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GAO Says DOD Lacks Data for Managing National Defense Stockpile
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GAO Says DOD Lacks Data for Managing National Defense Stockpile

The Government Accountability Office has found that the Department of Defense does not have sufficient information to determine all the critical materials that should be included in its national defense stockpile.

A review of the DOD’s stockpile management also revealed a lack of clear guidelines for when to release and use products from the stockpile, GAO said Tuesday.

The DOD stores items that are strategic and critical to defense and essential civilian needs in times of national emergency.

GAO acknowledged the DOD processes for identifying material requirements and managing the stockpile but said the agency does not have program offices and other relevant entities providing the necessary data for stockpile modeling, resulting in the DOD not having stock of its highest priority materials.

DOD reports indicate that from fiscal years 2019 to 2023, the agency primarily stored up the same 50 types of materials but the number of items in shortfall increased by 167 percent, the government watchdog said.

GAO made six recommendations, including identifying the roles and responsibilities for providing data needed to model DOD’s requirements.

The Defense Department concurred with all of the recommendations.

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Gen. John Lamontagne Takes On AMC Commander Position
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Gen. John Lamontagne Takes On AMC Commander Position

Gen. John Lamontagne accepted the role of commander of the Air Mobility Command at a ceremony held at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, on Sept. 9.

Gen. David Allvin, chief of staff for the U.S. Air Force, spearheaded the AMC change of command ceremony alongside several other mobility leaders to welcome Lamontagne, the Air Force said Wednesday.

“I could not be more proud to be here today and sharing this stage with these great mobility leaders and be a part of this passing of the baton to keep this air mobility machine moving. The country depends on it, and [Americans] can depend on it,” Allvin emphasized

The appointment comes simultaneously with the Air Force’s declaration to undergo a reorganization in preparation for great power competition.

Prior to taking on the AMC commander role, Lamontagne served as the deputy commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa. In this role, Lamontagne gained experience implementing strategic mobility and readiness across numerous environments.

Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, commander of the U.S. Transportation Command and 2024 Wash100 Award winner, said Lamontagne’s prior leadership experience should benefit the AMC’s global engagements.

“Members of AMC, you are gaining a tremendous leader who is ready to build upon your legacy and recent successes,” Van Ovost said to the room of airmen.

In leading the command, Lamontagne will manage a total force numbering 107,000 airmen and over 1,100 aircraft. Lamontagne said he looks forward to leading the men and women throughout the AMC as the Air Force aims to gain an advantage in the global warfighting landscape.

“To the men and women of Air Mobility Command, we stand here today on the shoulders of giants that have preceded us both personally and organizationally… it is a long proud legacy,” said Lamontagne, in his inaugural remarks as AMC commander. “Some things have changed, and some things have not… Our nation and our predecessors possess an asymmetric advantage, and that asymmetric advantage is the ability to project power anywhere in the world at the time and place of our choosing. And only this command can do it!”

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Air Force Leverages AFWERX Challenge & CSO to Rapidly Address Tech Needs
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Air Force Leverages AFWERX Challenge & CSO to Rapidly Address Tech Needs

The Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center—a.k.a. AFIMSC—has partnered with AFWERX to award contracts through the AFWERX Expedient Basing Challenge using the challenge’s Commercial Solutions Opening, or CSO, as a contracting vehicle to accelerate the deployment of technology capabilities to service personnel.

The military branch said Wednesday through the partnership, AFIMSC awarded Street Smarts VR a contract in August to build a virtual combat support training range.

“Using the CSO reduces project execution timelines and helps us put needed capability into warfighter hands more quickly,” said Dustin Dickens, principal innovation program manager at AFIMSC.

To address critical mission requirements, AFIMSC intends to use the CSO vehicle to award four more contracts in the near future.

These contracts seek to support the further development of an intelligence remote security tool, called Sentry; a logistics and asset management system; procurement and assessment of a corrosion protection technology for Air Force infrastructure, components and equipment; and the acquisition and evaluation of rapid repair kits for asphalt and concrete airfield surfaces.

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NRO’s Chris Scolese Discusses Efforts to Bolster Contracting Opportunities
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NRO’s Chris Scolese Discusses Efforts to Bolster Contracting Opportunities

Constant innovation is necessary in order for the National Reconnaissance Office “to stay ahead of those people and organizations and nations that want to keep us from delivering the information that we need,” according to Chris Scolese, the agency’s director.

Scolese, a past Wash100 awardee, made the remarks on Sept. 11 at the Global Aerospace Summit, which was hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, according to a news article posted Wednesday on the NRO website.

