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ACT I Promotes Angel Hunt to Director of Procurement to Lead Purchasing Systems; Claudio Monticelli Quoted
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ACT I Promotes Angel Hunt to Director of Procurement to Lead Purchasing Systems; Claudio Monticelli Quoted

ACT I Promotes Angel Hunt to Director of Procurement to Lead Purchasing Systems; Claudio Monticelli Quoted

Advanced Concepts and Technologies International (ACT I) has promoted Angel Hunt to the director of procurement to lead the company’s purchasing system, ACT I announced on Thursday.

“We’ve all benefited from the compelling blend of contracting expertise and industry experience she has brought to our contracts team.  Now as our Procurement leader, Angel is well-positioned to forge a best-in-class procurement enterprise for the company, leveraging her knowledge and skill to drive effectiveness across our supplier enterprise,” said ACT I chief operating officer Claudio Monticelli.

Hunt joined ACT I in Sept. 2017 as senior manager of contracts. In the role, she supervised the company’s contracting efforts. In her new role as ACT I’s director of procurement, Hunt will lead the company’s purchasing system, ensuring efficient, effective and compliant management of the company’s suppliers and vendors.

Hunt will bring deep experience to the position from within ACT I and across industry. Prior to joining ACT I, she served as supply chain lead for divestiture activities and category leader for strategic alliances at DXC Technologies.

In her role with DXC, she led the procurement workstream and was responsible for negotiations associated with the divestiture of business units as the company restructured. She also partnered with high-level executive teams, outside counsel and consultants to map strategy and monitor the progress of activities.

Prior to joining DXC, Hunt served in a variety of leadership roles with Lockheed Martin. Most recently, she held the position of manager of supply chain regulatory compliance, where she worked on multi-year procurements of the F-22, annual procurement support with over 50 major F-35 suppliers and prime proposal support to Foreign Military Sales (FMS) procurements for both the F-16 and F-35 programs.

She also led the regulatory compliance group’s work to monitor Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) changes and institute and audit revised procurement procedures. She served as the coordinating manager for all government and third-party audit agencies.

Additionally, Hunt served at Hewlett Packard, where she led benchmarking on cost-based negotiations and was the contracting lead for the separation office during the corporation’s transitions and divestitures, overseeing the development of valuable contracts.

She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from St. Edward’s University and a Masters of Business Administration with a concentration in International Business from the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University, where she served as a member of the Alumni Executive Board.

“Angel is a proven performer at ACT I and will continue to serve as a key leader in our aggressive growth plan,”added Monticelli.

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BWXT Releases Response to COVID-19 Pandemic; Rex Geveden Quoted
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BWXT Releases Response to COVID-19 Pandemic; Rex Geveden Quoted
BWXT Releases Response to COVID-19 Pandemic; Rex Geveden Quoted
Rex Geveden

BWX Technologies (BWXT) has released a statement on Wednesday from president and chief executive officer (CEO), Rex Geveden, regarding BWXT’s response to the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis.

“The global pandemic is an extraordinary and unprecedented situation for our business and our employees,” said Geveden. “Weeks ago, we created a pandemic planning and response team to address the policies, procedures and practices required to respond to all aspects of the COVID-19 crisis.

Geveden noted that BWXT will continue to focus on protecting the health and safety of the company’s employees. As a response, the company has developed new policies to ensure appropriate benefits are in place for employees who may become ill or need to self-quarantine for other reasons, including travel and suspected exposures.

BWXT has also implemented multiple new measures to protect the company’s workers, including shift staggering, social distancing and modification of food services and has enacted work from home policies to the maximum extent possible.

“Because of its roles in national security, electric power generation and nuclear medicine, BWXT has been designated an essential business by both the U.S. federal government and by the applicable Canadian provincial governments where our facilities are located. Accordingly, all 12 major operating facilities are open and operating at this time.”

About BWXT 

At BWX Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: BWXT), we are People Strong, Innovation Driven. Headquartered in Lynchburg, Va., BWXT provides safe and effective nuclear solutions for national security, clean energy, environmental remediation, nuclear medicine and space exploration.

With approximately 6,600 employees, BWXT has 12 major operating sites in the U.S. and Canada. In addition, BWXT joint ventures provide management and operations at more than a dozen U.S. Department of Energy and NASA facilities.

