercial sales of weapons systems had a three-year rolling average of $114.1 billion.

The total value of approved DCS cases in FY 2021, including the value of services, technical data and hardware, was $103.4 billion, compared with $124.3B during the previous fiscal year.

Data also shows that the rolling average over three years for the combined DCS and FMS cases in FY 2021 was $161.1 billion, down from $179.1B in FY 2020.

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Alexander Macgillivray Named OSTP Principal Deputy CTO
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Alexander Macgillivray Named OSTP Principal Deputy CTO

Alexander Macgillivray, a technology law and policy expert, has rejoined the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to serve as principal deputy U.S. chief technology officer. He said in a tweet that growing the team of technologists at OSTP will be his top priority.

Macgillivray previously served as deputy U.S. CTO during the Obama administration. In this role, he worked with then-CTO Megan Smith with a focus on key priority areas, including the intersection of big data, privacy and technology and internet policy.

Prior to joining the government, Macgillivray served as general counsel at Twitter and deputy general counsel at Google.

He holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School.

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Nonprofit Calls for Government-Industry Panel Formation to Ensure 5G Deployment Safety
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Nonprofit Calls for Government-Industry Panel Formation to Ensure 5G Deployment Safety

The Flight Safety Foundation has urged the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration to form a panel of government and industry representatives who will devise strategies to ensure the safety and efficiency of 5G wireless service rollout.

The Alexandria, Virginia-based nonprofit said Wednesday it believes that FAA’s restrictions on the use of certain aircraft systems due to potential interference from C-band 5G communications will harm critical missions such as helicopter emergency medical services.

FAA expects telecommunications companies to activate the spectrum-based service on Jan. 5.

“We urge the formation of a government-industry expert panel to collaboratively develop viable and sustainable solutions for safe deployment before 5G activation,” said Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation.

“Working together, sharing and analyzing data, is going to result in the best outcome.”

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Executive Order to Implement 2.7% Average Federal Pay Raise for Civilian Employees
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Executive Order to Implement 2.7% Average Federal Pay Raise for Civilian Employees

President Biden signed an executive order that will give federal civilian employees a pay increase of 2.2 percent and an additional locality pay adjustment of 0.5 percent, effective Jan. 1, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

In August, the president announced plans to implement an average pay raise of 2.7 percent for General Schedule employees.

The move marks an increase from the 1 percent rise in federal pay that civilian personnel received in 2021. In 2020, General Schedule employees received a 3.2 percent salary increase.

Although Congress has included in its omnibus spending package a proposal to increase federal pay in recent years, it has yet to pass any spending measures for 2022, according to the report.

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