/
Rep. Bill Foster Presents Bill to Update DOE National Laboratories
Published on
Rep. Bill Foster Presents Bill to Update DOE National Laboratories

Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., has introduced a bill that would task the Department of Energy to modernize and restore national laboratories. H.R.4514 would have the secretary of energy invest funds in national laboratory restoration projects and similar efforts, according to the Congress website.

DOE's 17 national laboratories offer supercomputers, scientific facilities and expertise to address various world challenges such as those related to climate change and nuclear security.

Ames Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Savannah River National Laboratory are among these sites.

Foster, who is also a scientist, uses his expertise to contribute to the nation's energy policy. His contributions to U.S. energy and environment can be found here.

/
OPM Provides Guidance to Help Agencies Reenter Work Environments
Published on
OPM Provides Guidance to Help Agencies Reenter Work Environments

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has answered frequently asked questions and developed a fact sheet to help federal employees safely return to the physical work environment. 

This new guidance supports a memorandum issued by OPM, the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to assist in work environment reentry, OPM said Friday.

The FAQ set addresses matters related to human resource policies vital to work reentry. These policies include those related to teleworking and remote working.

The fact sheet guides agencies on how to determine official worksites, remote work arrangements and travel benefits, which are factors to consider in work reentry.

The guidance also teaches about the two different types of telework: routine and situational and gives steps on how to properly revoke telework arrangements.

///
CAES Wins Multiple Contracts to Advance Missile Seeker Technology; CEO Mike Kahn Quoted
Published on
CAES Wins Multiple Contracts to Advance Missile Seeker Technology; CEO Mike Kahn Quoted

CAES has received multiple contracts from an advanced U.S. missile defense program to provide RF, microwave rotary joints and waveguide products and integrate them into the system’s missile seeker to provide industry-leading performance and reliability.

“When a system must perform in high-stakes situations such as missile defense, customers come to CAES for our engineering and manufacturing expertise in this area,” said Mike Kahn, president and CEO of CAES and a 2021 Wash100 Award recipient.

CAES solutions improve the reliability of transmission and reception to enhance the overall performance of missile seekers and have a long history of innovation that spans more than four decades. 

“We are proud to work with our valued customer to provide high performance, low SWaP (size, weight and power) RF technologies for missile seekers,” Kahn continued.

CAES waveguides can be customized to create integrated assemblies that serve as a complete modular transmit/receive devices. CAES additionally specializes in custom structural solutions and integrated waveguides from cast to 3D printed to hybrid.

About CAES

CAES is a pioneer of advanced electronics for the most technologically challenging military and aerospace trusted systems. As the largest provider of mixed-signal and radiation-hardened technology to the United States aerospace and defense industry, CAES delivers high-reliability RF, microwave and millimeter wave, microelectronic and digital solutions that enable our customers to ensure a safer, more secure planet.

/
Tyto Athene Receives $43.5M DOE Contract to Support Oak Ridge Federal-Integrated Communications Network; Operations VP Jason Alexander Quoted
Published on
Tyto Athene Receives $43.5M DOE Contract to Support Oak Ridge Federal-Integrated Communications Network; Operations VP Jason Alexander Quoted

Mutual Telecom Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tyto Athene, received a potential five-year, $43.5 million Department of Energy (DOE) contract to support the Oak Ridge Federal-Integrated Communications Network (ORF-ICN), the company announced on Tuesday.

“Tyto is honored to have been selected to continue its partnership with the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge community in providing integrated network maintenance services to the DOE Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the nation’s largest multi-program science and technology lab,” said Jason Alexander, vice president of Operations at Tyto Athene.

The ORF-ICN provides comprehensive telecommunications networking services to the DOE and other Government agencies located throughout Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This marks the first time that a company has successfully won back-to-back contracts in support of the ORF-ICN.

Tyto will apply Mission-Focused Digital Transformation, our proven service improvement framework, to deliver innovative and emerging technologies which increase the resiliency of DOE’s IT infrastructure and meet the evolving needs of Oak Ridge’s missions.