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Zscaler Announces Intent to Acquire Cloudneeti to Enhance Data Protection Coverage; Jay Chaudhry, Gururaj Pandurangi Quoted
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Zscaler Announces Intent to Acquire Cloudneeti to Enhance Data Protection Coverage; Jay Chaudhry, Gururaj Pandurangi Quoted

Zscaler Announces Intent to Acquire Cloudneeti to Enhance Data Protection Coverage; Jay Chaudhry, Gururaj Pandurangi Quoted

Zscaler has announced its intent to acquire Cloudneeti, a Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) company to provide its customers industry-leading data protection coverage in the Zscaler Cloud Security Platform, Zscaler reported on Thursday.

“Cloudneeti augments Zscaler’s data protection capabilities and will dramatically improve organizations’ cloud security by discovering and eliminating some of the most common causes of data breaches and compliance violations,” said Jay Chaudhry, Chairman and CEO of Zscaler.

Cloudneeti’s platform will prevent and remediate application misconfigurations in SaaS, IaaS and PaaS to reduce data breaches and compliance violations in cloud applications. Zscaler Cloud Security Platform will enable organizations to deliver expert security and user experience as technology continues to evolve.

“Whether caused by SaaS applications being configured incorrectly or a developer accidentally misconfiguring a new public cloud application, these preventable data protection lapses are behind some of the biggest breaches in history. I am thrilled to welcome the Cloudneeti team to the Zscaler family,” said Chaudhry.

With the purchase of Cloudneeti, Zscaler will extend its data protection to public cloud workloads for SaaS applications through CASB. The acquisition will also extend data protection and will further improve Zscaler’s comprehensive data protection by integrating new policies, compliance visibility and risk reduction.

Zscaler will enhance its data protection policies applied across locations, users and application types to ensure consistent and comprehensive data loss prevention in compliance with regulations like GDPR.

The company will also introduce a unified compliance assurance to provide compliance visibility and violation mitigation across SaaS applications like Microsoft Office 365 and cloud service providers including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure to ensure government laws and industry regulations are followed.

Through Zscaler’s automated remediations, the company will ensure cloud applications are not vulnerable to outside threats by following industry and organizationally-defined policies.

In addition, Cloudneeti will improve Zscaler’s compliance assurance and reporting. Cloudneeti’s CSPM capabilities will prevent application misconfigurations and compliance violations by checking SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, and cloud provider configurations.

The data will then be compared to industry and organizational policies to report on violations, and automate remediation with the help of machine learning. Cloudneeti’s capabilities strengthen the data protection capabilities of Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) and Zscaler’s out-of-band Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB).

“Pravin and I founded Cloudneeti with a vision to end breaches and compliance violations that are caused by entirely preventable misconfigurations as applications move to the cloud,” said Gururaj Pandurangi, Founder and CEO of Cloudneeti.

The transaction is expected to close prior to the completion of Zscaler’s fiscal third quarter subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“Cloudneeti was built in the cloud for the cloud, which is why Zscaler is such an exciting technological and cultural fit for the team. We are excited to be working with Zscaler to provide market-leading security assurance to help customers accelerate their digital transformation journey,” concluded Pandurangi.

About Zscaler  

Zscaler (NASDAQ: ZS) enables the world’s leading organizations to securely transform their networks and applications for a mobile and cloud-first world. Its flagship services, Zscaler Internet Access™ and Zscaler Private Access™, create fast, secure connections between users and applications, regardless of device, location, or network.

Zscaler services are 100 percent cloud-delivered and offer the simplicity, enhanced security, and improved user experience that traditional appliances are unable to match. Used in more than 185 countries, Zscaler operates a multi-tenant distributed cloud security platform, protecting thousands of customers from cyberattacks and data loss.

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Avaya Enables Over 2M Employees Work Remotely through Complementary Organizational Software; Jim Chirico, Dev Mudaliar Quoted
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Avaya Enables Over 2M Employees Work Remotely through Complementary Organizational Software; Jim Chirico, Dev Mudaliar Quoted

Avaya Enables Over 2M Employees Work Remotely through Complementary Organizational Software; Jim Chirico, Dev Mudaliar Quoted

Avaya Holdings Corp. has introduced a new technology platform to keep more people connected, collaborating and continuing to be productive while staying safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company announced on Thursday.