Innovation covers industry partnerships, such as expanding the types of organizations with which the NRO collaborates. Scolese said his agency is “working across a broad spectrum,” including small, emerging businesses as well as large, traditional contractors.

The NRO director noted that through such partnerships, his agency has been provided with what he described as “essentially commodity spacecraft,” which, when fitted with sensors, can then support the effort to establish a proliferated architecture of satellites, of which a new batch was recently launched into orbit.

The NRO is also working to reduce barriers preventing companies from doing business with the government. Various efforts include the Director’s Innovation Initiative, which provides $500,000 to finance emerging research via a firm fixed-price contract.

Sensitive compartmented information facility space is also provided for small companies so they can undergo training to learn how to operate in a classified environment, Scolese explained.

NRO's Chris Scolese Discusses Efforts to Bolster Contracting Opportunities

The Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Intel Summit will bring together top Intelligence Community officials, government decision makers and industry executives to discuss the future of American intelligence. Register now to attend this important event!

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Defense Innovation Unit Announces Results of Maritime AI Project
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Defense Innovation Unit Announces Results of Maritime AI Project

The Defense Innovation Unit announced the results of its initiative to utilize commercial artificial intelligence to enhance maritime domain awareness.

DIU said Wednesday that the three vendors awarded prototype agreements in January—Ditto, Syntiant and HarperDB—managed to meet the goals of Project Common Operational Database, or Project COD.

The project, launched by the DIU in partnership with the U.S. Navy’s Project Overmatch and the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, Pacific, aims to create a database that enables unmanned systems to function efficiently in disconnected, denied, intermittent and/or limited bandwidth, or DDIL, environments.

Project COD is intended to address technical challenges with edge computing that prevent the sharing of sensor data within forward deployed devices, which is necessary to achieve mission autonomy.

The initiative aligns with the Navy’s mission to ensure freedom of navigation and access to global waterways. With the lack of crewed assets in vital maritime areas, the vendors’ success in developing unmanned systems and autonomous platforms will potentially boost maritime domain awareness.

The three participating companies demonstrated their proof of concept through test and evaluation exercises such as Mission Autonomy Proving Grounds and the final event at Task Force 59.

Mike Tall, senior science and technology manager of Project Overmatch, noted the project’s positive results in enabling scalable mission autonomy during the tests. He said, “[It] will continue to be used and improved for the realization of the hybrid fleet.”

Lieutenant Commander Al Williams, DIU program manager, said, “The combination of these capabilities will significantly improve maritime domain awareness/command & control in critical maritime DDIL environments as a key force enabler.”

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DOE Seeks Public Input on Partnerships for AI Technology Development Roadmap Implementation
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DOE Seeks Public Input on Partnerships for AI Technology Development Roadmap Implementation

The Department of Energy is seeking information about artificial intelligence to support work on its Frontiers in AI for Science, Security and Technology, a.k.a. FASST, a roadmap it launched in July to help the DOE exploit the technology for the public’s benefit.

Through FASST, the department will use its resources, including its 17 national laboratories, to create advanced AI models for applied energy development and other scientific applications, according to a DOE post on the Federal Register set for Thursday.

The request for information will gather public input on ways for DOE partnerships with institutions to develop and implement the four pillars of FASST: AI-ready data; frontier-scale AI computing infrastructure and platforms; safe, secure and trustworthy AI models and systems; and AI applications. 

The RFI, which was issued by the DOE’s Office of Critical and Emerging Technologies, also seeks input on workforce and FASST governance. The deadline for the submission of responses is Nov. 11.

Besides FASST, the DOE has initiated its Advancements in Artificial Intelligence for Science program under which it will award $68 million funding to 45 projects to develop AI foundation models potentially useful in stepping up scientific programming and advance automation in laboratories, among other uses.

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Intel Community Launches Into Space With New Joint Center
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Intel Community Launches Into Space With New Joint Center

Advancements in space technologies present a variety of benefits for both Department of Defense and Intelligence Community components, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency wants to reshape the ways these agencies collaborate on space operations.

To take on this challenge, the NGA architected the new Joint Mission Management Center, a space intelligence hub for the military services, combatant commands, IC agencies and international allies designed to help define each organization’s role in the evolving domain.

The center — which NGA Director Frank Whitworth said came about as the agency witnessed an expansion of space agencies’ satellite networks — has now achieved initial operating capability, Air and Space Forces Magazine reported.