“We look forward to continuing to deliver the highest level of service in support of this mission-critical program for the Department of Energy and our nation,” Alexander added.

/
Gen. John Hyten on ‘Expanded Maneuver’ Concept
Published on
Gen. John Hyten on ‘Expanded Maneuver’ Concept

Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a two-time Wash100 Award winner, said the Department of Defense (DOD) has developed a concept called “expanded maneuver” to deter Russia and China from future aggression, DOD News reported Monday.

He said expanded maneuver highlights the need for DOD to understand how adversaries operate across all domains and how to deter them while safeguarding Pentagon and coalition forces.

Hyten said there are four functional combat areas within expanded maneuver and those are contested logistics, joint fires, joint all-domain command and control and information advantage. With JADC2, he said there should be a flow of data everywhere.

“The goal is to be fully connected to a combat cloud that has all information that you can access at any time, any place … to be able to act quickly on that,” Gen. Hyten said during his remarks at the launch of the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies Institute.

Under the joint fires concept, he said services should be able to fire from all domains while making it impossible for adversaries to defend themselves against those fires.

“That’s a purely aspirational requirement, but I hope everybody can see that if you could do that you would change the equation on any future battlefield,” Hyten added.

POC - Building the Future Battle: The Keys to JADC2

The Potomac Officers Club will host a virtual event on JADC2 on Aug. 31. Register here to join POC’s Building the Future Battle: The Keys to JADC2 event and learn more about the fundamental principles and systems needed to advance JADC2 implementation.

/
Michael Weiskopff: DOD Helps Defense Industrial Base Identify Cybersecurity Gaps
Published on
Michael Weiskopff: DOD Helps Defense Industrial Base Identify Cybersecurity Gaps

Michael Weiskopff, a division chief at the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3), said that DC3's Defense Industrial Base Collaborative Information Sharing Environment (DCISE) offers some services intended to help industry partners identify and assess cybersecurity vulnerabilities, Federal News Network reported Monday. 

Weiskopff told FNN in an interview that small companies are trying to address cybersecurity challenges by signing up with a security service provider or adopting a cloud service platform, but not all offerings are “foolproof solutions."

He noted that the DCISE group uses a cyber resilience analysis service in efforts to help smaller companies address security gaps and believes the service could assist vendors pursuing the DOD's Cybersecurity Model Maturity Certification (CMMC) program to potentially gauge their cyber posture.

The group also has a platform, called Krystal Ball, that generates threat scores on specific businesses or answer queries about DIB partners affected by a vulnerability, such as a Hafnium indicator of compromise on systems using the Microsoft Exchange Server, according to Weiskopff.

Michael Weiskopff: DOD Helps Defense Industrial Base Identify Cybersecurity Gaps

ExecutiveBiz, sister site of ExecutiveGov, will host the "Supply Chain Cybersecurity: Revelations and Innovations" event on Oct. 26th. Join the virtual forum to hear from GovCon executives as they share insight on cybersecurity issues facing the public and private sectors.

/
Joe Bryan: DOD Works to Become More Energy Efficient in Response to Climate Change
Published on
Joe Bryan: DOD Works to Become More Energy Efficient in Response to Climate Change

Joe Bryan, senior climate adviser to the secretary of the Department of Defense, said climate change has implications for U.S. national security and DOD is initiating efforts to become more energy-efficient, DOD News reported Monday.

"Climate change is going to cost us in resources and readiness and the reality is that it already is," he said at a forum Monday.

As an example, he cited that military installations are advancing energy storage and distributed generation using energy from solar and landfill gas.

"We know that we're not going to get a free pass to push fuel into theater; so we can't be aggressive enough in reducing operational energy demand," he said of the need to ship fuel abroad to power aircraft, vehicles and ships. 

Bryan said the Pentagon is working to lessen the demand for operational energy by reducing aircraft drag, making engine enhancements on ships and fielding hybrid-electric tactical vehicles, among other approaches.

He mentioned the current administration's move to prioritize local production of lithium-ion batteries and how that investment could help advance EV deployment.

"The commercial EV [electric vehicle] industry is actually critical to DOD capability. The scale and shift to electrical transportation is massive and fast," he noted.

