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AECOM Names Lydia Kennard to Board of Directors; Douglas Stotlar Quoted
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AECOM Names Lydia Kennard to Board of Directors; Douglas Stotlar Quoted

AECOM has appointed Lydia Kennard, president and CEO of KDG Construction Consulting, to its Board of Directors, the company reported on Monday. Kennard’s appointment will be effective at a future date no later than December 2020.

“It is a privilege to welcome Lydia Kennard to our Board of Directors,” said Douglas Stotlar, chairman of AECOM’s Board of Directors. “Lydia brings impressive industry expertise and leadership experience to AECOM that will further strengthen and support the long-term success of our organization as the world’s premier infrastructure consulting firm.”

Kennard will bring deep industry expertise to AECOM’s Board of Directors.  Kennard’s professional career has spanned aviation, construction management, corporate law, real estate development and urban planning, as well as serving as a director and trustee for several publicly traded companies and nonprofit organizations.

Since 2007, Kennard has served as a founding principal of Airport Property Ventures, an operator and developer of general aviation facilities. She has also served as the executive director of Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) from 1999 through 2003, then from 2005 to early 2007.

Kennard currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Prologis and Healthpeak Properties.

About AECOM

AECOM (NYSE:ACM) is the world’s premier infrastructure consulting firm, delivering professional services throughout the project lifecycle – from planning, design and engineering to program and construction management. We partner with our clients in the public and private sectors to solve their most complex challenges and build legacies for generations to come. On projects spanning transportation, buildings, water, governments, energy and the environment, our teams are driven by a common purpose to deliver a better world. AECOM is a Fortune 500 firm and its Professional Services business had revenue of approximately $13.6 billion in fiscal year 2019.

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Dave Spirk on Pentagon’s Upcoming Data Strategy Backing Joint Warfighting Approach
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Dave Spirk on Pentagon’s Upcoming Data Strategy Backing Joint Warfighting Approach

Dave Spirk, chief data officer at the Department of Defense (DoD), said DoD’s upcoming data strategy will back a “joint warfighting” approach to data use, management and collection, FedScoop reported Thursday.

He said DoD will use a “hub-and-spoke” model to support the data strategy and recognize data literacy throughout the department. He also noted that the strategy will empower every echelon of the department and get them involved in data governance to facilitate the flow of data to senior commanders responsible for making critical decisions.

“We are beginning to put the pieces in place that allow us to recognize that full future where people are not fearful of sharing their data but rather are rewarded,” Spirk said.

Spirk also mentioned DoD’s effort to develop more data hubs and the suggestion of Deputy Defense Secretary and 2020 Wash100 Award winner David Norquist to advance the use in meetings of “live data dashboards.”

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David Norquist Discusses DoD’s Financial Audit; $2.6B Saved
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David Norquist Discusses DoD’s Financial Audit; $2.6B Saved

Deputy Defense Secretary and 2020 Wash100 Award winner David Norquist said the departmentwide financial audit has helped the Pentagon identify better business practices, National Defense reported Thursday.

"No one wants to get audited, but if you want to improve, the most important step you can take is to start the audit,” he said Thursday at the Defense News Conference.

Norquist said the financial audit has identified “dormant accounts” that enabled the Department of Defense (DoD) to find approximately $2.6 billion in savings that could be redirected to other programs.

He noted that DoD closed out approximately 25 percent or 615 of the recommendations filed by auditors last year and that he expects the department to close about 20 percent by the end of fiscal year 2020 amid COVID-19 pandemic-related challenges.

Norquist said the Pentagon pays $180 million annually to accounting firms to field more than 1,400 auditors to look for cybersecurity and inventory issues across the service branches and the department.

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GSA Advances FPDS Reporting Functions Transition to Beta SAM Website; Judith Zawatsky Quoted
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GSA Advances FPDS Reporting Functions Transition to Beta SAM Website; Judith Zawatsky Quoted

The General Services Administration (GSA) will retire the reporting functions on the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) website after Oct. 17th to further encourage users to use the Data Bank tool on the System for Award Management’s (SAM) beta website, Nextgov reported Friday.

GSA decided to move the FPDS’ administrative, static, standard and ad hoc reporting functions to the beta SAM website in March 2020 and plans to end the “soft launch” by next month.

After the FPDS reporting tool transition, the agency plans to transfer the full functionality of the legacy SAM.gov to the beta SAM website and will remove the ‘beta’ prefix once it completes the migration.

Judith Zawatsky, assistant commissioner in the office of systems management at GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service (FAS), said the agency expects the beta SAM website to drop the ‘beta’ prefix by 2021.

“The work is already taking place,” Zawatsky told the publication. “We’ve done some lift and shift … to prepare to be able to take the next step, so that we’re not just waiting until the last minute to get something cloud ready.”

GSA migrated all functions of FedBizOpps to the beta SAM website in 2019 prior to the FPDS reporting function transition.

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Maj. Gen. Robert Skinner Nominated to Succeed Vice Adm. Nancy Norton as DISA Director
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Maj. Gen. Robert Skinner Nominated to Succeed Vice Adm. Nancy Norton as DISA Director

President Trump has nominated Air Force Maj. Gen. Robert Skinner to be the next Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) director and Joint Forces Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network commander. 