Intel Community Launches Into Space With New Joint Center

Learn about how the IC is adapting to shifts in the intelligence landscape at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Intel Summit on Sept. 19! The event will feature speakers from across the IC, including three NGA leaders, who will share their insights on current intelligence priorities. Click here to learn more and secure your spot at the event.

“We do tasking for a constellation, but when you’re talking about something that’s getting this big, and especially given the investment that DOD has made in this particular constellation, we knew that we needed to have a place for collaboration. It needed to exist,” Whitworth, a 2024 Wash100 awardee, said during a Defense Writers Group event in August.

The JMMC, he said, will serve as a vehicle for space-focused agencies to identify their specific priorities.

“There’s a certain amount of time, there’s a certain amount of sensors, what’s going to go first, what’s going to go last, what falls below the cutline. And that is exactly the type of conversation and process that will be integrated into the JMMC,” he explained.

To make the center a reality, the NGA worked alongside the U.S. Space Force, a major player in the nation’s space activities.

Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations for the USSF, said at the AFCEA/INSA Intelligence Summit in August that the JMMC will “bring together the operational side as well as the intelligence side to do the joint tasking, the collection and dissemination of the data.”

Do you want to learn more about current NGA initiatives? Register for the 2024 Intel Summit to get exclusive insights from Sean Batir, chief technology officer of the NGA’s Maven program; Mark Munsell, director of the agency’s Data and Digital Innovation Directorate; Mark Chatelain, chief information officer and director of the NGA’s CIO & IT Services component; and numerous other speakers from across the IC.

Intel Community Launches Into Space With New Joint Center
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DHS General Counsel Jonathan Meyer Stepping Down
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DHS General Counsel Jonathan Meyer Stepping Down

Department of Homeland Security General Counsel Jonathan Meyer is stepping down after serving in the role for almost three years.

In a LinkedIn post published Tuesday, Meyer said that he is returning to the private sector.

In October 2021, the Senate confirmed Meyer to serve as the sixth general counsel of DHS to oversee about 3,500 attorneys and assume responsibilities as the department’s regulatory policy officer.

Prior to this role, the Harvard University graduate was senior counselor and deputy general counsel at DHS between 2011 and 2016.

Meyer previously served as a partner at a Washington, D.C.-based law firm, deputy assistant attorney general within the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy, special deputy general counsel at Amtrak and counsel to then-Senator Joe Biden on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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GSA Reveals 6 New Political Appointees, Promotions
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GSA Reveals 6 New Political Appointees, Promotions

The U.S. General Services Administration revealed several new political appointees and promotions.

The agency said Monday the following will be serving GSA in various capacities:

Tadeh Issakhanian has been designated as senior adviser to the administrator for climate. The former Deloitte consultant worked with government agencies on sustainable transportation and energy. He previously worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, the U.S. House of Representatives and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.

Thomas Berry has been appointed special assistant to the deputy administrator after serving in the same capacity in the Office of Intergovernmental & External Affairs and the Office of Administration under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

Tenzin Pelkyi has been named policy adviser in the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs. She had stints with the International Committee of the Red Cross, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 

Morgan Carrico has been promoted to deputy White House liaison in the Office of the Administrator. She was previously the special assistant to the regional administrator.

Brandon Faske has been named senior advisor in the Office of the General Counsel. Faske served as oversight attorney at the GSA before his promotion.

Nicolas Valbuena has been selected to serve as special assistant to the administrator in the Office of the Administrator. He was promoted after serving as the special assistant to the regional administrator.

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Commerce Department Launches Efforts to Advance Supply Chain Resilience
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Commerce Department Launches Efforts to Advance Supply Chain Resilience

The Department of Commerce has unveiled several initiatives to further develop the U.S. government’s analytical capacity to understand and address supply chain risks.

The department said Tuesday one of the efforts announced at the Supply Chain Summit is the launch of a diagnostic tool, called SCALE, designed to help assess supply chain risks across the U.S. economy using a set of indicators.

The International Trade Administration’s Industry and Analysis business unit plans to kick off a competition to develop new data or analysis that could be used to broaden the indicators of risks in the SCALE tool and hold two industry supply chain tabletop exercises in 2025.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will bring together industry stakeholders in the fall to discuss risks related to the supply chains for artificial intelligence data centers and inform recommendations to help mitigate the identified risks.

During the summit, the department also announced strategic partnerships with seven industry associations and academic institutions to promote supply chain resilience and innovation.

The new partners are the National Small Business Association, Council for Supply Chain Management Professionals, Association for Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, Industries Studies Association, Carnegie Mellon University and Georgetown University.

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