“Our immediate priority is to make a positive impact in any way we can to help our customers with business continuity, transition their workers to a work from anywhere environment and help ease the extreme emotional and mental stress this crisis is causing for their workers and their customers,” said Jim Chirico, president and CEO of Avaya.

Avaya has offered complimentary 90-day access licenses to pivot their office-based contact center agents and others to work remotely while maintaining exceptional levels of customer engagement.

Avaya has partnered with more than 11,000 organizations, including Humana, IBM, Boston Scientific, the FDIC, General Atomics, Hainan Airlines, Carlson Wagonlit, Gateway Health, Deutsche Telekom, Teleperformance, government agencies, to manage their organizations.

“Teleperformance is pleased to partner with industry technology leaders like Avaya to help power our highly reliable and adaptable infrastructure. Avaya’s remote agent solutions have provided us the capability to rapidly mobilize at home users, and deliver the same customer experience as a traditional brick and mortar contact center,” said Dev Mudaliar, Group CIO, Teleperformance.

“No other company has the breadth and capabilities we have to enable remote workforces on a global scale where we are dealing with workforces in the tens of thousands, in some cases even more,” added Chirico.

About Avaya

Businesses are built on the experiences they provide, and everyday millions of those experiences are built by Avaya (NYSE: AVYA). For over one hundred years, we’ve enabled organizations around the globe to win – by creating intelligent communications experiences for customers and employees.

Avaya builds open, converged and innovative solutions to enhance and simplify communications and collaboration – in the cloud, on-premise or a hybrid of both. To grow your business, we’re committed to innovation, partnership, and a relentless focus on what’s next. We’re the technology company you trust to help you deliver Experiences that Matter.

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Parsons Names Dana Turturro as SVP of Talent Acquisition to Develop Strategic Transformation; Debra Fiori Quoted
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Parsons Names Dana Turturro as SVP of Talent Acquisition to Develop Strategic Transformation; Debra Fiori Quoted

Parsons Names Dana Turturro as SVP of Talent Acquisition to Develop Strategic Transformation; Debra Fiori Quoted

Parsons Corporation has appointed Dana Turturro as the company’s senior vice president of talent acquisition to develop the company’s strategic transformation, Parsons announced on Thursday.

“Dana’s understanding of recruiting, coupled with her strategic mindset and metrics-based approach to talent management and acquisition will help propel Parsons into the next phase of our transformation,” said Debra Fiori, chief people officer for Parsons.

Turturro joins Parsons after 20 years leading talent acquisition and professional services efforts across industries, including for several federal defense companies. Prior to joining Parsons, she served at Peraton where she was responsible for all net headcount growth drivers including hiring, retaining and redeploying talent.

As vice president of talent at Peraton, she led global transformation initiatives and talent acquisition strategies. She discussed the changing job and talent market on a panel in Dec. 2019.

On the panel, Turturro discussed the job market, changing employee desires and a pending surge of retirements, and how these factors in the market have to force employers to reconsider how they capture, train and keep qualified workers. “Recruiting, in a lot of ways, has gone full-circle,” said Dana Turturro.

She noted that the job pendulum now is swinging back from impersonal mass recruiting to experiences with a personal touch. She compared the trend of receiving a handwritten letter via traditional mail instead of the usual deluge of emails. Job flexibility and telework options are also factors in applicants’ decisions, she said.

She noted that businesses and other organizations must keep the workers they have via training and promotions. “We need to use data to educate our managers that career progression is good for the health of the company,” Turturro said. “When we lose someone to an external competitor, it doesn’t [help] anybody.”

Prior to Peraton, Turturro held additional talent acquisition and mobility roles with CACI International and CSRA. In the roles, she has proven herself to be adept at building strong teams and processes focused on creating value for employees, shareholders and clients.

She has been instrumental in developing and streamlining the HR functions for global operations.

In addition, Turturro has adopted best in class recruiting and retention strategies and implemented metrics, SLAs and dashboards focused on improving talent acquisition, engagement, development and retention.

Throughout her career, Turturro has streamlined employee mobility functions to encourage employee retention and alignment to career pathing, workforce management and learning and development programs.

Turturro holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in business and economics from Randolph-Macon College, a Master of Business Administration in accounting and finance from The College of William & Mary and Master of Arts degree in executive coaching from Maryland University of Integrative Health.

