Sandra Hamilton, chief of contracts and acquisitions branch at the State Department, was named director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ information technology policy, strategy and planning division, G2Xchange ETC reported Friday. She has more than two decades of federal civilian service in the IT capital and strategic planning, contracting and procurement, budget planning and portfolio management areas.

Hamilton served as budget and acquisitions lead with the Department of Homeland Security, and as an analyst at the Defense Information Systems Agency and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Before joining the federal government, she spent seven years at the U.S. Marine Corps.

Cameron Naron, the Department of Transportation’s maritime administration director, said during the 2019 Sea-Air-Space event in National Harbor, Md. that the maritime industry is “unprepared for what comes next” in cybersecurity, USNI reported Friday. Naron noted in a panel discussion that the industry hasn’t seen adaptable regulations and established in-depth cybersecurity knowledge with each company having its own procedures for cyber training and operations. 

Kevin Tokarski, a MARAD official, said vessels need to be certified for both cybersecurity and maritime safety. The unit aims to buy used vessels “with eyes wide open” to update its aging ships, according to Tokarski.

“We don’t just want to be patching vulnerabilities; we want to be defending forward,” added Gregg Kendrick, executive director of the Marine Corps Cyber Command.

The National Background Investigations Bureau and Department of Defense are working on funding and systems modernization efforts ahead of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency’s start of operations in October, Federal News Network reported Friday.

According to NBIB Director Charlie Phalen, the bureau and DoD seek to establish a working capital fund for DCSA and update the Office of Personnel Management’s background investigation platform before the National Background Investigations Service system succeeds it by 2020. “We will make sure they are fully funded to get them through the transition and stay solvent throughout the beginnings,” he added.

Other efforts the two agencies are collaborating on include transferring NBIB contracts to DoD and resolving the security clearance backlog. Previously, the Trump Administration directed NBIB to transfer background investigation responsibilities to DCSA. The new Pentagon unit will include the NBIB, Defense Security Service, NBIS personnel and other employees under the DoD’s Consolidated Adjudications Facility and Insider Threat Management and Analysis Center.

The Department of Defense is redirecting approximately $1.5 billion in funds allocated for several defense programs toward the Trump administration’s plan to construct 80 additional miles of border wall, The Washington Post reported Sunday. The funds will come from the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile and surveillance plane program called Airborne Warning and Control System, according to a DoD document obtained by the Post.

“The funds were drawn from a variety of sources, including cost savings, programmatic changes and revised requirements,” DoD said in a statement Friday.

The Pentagon will also shift funds from a “space test experiment” with the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency, two “overseas contingency operations” accounts, the department’s Blended Retirement System and savings from Hellfire and air-launched cruise missiles, according to the document.

Ellen Lord, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Department of Defense, said she approved a new program that “will convene trusted sources of private capital with innovative companies critical to defense industrial base and national security.”

Lord, a 2019 Wash100 winner, said Friday in a press briefing the Trusted Capital Marketplace is a public-private partnership that seeks to launch a pilot program that will help small- and medium-sized firms produce “emerging defense and commercial technologies.”

“The first step is to set up a website infrastructure to bring providers of trusted capital together with businesses looking for capital infusions,” she noted. “I’m constrained legally from introducing one company to one venture capitalist, for instance.  However, what we can do is segment the marketplace and then put in companies that need capital infusions that we think have critical technology for us.”

She said the Pentagon issued two weeks ago a request for proposals through an other transaction authority to look for a website provider and has identified at least 50 companies that could participate in the pilot program, which is expected to be launched in July.

Lord also mentioned the program’s potential benefits to small firms.

“So a lot of these companies are small, innovative companies that, frankly, don’t either have the resources or the sophistication in terms of the contacts to reach sources of capital,” she said. “And what we’re trying to do is enable that so that they don’t have to, frankly, go through a lot of time and expense with legal firms to try to ferret out who is out there.”

The Department of Defense is supporting a national effort to prevent the spread of diseases across the U.S. and allied countries. The government’s 2019 Global Health Security Strategy aims to foster international collaboration with foreign nations and organizations to avert and address disease outbreaks, DoD said Thursday. 

The strategy highlights the country’s intended health security efforts including boosted international support and homeland resiliency against infectious diseases.

“The Department of Defense is pleased to be a part of the U.S. government’s strong commitment to global health security and the global health security agenda,” said Lt. Col. Carla Gleason, a DoD spokesperson.