The Government Accountability Office found the U.S. Air Force is struggling to retain experienced aircraft maintainers despite the growing need for personnel to ensure the readiness of the service’s fleet. In a report issued Tuesday, GAO said the Air Force is losing maintainers due to workload and stress across the service. 

The agency said the aircraft maintainer staffing gap was a common challenge for the service branch in seven of the last eight fiscal years, and officials expect the issue to continue through fiscal year 2023. GAO cited that the Air Force lacks a retention plan for maintainers as well as a strategy to improve retention programs. 

“Without goals to measure progress and a retention strategy to guide efforts, the Air Force could face further challenges in managing its maintenance workforce, including ensuring there are enough experienced maintainers to meet mission needs,” the government watchdog said. 

The Air Force agreed with GAO’s recommendations to create annual retention goals and a retention strategy for aircraft maintainers.

The Department of Transportation is investing over $60M for 32 university transportation centers to address transportation-related issues. UTCs, each representing a university, conduct research on issues in the national, regional and local levels of transportation, USDOT said Tuesday.

“The Department continues to invest in the future of American transportation by funding these research efforts at leading institutions of higher education,” said Elaine Chao, secretary of transportation.

Grant recipients include national, regional and first tier UTCs including those representing Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Michigan and Cornell University.

The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs seek to establish a single position of authority to oversee all activities regarding an electronic health record system, FCW reported Tuesday.

James Byrne, acting deputy secretary at VA, said at a senate appropriations hearing the VA  is looking to have just one arbitrator make decisions on the health record when there are disagreements between the two departments. Currently, a joint executive council consisting of members from both departments oversees the electronic health record system.

The council is set to recommend potential leader candidates before the end of February. The consideration for the new position comes as VA and DoD leaders near the completion of a governance plan for new projects.

The Government Accountability Office has issued a report on the Department of Defense’s efforts to implement GAO’s recommendations made between fiscal years 2014 and 2017.

DoD implemented 67 percent of GAO’s recommendations as of November 2018 compared with the governmentwide implementation rate of 77 percent, according to the report published Tuesday.

The congressional watchdog made a total of 1,122 recommendations to the Pentagon during the past four fiscal years and found that 68 of them are high priority and linked to contract management, acquisitions and readiness.

DoD had implemented 18 of the 68 high-priority recommendations, while 47 or approximately 71 percent remained open, according to the report.

 

Dana Deasy, chief information officer at the Department of Defense, and Brig. Gen. Dennis Crall, principal deputy cyber adviser to the DoD secretary; have said the new authorities to establish information technology and cybersecurity standards under the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act are coming into force, Federal News Network reported Tuesday. 

“The authorities that you all gave me starting this year around being able to set architectural standards are quite significant, and we are now starting to use those new authorities,” said Deasy, a 2019 Wash100 winner, during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in January.

Crall touted before the Senate panel the advantages of setting up a cross functional team to staff the office of the principal cyber adviser as part of the implementation of NDAA.

“It’s only as good as it’s paid attention to, but the cross functional team that’s involved under the PCA is well-resourced in the sense that we’ve got the right people,” Crall said. “The second piece is we can approach problems in ways that don’t have some of the biases. We don’t have any stake in the legacy systems that we hold onto, it really is about the mission,” he added.

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Dana Deasy will be featured as a keynote speaker during Potomac Officers Club’s upcoming Artificial Intelligence Summit on February 13th at the Hilton-McLean in McLean, Va. At the event, public and private sector leaders will discuss government AI programs and priorities, as well as what new initiatives lie on the horizon. Dawn Meyerriecks of the CIA and Dean Souleles of the ODNI will also be featured as keynote speakers and a full panel of leaders will be in attendance, including fellow 2019 Wash100 winner Anthony Robbins. 

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You can still register for the 2019 Artificial Intelligence Summit right here. 

Dana Deasy, chief information officer at the Department of Defense, announced on Monday the launch of a new strategy that aims to migrate storage and computing operations to the cloud.

The DoD Cloud Strategy “addresses what we’re trying to do, … the problems we’re trying to solve and the objectives [we want to meet],” Deasy said in a statement published Monday.

Deasy, a 2019 Wash100 winner, discussed how the new initiative will help advance the adoption of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud platform, ensure cybersecurity and implement digital modernization efforts, including the development of artificial intelligence-based applications.

“By having an enterprise cloud, it’s what we put on top of it — in this case, artificial intelligence — [so] it’s almost a fundamental imperative to have a cloud in place to do great things with AI,” he said.

The DOD Cloud Strategy sets seven strategic objectives, such as enabling AI and data transparency; extending tactical support for the warfighter at the edge; proactively addressing cyber challenges; and driving information technology reform at the Pentagon.

Dana Deasy will be featured as a keynote speaker during Potomac Officers Club’s upcoming Artificial Intelligence Summit on February 13th at the Hilton-McLean in McLean, Va. At the event, public and private sector leaders will discuss government AI programs and priorities, as well as what new initiatives lie on the horizon. Dawn Meyerriecks of the CIA and Dean Souleles of the ODNI will also be featured as keynote speakers and a full panel of leaders will be in attendance, including fellow 2019 Wash100 winner Anthony Robbins.

You can still register for the 2019 Artificial Intelligence Summit right here.