“Her leadership and knowledge of growth markets, especially in cyber and space, have already made her an asset to our team,” concluded Fiori.

About Parsons

Parsons (NYSE: PSN) is a leading disruptive technology provider in the global defense, intelligence, and critical infrastructure markets, with capabilities across cybersecurity, missile defense, space, connected infrastructure, and smart cities. Please visit parsons.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook to learn how we’re making an impact.

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DLT Solutions Promotes Chris Wilkinson as President to Lead Public Sector Strategy; Marty Bauerlein, Adam Robinson Quoted
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DLT Solutions Promotes Chris Wilkinson as President to Lead Public Sector Strategy; Marty Bauerlein, Adam Robinson Quoted

DLT Solutions Promotes Chris Wilkinson as President to Lead Public Sector Strategy; Marty Bauerlein, Adam Robinson Quoted

DLT Solutions, LLC., subsidiary of Tech Data and a premier government technology solutions aggregator, has promoted Chris Wilkinson as president to lead public sector strategy, the company announced on Thursday.

“Chris is a proven leader and the right choice to steer the powerful combination of our robust public sector offerings, bolstered by our specialized domain knowledge and market-leading intellectual property,” said Marty Bauerlein, senior vice president, sales, North America, Tech Data. “Since joining the business in 2017, Chris has played a significant role in transforming DLT into a premier software and cloud solutions aggregator in the public sector market. He was instrumental in expanding DLT’s capabilities across six core technology domains, including application lifecycle, big data and analytics, business applications, cybersecurity, cloud computing, enterprise platforms and IT infrastructure.”

In his new role, Wilkinson will supervise DLT and Tech Data’s combined public sector strategy and oversee DLT’s day-to-day operations. Wilkinson joined the company in Dec. 2017 and served in a variety of senior leadership positions, where he helped the company expand its offerings and grow its revenue.

During Tech Data’s acquisition of DLT in Nov. 2019, Wilkinson played an integral role in the purchase and has since helped to spearhead the combined companies’ public sector strategy. Since the acquisition, DLT has strengthened its existing public sector business and solidified its position as the distributor and solutions aggregator of choice with the deepest specialization in the federal, state, local and education markets.

Through the combination of Tech Data and DLT Solutions, channel partners will have access to a broader portfolio of leading technologies, in-house public sector contract vehicles, dedicated channels and enablement services.

With the purchase, DLT has also bolstered Tech Data’s technology expertise across six core areas, including Application Lifecycle, Big Data and Analytics, Business Applications, Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity and IT Infrastructure.

Adam Robinson, CEO and founder of Govplace, said, “Chris has been the driving force in working with us to adopt many of DLT’s key differentiated partner programs, which have helped us realize significant growth. Now backed by Tech Data’s technology portfolio, global reach and ability to help accelerate time to sale and delivery, we are excited to further capitalize on all the value DLT brings to the public sector space.”

Prior to joining DLT, Wilkinson served in a variety of managerial and directorial roles with immixGroup such as senior director of market development, cybersecurity and emerging markets sales, senior account manager and team lead. He worked with immixGroup from June 2006 to Dec. 2017.

Wilkinson began his career at DHL’s Worldwide Express as an account executive, where he served between June 2005 to June 2006. He holds a B.S. in Marketing from the University of Pittsburgh.

“Since DLT joined forces with Tech Data, I have gained an even deeper appreciation for the value our customers can recognize being backed by the largest and most well-regarded IT distributor in the world. I am excited to drive our combined public sector strategy and to deliver an unmatched value proposition that redefines public sector aggregation for our channel partners, technology vendors, and public sector customers,” Wilkinson concluded.

About DLT Solutions

DLT Solutions is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tech Data, the world’s leading end-to-end distributor of technology products, services and solutions. DLT is the premier government solutions aggregator that specializes in understanding the IT needs of the federal, state, local and education markets. We help simplify the process for independent software vendors, federal systems integrators and value-added resellers doing business in the public sector.

Leveraging Tech Data’s end-to-end portfolio, an extensive array of public sector contract vehicles, and dedicated channel and enablement services, DLT provides government agencies and channel partners with the means to rapidly and cost effectively transform technology to achieve mission success.