POC - Bolstering Climate Resilience for National Security

If you're interested to know about the national security implications of climate change and how data analytics can inform agencies’ climate adaptation strategies, then check out the Potomac Officers Club's Bolstering Climate Resilience for National Security Forum coming up on Sept. 14th. To register for this forum and view other upcoming events, visit the POC Events page.

/
PSC to Host Forum to Address Industry Concerns With Afghanistan Drawdown; Stephanie Kostro Quoted
Published on
PSC to Host Forum to Address Industry Concerns With Afghanistan Drawdown; Stephanie Kostro Quoted

The Professional Services Council (PSC) has called on the Department of Defense (DOD) and other federal agencies to take part in an information-sharing forum on August 6th to improve communication and coordination between government and industry on contractor issues in relation to the military drawdown in Afghanistan.

“Industry is grappling with many unknowns as our nation enters a new chapter in U.S.-Afghan relations. These issues include ensuring the safety of U.S. citizens who will remain on-the-ground in Afghanistan, supporting the success of continued missions, and pivoting some contractor capabilities to over-the-horizon, or remote, support,” Stephanie Kostro, executive vice president of policy at PSC, said in a statement published Monday.

In a July 21st letter, David Berteau, president and CEO of PSC and a two-time Wash100 awardee, urged DOD to integrate information about the locations and numbers of U.S. contractors and non-governmental organizations into non-combatant evacuation operations planning. He also called on the State Department to regularly update U.S. contractors regarding the U.S. Special Immigrant Visa program.

The letter was addressed to Lloyd Austin, secretary of defense and a 2021 Wash100 Award winner; Secretary of State and 2021 Wash100 Awardee Antony Blinken; and Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“It’s critical that government and industry officials address these issues together, starting with a better understanding of what information is already available, what additional information and coordination are needed, and how contractors can better support U.S. Government objectives for a stable, democratic, economically viable Afghanistan," Kostro said.

/
Army, 2 Universities Team Up to Explore New Materials, Manufacturing Processes; Bryan Cheeseman Quoted
Published on
Army, 2 Universities Team Up to Explore New Materials, Manufacturing Processes; Bryan Cheeseman Quoted

The Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory has signed a five-year partnership agreement with two universities to conduct research into new materials and manufacturing processes.

DEVCOM ARL, University of Kentucky and University of Tennessee at Knoxville will collaborate on a project aimed at advancing systems for producing advanced materials that could support military equipment modernization priorities, the service said Monday.

Bryan Cheeseman, leader of ARL's rapid technology transition team, said forming a group that includes university professionals who are knowledgeable about fundamental materials science, industry partners that develop high-strength products and defense equipment manufacturers, is key to drive innovation for warfighters.

I.S. Jawahir, director of the University of Kentucky Institute for Sustainable Manufacturing, will serve as the project's principal investigator.

The school's researchers will work with the Army to develop nanostructured metal alloys and composite materials through hybrid manufacturing methods.

Jawahir noted that the partnership intends to establish an additive manufacturing laboratory in the University of Kentucky College of Engineering.

//
KBR Secures Contract for Lithium Concentration Process from Neo Lithium Corp.; Doug Kelly Quoted
Published on
KBR Secures Contract for Lithium Concentration Process from Neo Lithium Corp.; Doug Kelly Quoted

KBR announced on Monday that the company has been awarded a contract by Neo Lithium Corp. in Argentina for its Tres Quebradas Lithium Project ("3Q Project") to implement its evaporation and crystallization technology solutions. 

"We are proud to be selected by Neo Lithium for this breakthrough project focused on producing high-quality battery-grade lithium carbonate," said Doug Kelly, president of KBR Technology. 

KBR's process knowledge for recovery and purification of inorganic materials is based on over 40 years of experience in designing evaporation and crystallization technologies that comply with today's demanding environmental regulations.

"This award reinforces our commitment to help our clients achieve their growth objectives in the most sustainable manner," Kelly added.

1 … 1,025 1,026 1,027 1,028 1,029 … 2,609