Maj. Gen. Skinner, current director of command, control, communications and cyber at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), is also in line to receive a promotion to the rank of lieutenant general, DoD said Friday.

He oversees the U.S. military's largest regional combatant command that provides C4 support to joint and coalition operations. 

The Air Force commissioned Skinner in 1989 through officer training school and assigned him as commander of the branch's Twenty-Fourth and Cyber organizations prior to his current directorship role at INDOPACOM.

His earlier assignments included time as administrative supervisor in the Pentagon's Office of the Secretary of the Navy, chief of the strategic plans and policy division at the Joint Chiefs of Staff and inspector general for Headquarters Air Force Space Command.

If confirmed, Skinner would succeed Vice Adm. Nancy Norton, who has led both DISA and JFHQ-DODIN since February 2018 and was a 2018 Wash100 Award winner.

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Army to Open PNT Tech Dev’t Hub in October
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Army to Open PNT Tech Dev’t Hub in October

The U.S. Army plans to open a technology development hub for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) capabilities next month to support the service branch’s efforts to reduce dependency on GPS technologies.

The Army’s PNT Modernization Office, which contains an Open Innovation Lab (OIL) will be located at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and slated to open on Oct. 8th, C4ISRnet reported Thursday.

The complex will house collaborative activities with industry on electronic warfare (EW) and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) efforts.

Col. Nickolas Kioutas, program manager for PNT at the Army’s Program Executive Office (PEO) for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (IEW&S), said the service intends to “leverage whatever industry brings” to support the C4ISR/EW Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) effort.

Kioutas noted that OIL will include space for CMOSS to ensure that classified areas at the site remain secure while encouraging industry participation. The Army previously released reference architecture and standards to enable industry-driven CMOSS concept development.

The service also plans to launch a website for the modernization office on Oct. 29 and host an industry day on Nov. 17.

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NOAA Sets up New Safety Systems Near Two Naval Facilities
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NOAA Sets up New Safety Systems Near Two Naval Facilities

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Navy have deployed two units of a system designed to support maritime safety near two certain naval facilities. 

A couple of Physical Oceanographic Real-Time Systems (PORTS) operate near Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in New Hampshire, separately, NOAA said Thursday. The two new PORTS are the 34th and 35th units of the system's network within the U.S.

PORTS will generate real-time awareness on the weather and oceanography around the Kings Bay installation and support the safety of shipyard personnel and assets from tides.

“These two new systems, and the others like them around the country, reduce ship accidents by more than 50 percent, increase the size of ships that can get in and out of seaports and reduce traffic delays,” said Nicole LeBoeuf, who leads NOAA’s National Ocean Service on an acting basis.

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DHS Taps TDA Research for First Responder Power Module Dev’t
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DHS Taps TDA Research for First Responder Power Module Dev’t

Colorado-based research and development company TDA Research has secured a two-year, $1 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the second phase of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to build an on-body power module for first responders.

The award will cover the development and demonstration of a module that will power and charge various devices such as sensors and communications systems during first responder operations, DHS said Thursday. DHS aims to address first responders' current and emerging requirements for on-body devices via the project.

“The on-body power modules being developed through this SBIR Phase II will support a number of use cases such as in wildland fire situations, where recharging devices may not be possible for an extended time or precludes the use of commercial batteries,” said Sridhar Kowdley, program manager at DHS' science and technology directorate.

After the completion of the prototype, TDA Research may compete for a Phase III SBIR contract, which will allow the company to pursue funds from non-government sources or the private sector.

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Library of Congress Updates Online Portal, Records Mgmt Features
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Library of Congress Updates Online Portal, Records Mgmt Features

The Library of Congress is implementing updates to its Congress.gov portal to ensure accessibility and simplified operations for staff members and the general public.

Robert Brammer, head of the Law Library of Congress's Office of External Relations, said at a virtual event that the Library worked to streamline search functionalities for the website and improve language accessibility features for Spanish-speaking users, Nextgov reported Thursday.

He noted that the Library also added new features to simplify the presentation of Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data and provide more comprehensive information on committee hearing transcripts.

Andrew Weber, a legislative data specialist at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), said his team is also working on indexing elements to simplify search functions for more complex information.

“Congress.gov has a great help center now. But we know Congress is complicated, Congress.gov can be complicated, and we have [a] comprehensive amount of information in our help center,” he said. “So, we want to add search capabilities to the top of our help center.” 

Other ongoing initiatives that Weber mentioned include the incorporation of “screen reader” capabilities and the digitization of historic records.

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DoD Partners With National Governors Association to Support Defense Economy
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DoD Partners With National Governors Association to Support Defense Economy

The National Governors Association (NGA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) have partnered to boost the defense industrial base's economic performance. DoD's Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA) will work with NGA 's best practices center to help states form strategies for economic and industrial resiliency in the defense sector, the association said Wednesday.

The partnership will run for two years and will consist of seven reports and multiple workshops. A three-day virtual workshop will commence on Sept. 16th and host discussions on federal-state collaboration in support of military families and veterans.

“Through this partnership with the Department of Defense, we’ll work with governors to help them support the national defense mission while realizing sustainable economic benefits for their residents," said Timothy Blute, who leads NGA's best practices center.

Topics to be tackled include military family quality of life, defense and installation resiliency, state-based defense investments and other similar matters.

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