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Pelosi, Schumer Propose $250B More for Small Businesses in Interim Emergency Relief Package
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Pelosi, Schumer Propose $250B More for Small Businesses in Interim Emergency Relief Package

Pelosi, Schumer Propose $250B More for Small Businesses in Interim Emergency Relief Package

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have proposed a potential $500 billion interim emergency bill to offer additional relief for small businesses and working families during the COVID-19 pandemic and build on the assistance provided in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

The proposed measure includes $250 billion in relief funds for small businesses, $150 billion for state and local governments and $100 billion for hospitals, community health centers and health systems.

“After we pass this interim emergency legislation, Congress will move to pass a CARES 2 Act that will extend and expand the bipartisan CARES Act to meet the needs of the American people,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement released Wednesday. “CARES 2 must provide transformational relief as the American people weather this assault on their lives and livelihoods.”

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CISA Releases Interim TIC 3.0 Telework Guidance
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CISA Releases Interim TIC 3.0 Telework Guidance
CISA Releases Interim TIC 3.0 Telework Guidance
TIC 3.0 Telework Guidance

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has issued interim Trusted Internet Connections 3.0 guidance to help federal agencies secure their networks as more government employees telework due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The document seeks to help agencies address concerns related to telework surge amid the COVID-19 pandemic by recommending security capabilities for agencies to consider when developing or broadening teleworking platforms.

It also aims to enable companies to map their cyber capabilities and service offerings to the TIC security capabilities backing secure teleworking. CISA said agencies should not consider the guidance as part of the TIC 3.0 document set. The agency noted that the guidance does not support a use case under the policy.

“This document is only intended to address scenarios in which agency users connect remotely to agency-sanctioned cloud environments,” CISA wrote.

The interim guidance also reflects the authorities provided to agencies under the Office of Management and Budget’s Memorandum 19-26.

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Will Roper: Air Force, Boeing Deal on KC-46 Could Lead to Autonomous Aerial Refueling
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Will Roper: Air Force, Boeing Deal on KC-46 Could Lead to Autonomous Aerial Refueling
Will Roper
Will Roper

Will Roper, acquisition executive at the U.S. Air Force and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner, said a deal between the service and Boeing to implement a final remote vision system design for the KC-46A Pegasus tanker could pave the way for autonomous aerial refueling of other aircraft, Defense News reported Wednesday.

“A proper RVS like that is right on the doorstep to autonomy,” Roper told reporters. “All you have to do is take that data that tells the world inside the jet the reality of geometries between the airplane and the boom outside the jet. Once you have that, you simply need to translate it into algorithms that allow the tanker to tank itself.”

Boeing and the Air Force signed a memorandum of agreement on April 2 to implement the RVS 2.0 design for KC-46A at no additional cost to the service branch. The design will feature 4K color cameras and light detecting and ranging sensor to enhance depth perception.

“We have added an engineering change proposal into the deal with a not-to-exceed threshold of $55 million, so that when RVS 2.0 is done, we can then take the next step beyond 2.0 to develop those autonomy algorithms and install them if we think we can certify them for safe use,” Roper said.

About The Wash100

This year represents our sixth annual Wash100 Award selection. The Wash100 is the premier group of private and public sector leaders selected by Executive Mosaic’s organizational and editorial leadership as the most influential leaders in the GovCon sector. These leaders demonstrate skills in leadership, innovation, achievement, and vision.

Visit the Wash100 site to learn about the other 99 winners of the 2020 Wash100 Award. On the site, you can submit your 10 votes for the GovCon executives of consequence that you believe will have the most significant impact in 2020.

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Stanford University Asks Govt to Create Joint Research Cloud
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Stanford University Asks Govt to Create Joint Research Cloud
Stanford University Asks Govt to Create Joint Research Cloud

Stanford University Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence has issued a letter to Congress and President Donald Trump regarding collaboration between multiple sectors towards the development of AI technologies.

Stanford HAI said in a letter it seeks for industry, academia and government to jointly sustain the U.S. advantage in the AI field through the creation of a national research cloud and a corresponding task force.

"We believe the government, working with industry and academia, must devote substantially more computational, data and human resources to maintain our leadership in this area," the letter said.

The institution asks the Office of Science and Technology Policy to establish a bipartisan task force that would propose specific efforts for this envisioned research cloud. The future organization would consist of academia, industry and government representatives 

"The group will identify and prioritize computational needs and potential datasets to support academic AI research and develop a plan that ramps up over the next five years," Stanford HAI noted.

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